Blog: Steven Spurrier

My last communication was on The Importance of Comparative Tastings, telling the story of a tasting I organised in Paris in 1976 that compared (blind, of course) California Chardonnays against top white Burgundies and California Cabernet Sauvignons against the finest chateaux from Bordeaux.  This tasting, where a California wine was judged top in both categories, became

Posted in: Wine Education, New World Wines | Comment (1) >>

If you have been bored enough to follow my writings, then you might have marked that I show rare signs of any improvement at all. Unrelated a comment as that may seem, I just thought I'd put it right there in the beginning. Pity has its fan following too.

But if writing lacks the fervour to move you, just on certain rare occasions, where such an excuse is the best permissible defence, we can

Posted in: Wine Events, Wine and Food | Comment (0) >>

So here I am in the most metropolitan city in the world, where English has been relegated to an optional language and you can hear more tongues in a single bus ride than Christopher Columbus did on his entire trip. This is London and I am here with a purpose, for a change, that doesn't just involve shopping till my bank feels a minor dent in its holdings, and my accountant has a minor cardiac!

Posted in: Wine Tasting, Wine Review | Comment (3) >>

Blog: Steven Spurrier

One of the great joys of wine lies in comparisons. Even if a type of wine can stand on its own - Champagne is the perfect celebration glass for example - there is no reason not to compare the taste of one Champagne to another, or of Champagnes in general to the excellent sparkling wines made all over the world. Another fascinating comparison is that of a young wine from a

Posted in: Wine Tasting, Wine Awareness | Comment (1) >>

The problem with wine is not how it is made, or drunk, but how it is presented between the making and the drinking. The bigger problem, of course, is the fact that I always find so much wrong with the world of wine (or world in general) but please reader, for a minute, focus.

Let's face it. We will never know enough about wines. We prefer to leave that whole tasting and judging bit to those boys who like to go by the name of wine writers. The rest of us actually have a life. This is perhaps where we are going wrong. Delegation has its downside and leaving things up to people who rarely step outside or get invited to the really cool parties, means that we have a lot of boring unimaginative stuff to sift and work our way through before we can extract anything useful, or shareable in public.

Posted in: Wine in India, Wine Awareness | Comment (2) >>

Blog: Steven Spurrier

The wine market in Bordeaux, the world's largest fine wine producing region with over 110,000 hectares under vines and a history going back to the Romans, is unique in that its wines are tasted by international professionals only a few months after each vintage and long-ranging decisions are then taken by the estates who have their wines to sell and the international wine

Posted in: Untagged  | Comment (1) >>

The thing with wine is that it has a capacity to bestow humility.  I am not talking about drunken antics which make it to all our friends' wall of shame. I am talking about the sheer length and breadth of knowledge that this field accommodates.  A lifetime is too short to learn of your ignorance in the field of wines.

I thought myself to be quite a maverick for already knowing about Nero d'Avola -

Posted in: Wine Tasting, Italian Wine | Comment (0) >>

Blog: Magandeep Singh

There is more to Italy than pasta and Marlon Brando, and both are more American than anything else. I have often been to Vinitaly in the lovely town of Verona (think Romeo and Juliet) and each time I have come back a learned man. Mostly, they were kind enough to invite me; the learning however was mostly pieced together through my keen and supernatural powers of observation.

Posted in: Wine Events, Italian Wine | Comment (0) >>

Blog: Steven Spurrier

Last time we looked at the principal white grape varieties - grapes that were once identified with specific regions in the traditional vineyards of Europe, but are now seen in wine-producing regions all around the world.

This time, it's the turn of the reds. It's worth noting that, with very rare exceptions, the pulp of a vitis vinifera grape is colourless. If you squeeze the grape, the juice is clear, because it is the skin of the grape that contains the pigmentation. By macerating the skins with the pressed juice before, during and after fermentation (the process which transforms the grape's sugar into alcohol), that gives the colour.  All red grapes can be used to make a rosé wine, the pink colour coming from a very short maceration period.  The skin of the grape also contains the tannins, which, along with the fruit, allow red wines to age.

Posted in: Wine Education, Red Wine | Comment (2) >>

Blog: Magandeep Singh

The trouble with Indian cuisine is that it has the most possessive and over-zealous of people to protect it - us Indians. So opposed are we to any form of change or modification that anyone may try and induce in this style of cooking that it is rejected as substandard and compromised even before being given a fair duelling chance.

But then that is true of most countries.

Posted in: Wine and Food, Indian Wine | Comment (2) >>