Lights, Camera, ActionAid!

Last week I mentioned the Call My Wine Bluff wine quiz I took part in the week before that. The one where I had to guess what the wine in my glass was - out loud - in front of 200 people and five celebrities. Here's the photo taken at the end with me, my friend Clive Anderson in the middle (ok, made the friend bit up) and my friend (not made up) Jerry who is an ambassador for ActionAid. Jerry's wine, a brand called Millione,  donates £1 from every bottle sold to a primary school building project in Sierra Leone. So far, £100,000 has been raised and two schools built. Funds for a third are in place and the Call My Wine Bluff evening raised over half the funds needed for a fourth. Jerry wants to reach £1m and 20 schools. We'd best get drinking.*

And by the way, the camera adds 10lbs. Minimum.

Current white in the fridge: Cefiro Chardonnay 2010, £8ish, The Solent Cellar
Tonight's witching hour was carnage, I tell you. Tea finished at 7pm. 7pm! And I normally run such a tight ship. Anyway, point is, the house is now quiet, there's a chicken roasting in the oven, the Bearded Husband is home and my glass is (half) full. All is well. Chile makes some really, really lovely wines. If anything, they have been criticised for making too many good wines and not enough exceptional wines. Here, good is good enough for me. This one is made from grapes grown in the Casablanca Valley, north of Santiago. It is bright and cheery with pineapple and melon fruit; full of curves. Divine now, will be even better with food in about 20 minutes.  

Current red on the side: Domaine of the Bee 2009, £20, Domaine of the Bee
Oh my lord, this is the winiest wine I've enjoyed for a while. It is ENORMOUS with great lugs of bramble fruit wrapped in spice and just when you think you can relax along comes the alcohol (15% people!), forcing you to sit down and eat more. I loved it. Bearded Husband loved it. It is made from old vine Grenache and Carignan grapes in the village of Maury in the South of France by a man I've known for years (since we were both wine buyers for different supermarkets). He and his wife started making their own wine to sell to friends and now they make a bit more, they can sell to people they've never met. Treat this as your virtual introduction. This would make a really good Christmas present for the wine lover who has everything, mainly because it looks beautiful, full of promise, more than delivers on that promise and you have to be in the know to get it. And now you know. 

*In moderation, obviously. Millione is a sparkling Italian rose. Great party wine. Stockists include Laithwaites, Sainsbury's & Waitrose and it is £7.99.

Chin chin x

It's not the wine talking...

Last week, I spoke at a wine industry seminar about how to make wine more engaging for people buying it. Ahead of the talk, I turned to you lot to save my little-larger-than-I'd-like backside. I emailed some of you and asked via the BritMums forum if anyone had any views they could share. The response was overwhelming; so much thoughtful, honest feedback. The common threads were:

• Wine speak is confusing/too vague/too flowery
• In-store signage is a nightmare
• Price offers: we love 'em (tight budgets) but don’t believe all of them
• Master/student gap needs bridging - stop with the patronising stance!
• Confidence is key - make it easier to understand and we'll buy better wine

So, thank you all for your time and thoughts. I'm pretty sure it is going to make a positive difference and I'll report back how in due course. 

Current white in the fridge: Tiki Ridge Sauvignon Blanc 2010, Waitrose, £5.99 on offer

You see, every time I think I've had enough Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, along comes another one with a groovy label and I have to KNOW. Is it really going to be any good at that price? Isn't it going to taste just like the other one I had the other week whose name I can't even remember now? Turns out it is rather good. Yes, it is fairly similar to that last one but it is fresh & bright & crisp & lime-juice-like and feels like great value. Made from grapes grown in the slightly cooler Awatere Valley, in the Marlborough region, at the top of the South Island. Perfect glass-whilst-cooking-dinner material.  

Current red on the side: The Waxed Bat Shiraz / Petit Verdot 2010, Laithwaites, £7.99

OK, so I didn't buy this one. And no, I've not been stealing. It was a leaving present from a dinner that I went to last week (same day as the talk - what a day that was), a fundraiser for ActionAid. I was one of two 'wine experts' asked to play a 'Call My Wine Bluff' game, identifying wines by taste and story alone. It gets better. The panel consisted of Jo Brand, Charles Dance, Clive Anderson, James Purefwoar and Nicholas Owen. Yes, I humiliated myself in front of 200 people & 5 celebs. More on that next week. The wine? Gorgeous. Enormous. Ripe black fruits. A beast with a soft side. Needs food: leftover Shepherd's Pie, preferably. Made from a blend of Shiraz and the hard-to-find Petit Verdot grape in Mendoza, Argentina.  

IOU x 

Village People

Last Friday night, I was asked to do a wine tasting in the village hall for 60 people to raise funds for the village twinning association. We're twinned with Hautvillers, a beautiful village in the Champagne region. In fact, Dom Perignon, the monk who 'discovered' Champagne is buried here (even though technically the whole bubbles-in-wine thing was discovered by the English years before but that doesn't make for such a good story). Anyway, point is we've hit the twinning jackpot as every year the people of Hautvillers give our village a few cases of Champagne. In return we give them bottles of our local sparkler, Beaulieu Bubbly. Like I said, jackpot.

