Wines made from Chardonnay grapes of Stara Zagora

Last year, there was much mirth on wine Twitter about a particularly excruciating tasting note. You’re right. The wine trade needs to get out more. But still… this one was a beauty. It began well enough – really quite beautiful, in fact. But before long the imaginative descriptions were getting more ornate and strained. It moved from poetic to meaningless before finishing with a reference to Burnt Norton – the first of TS Eliot’s Four Quartets – that put it firmly in Private Eye magazine’s ...

What to drink now… Mimosa Perfect for spring brunch, the Mimosa is a mix of equal parts Champagne and orange juice. The cocktail is attributed to Frank Meier, head bartender at the Paris Ritz, who served the first Mimosa in 1925, though the recipe appeared elsewhere in France at the same time. Either way, it’s a twist on the British Buck’s Fizz, invented in 1921 at the Buck’s Club in London, which used more Champagne and could include gin. Avoid vintage fizzes or special cuvées: a classic ...

The Roussillon is home to a range of wine styles, at varying price points. Sweet fortified wines (vin doux naturel) used to dominate production, with still dry wines (vin sec) in the minority. In the last 30 years, however, this has completely changed, and vin sec now makes up the majority (80%) of the Roussillon’s output. The recent Wines of Roussillon tasting, held in London, not only highlighted many good quality dry wines being produced, but also cemented the idea that Roussillon whites are ...