Food and wine pairings with pasta gratin dishes

Pale salmon in colour, a basket full of freshly-picked summer berries backed by the tell-tale, mouth-watering English acidity – these pink delights are wines made for summer and glorious celebrations. In fact, rosé is likely to become ‘one of the most important styles made in Britain over the next 10 to 20 years,’ as Oz Clark put it in his 2020 book on English wines*. The top examples of English sparkling rosés tend to be made mainly from the red Champagne grapes using the traditional method, wi ...

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 ...

My father worked in the wholesale supply of fruit and vegetables. He would often come home with a box of the day’s best produce, and so I became interested in what was in season. Both my parents often worked late, so cooking dinner to help take some weight off them inspired me to want to learn more. My first kitchen job at age 14 was at a Greek restaurant in Southampton, and it inspired my love for foods of the eastern Mediterranean. Today, I’m lucky to be able to obtain the best produce from ‘O ...