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This article presents information on various wine stores in Great Britain. Plaisirs en Beaujolais is a wine store, just south of Macon in central France. There are usually only a handful of customers in the store, but each one wheels an enormous trolley stacked high with wine boxes. Here, wines that retail at over £8 in Great Britain are available for around 5 or about £3.50. Fortunately, the wines sold are not just ones that the supplier is trying to get rid of. Attached to the store is what might, or might not, be called a wine museum. The prices are so low because the store is a local demonstration of the low pricing policy that is one of the watchwords of the George Duboeuf wine store. While the wines themselves bear out the company's commitment to low pricing and high quality, there is another attraction to prove Duboeuf's point. Never satisfied, Duboeuf has, in the last year, added a series of gardens to the complex.

Provides information on Australian wines with different brand names. Description of a supermarket's own-brand of wines in Great Britain; Takeover by the beer company, Fosters, of Southcorp.; Information on Hardy's brand of Australian wine.

The article reports that old vine proves perfect for venison. Starting off slightly rustic and offally, it then, rather like wine, can seem to zoom off into a wonderful range of complex and long-lasting flavours. For a matching wine, something quite fine, yet similarly rustic was called for. In recent years, the trend has been towards replacing the older vines with officially sanctioned "improving" grape varieties such as Shiraz, Grenache and Mouvedre. But high in those hills, there are still seas of vines of rustic, disapproved-of grape varieties, like Cinsault and Carignan. Together with a farmyard, country-character, this usually results in wine really barely worth paying money for.

The article reports that Internet is a great way to find and purchase the wines one wants. Dr Sarah Bamford. If one uses a good universal search engine such as Google it can quite efficiently find the wine he is looking for. The Internet has a lot more to offer on the wine front, but not all the information is free. It is not surprising that global wine icon Robert Parker charges for his Web site. If one is prepared to pay for the best online wine information, other sites that he should consider are the home of the biggest American wine magazine, Wine Spectator and the Web site of leading British wine writer Jancis Robinson.

The article presents information about age wines added with oak that induces flavor to wine. Sarah Bamford attended a wine fair as a merchant offering wines to taste rather than as a member of the public. One of these testings was mind-opening in the extreme. A specialist Spanish merchant presented two examples of the same wine. A single wine had been made, then part of it aged in old American oak barrels and part in new French oak barrels. First came the sample aged in old American oak. This wine had dominant characteristics of menthol, pine and grass.

The article discusses the wine experiences. A thermometer might make all the difference to the wine experience, writes Dr Sarah Bamford. The variety in styles of corkscrews is exceeded only by the number of wine guide books. It is all good fun and, as one can imagine, the author's house is full of these sorts of odds and ends. When one is drinking wines at his house, he is not especially upset if a wine does not quite measure up to expectations. Wine drinking is usually about relaxing, and wines rarely match up to their vendors' elaborate descriptions.

The article presents information on drinks. A simple wine labeling system seems to elude the French, writes Dr. Sarah Bamford. French wine used to be renowned for its complicated naming conventions. French wine is predicated upon a naming system based on the origin of the wine. Labeling law forbids mention of the grape varieties on all the better wines including the words appellation control.

The article presents information on some drinks. Mid-November heralds the arrival of the latest Beaujolais Nouveau. It is the deadline for the first wine of the new French vintage to arrive on tables around the world. The wine is made from grapes harvested just a couple of months before, so the wine has been made in a rush too. On the occasions that the wine works, Beaujolais Nouveau can be the most quaffable of drinks.

This article presents the author's views on reading books on wine, which are useful as reference work and a genuinely good read. Over the years, the author has received all sorts of wine-related gifts. It is becoming a little tricky for our family and friends to keep this up now, though. Undoubtedly the most satisfying of these gifts have been the books. I'm not talking about anything technical, mostly just the "pocket guides," which sell in their millions in the run up to Christmas. There is one other book that tempts me as a gift this year. If you've ever seen Oz Clarke on television you'll know that he could not be described as languid, and his book is no different.

The article presents the author's advices about a number of warning signs to watch out for when one is buying wines. Low fill-level suggests that leakage and consequent oxidization, or an unfortunate chemical reaction called reduction has occurred. Much like the wine that we tried at home, this probably will not taste at all nice. Dried tears of liquid on the bottle suggest that there has been some leakage. Meanwhile, cork protruding above the rim of the bottle could mean that the wine has been frozen or, more likely, has overheated. This can again cause adverse chemical reactions and will affect the quality of the wine. Another sign of overheating is if the bottle feels warm to the touch.