Current white on the side: Waitrose Chablis 2010, £8.29 (currently 20% off), Waitrose
The tasting on Friday included a Chablis and for those who'd had a bad experience with an oaky, buttery, shouty Chardonnay, this one was a real eye-opener. Chablis is the Chardonnay grape at its most pure: oak and other wine-making trickery is rare in this region. Here, it is all about the place. Being northern France, the cooler climate makes wines with green apples and acidity as their markers. This particular one is great value; one to try if you are thinking of going with a Chablis for Christmas lunch. There, I said the C word. Suck it up. 

Current red on the side: Domaine Jones Rouge 2009, £14.99, Laithwaites or Domaine Jones
Hands up, I didn't pay for this one. I didn't steal it either. Rather, I am lucky enough to know the lady who makes it. Katie Jones worked for a French winery selling their wines here for years. Then one day she fell in love with a little vineyard in the Languedoc region in the South of France and moved lock, stock and new French oak barrel to a life as a vigneron (someone who grows grapes for winemaking to you and me). This is the first time I've tasted the results. I'm only sorry she didn't do this years ago, the wine is - like her - gorgeous. Made from the Grenache grape, it is juicy, bright and full of red fruit flavours. Dreamy with our rosbif on Sunday. 

Chin chin x

What really matters...

No, I don't mean whether K-Mid's up the duff, or whether K-Kard's wedding was a fake, or whether I've bought the right kick-ass winter boots (which I know I have, btw). No, what really matters this week is wearing a poppy, donating if possible and thinking about the people affected by war; past, present and future. That is all.

Current white on the side: Tesco Finest Fiano 2010, £5.69 on offer, Tesco
Done this one before, I know. It is made from the Fiano grape, grown in Sicily, made by a very good producer and overseen by one Italy's most famous winemakers, Diego Planeta. To have his name on the label is really very impressive. This is all orchard fruits - I'm talking red apples, people - together with a citrus ribbon tying it all together. Delicious it is too, especially with last night's roast chicken leftovers. I'm making stock from the carcass as we speak. I know, I annoy myself with my perfection too sometimes. 

Current red on the side: Rio del Bio Bio Pinot Noir 2009, £4.75 on offer, Tesco
Pinot Noir is a funny little grape, producing bunches the shape of pine cones. Hard to believe they make wines so sublime they can bring a grown man/woman to tears. Burgundy in France is the grapes' homeland (although being one of the three main grapes used to make Champagne, it can call Pinot Noir a long-time lodger) but sadly the prices here may well induce tears too. This one won't: it is under a fiver. Under a fiver! For a medium-bodied red from Chile with some good varietal character (plums, spice), you are getting pretty amazing value for money here. The winemaker comes from Burgundy, which is kind of reassuring. Put it with sausages and mash and chow down. 

Chin chin x

ps - if you are a BritMum, and have a few minutes to spare (for which you might win wine), please can you click here? Thanks v. much x

We Need to Talk About Booze

I never did see the Kevin film. Turns out The Help started at the same time so we chose schmaltz over shootings. Cried on and off for two hours and loved it. What we do need to talk about, however, is how to  broach the subject of booze with our children. How young is too young to discuss it? Do we let them try it in the home or leave them to try it when we're not there? How do we teach them the rights and wrongs, the pros and cons of alcohol? Drinkaware is running a campaign to highlight the issue and this video on their site is rather clever. Over at Bringing Up Charlie, Tim posted about it but know this: he is mostly worried about tax hikes on artisan cider. I popped up on the Huffington Post today, with this article about the demon drink. Complex, like good wine.

Current white in the fridge: Cowrie Bay Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2011, £5 on offer, Waitrose
I know I did a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc just a couple of weeks ago but I couldn't walk past this one yesterday whilst on my supermarket sweep without adding a couple of bottles to the trolley. Gorgeous label (and we know how important that is) with a really lovely wine inside. Not the most complicated Sauvignon you'll ever taste but certainly with enough perky gooseberry and passion fruit flavours to keep the customer satisfied, satisfied (as Simon and/or possibly Garfunkel would say).

Current red on the side: La Layenda Malbec Syrah 2010, £6.99, Tesco
Brooding, moody and macho. And that's just the bottle, with its broad shoulders and heavier-than-usual weight. Inside it lurks an Argie beastie, loaded with bramble fruits and a sprinkling of spice. We had this with slow-cooked beef stew and a very handsome couple they made too. Last week's white wine was the white partner to this red: both are fairly in-your-face styles with no sense of personal space but very likeable nonetheless. Made by Bodegas Escorihuela in the Mendoza region. 


Cheers, dears x