The Winery Santa Catarina of Iles Baléares

Bodegas Vizar is located in the municipality of Villabáñez, to the east of Valladolid is Spain’s Castile and León region, bordering the Ribera del Duero DO. Vizar’s application to obtain the Dehesa Peñalba vino de pago DO was first put forward to, and approved by the Agrarian and Technological Institute of Castilla y León (ITACyL), in 2019. The proposal was then submitted to the European Commission, which granted the final green light earlier this month. ‘We started the process in 2015 and ...

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 ...

Some Châteauneufs are more reliable than others. When I visit the region to taste the new vintage every year, Domaine de la Janasse’s cuvée Vieilles Vignes regularly features among the best. It’s a particularly dense and concentrated wine when young, and it always strikes me that, even for Châteauneuf, it’s a wine that needs extended ageing to show its best. I was keen to acquire a more complete understanding of how this cuvée develops, so I visited brother-and-sister team Isabelle and Christoph ...