In France, there are over a thousand varieties of cheese. These varieties can be grouped into eight main families according to their water, fat and calcium content. Soft cheeses with bloomy rind, pressed cooked cheeses, pressed uncooked cheeses, soft cheeses with washed rind, blue-veined cheeses, fresh cheeses or cheeses with natural rind made from cow's milk, processed cheeses, goat's milk cheeses, cheeses made from sheep's milk, fromage blanc and vegetable or vegan cheeses.
After a two-year hiatus due to Covid, the UK Sommelier of the Year competition was back with a bang and saw Arnese bag the highly-respected title on Monday 18th July 2022. He pipped this year’s runner-up Agnieszka Swiecka (The Five Fields Restaurant) and 2019 runner-up Gareth Ferreira (Core by Clare Smyth) to the post. The competition is organised by The Caterer in partnership with the UK Sommelier Academy (UKSA) – a new non-profit organisation, officially launched yesterday – which provid ...
There’s a reason why heavily-applied perfume ranks highly on most wine lovers’ list of pet peeves. It overpowers your senses, conceals aromas and distorts your perception of a wine. In professional tastings and wine exams the wearing of perfume is banned, if not thoroughly frowned upon. You just don’t do it. What then, if we applied the same logic to music, controlling the sounds we hear, or don’t hear, while tasting wine? There’s no doubt that a chaotic environment can clog your synapses, makin ...
In the last board meeting of 2021 for the regulatory council of DO Terra Alta, in Catalunya, Spain, a long list of changes was approved. The most prominent was the making of a very strict certification system for wines that are 100% Garnatxa Blanca given that it’s their flagship grape variety. But perhaps the most interesting item is a bit further down the list that allows certification for a type of wines that in Catalan are called “vins brisats”. The name refers to white wine ...