The article presents the author's advice on balancing acid content in processed pizza topped with vegetables, specially tomatoes. Some commentators recommend that the wine should complement the acidity, while others say the wine should counter it. A number of general points have emerged when it comes to finding the perfect wine partner for our takeaway pizza. The wines that work all have their own natural acidity, a slightly sour-though-refreshing edge to their fruits, but they're also ones with a degree of decent substance.

The article presents information about the author who is a GP in Nottingham and co-owner of a wholesale wine company. According to the author, a visit to the Duboeuf wine museum and store in France is well worth it. Everyone loves a bargain, particularly, it seems, when it comes to wine. Wine suppliers are now all too aware of the great British love of sales and bargains have become increasingly hard to find. So the author always enjoy a visit to the Plaisirs en Beaujolais wine store, just south of Macon in central France. The prices are so low because the store is a local demonstration of the low pricing policy that is one of the watchwords of the George Duboeuf wine empire.

The article presents information on the wine production. New World wine producers, who have achieved such success with the idea of selling their produce under the names of grape varieties, are seeking instead to define their wines by where they come from. Producers have become enamoured with the distinct wines that are emerging from particular areas of vineyard. By the time France implemented the notion of appellation names 1,000 years later, nearly 100 of the first 400 appellations were created in these few square miles that are today known as Burgundy.

The article focuses on various aspects involved in buying wine in Bordeaux, France. Buying wine en primeur involves faith, trust and lots of luck. The world's trade in fine wine is dominated by Bordeaux. Enthusiasm for the wines has led to a practice of selling them in the spring after the vintage. However, the wine isn't available to take away-- it is sometimes not bottled for up to two years after the vintage. The customers have faith that the producers, or Chateaux, they have followed will again have produced a good wine with the new vintage. At this stage, the Chateau will have harvested their grapes and will be keeping the resulting wine in different barrels depending on the grape varieties, parts of the estate harvested from, and judgments about the quality of certain grapes.

Discusses various aspects related to selling wine in a competitive market. Information that the author and her husband have decided to close down the Internet side of their wine business and concentrate solely on selling to restaurants; Problems faced in private sales; View that restaurant wine tends to be more mainstream than the wide range of wines that the author and her husband had sold over the Internet, Significance of the tendency of people to buy wine on sale.

This article presents the author's views on the weather in Provence. The author states that Provence is France in microcosm. Firstly, Provence seems something of a weather paradox. The locals swore that it hadn't rained for months, and the author barely saw a cloud let alone a drop of rain. The earth was so dry that almost no grass could grow. Yet the hills were covered in green trees. While the weather is consistent, the variety of potential holidays is considerable. This year was an exercise in introducing small children to the beach.

This article presents the author's comments on Californian wine. The rise of Californian wine is not just down to its affordable price but because of the good quality of wine being made. It is, after all, just one of 50 U.S. states. And North America is hardly famous for its wine production. Production is dominated by red wines for which the state's Mediterranean climate is ideal. Hills and sea breezes provide the cool air that complements the lengthy sunshine. It seems a perfect environment for wine-making.

The article presents the author's opinions on wines. One of my passions in life, other than wine, is tennis. Vintage is a largely European phenomenon in wine: weather and permitted wine-making practices tend to reduce variability in the New World. One of the strangest European vintages of recent years has been 2003. It was a terrifyingly hot summer in 2003: forests burned and everyone worried about global warming. In the vineyards, grapes roasted. Fortunately, authorities reacted swiftly and allowed the use of the New World practice of adding acid to the wines.

This article focuses on wines. When the author hosted a recent wine tasting, one of the attendees told her that he always bought wine based on its awards. He had found it a slightly hit and miss business, and it made the author think through the principles of what attention to pay to awards in the world of wine. First of all, it should be recognised that not all wines are entered for competitions. When wines are entered, the main forms of reward tend to be medals: gold, silver, bronze and commended. The impression, of course, is that there is only one winner. However, these things are usually standards-based. In a really big competition, there could literally be hundreds of gold medals.

The article discusses blending of grape varieties in wine-making. Blending grape varieties can bring benefits to a wine. Most high-quality wines, especially French wines, are actually blends of different grape varieties. Wine growing authorities around the world recognize the need for blending, so much so that, while a wine can be labelled with one grape variety for ease of customer recognition, small amounts of other varieties can legally be added without mention. Traditionally, it was assumed that any mix of high-quality grapes would make good wine.

The article focuses on a secret society quaffing inexpensive quality wines. Dr Sarah Bamford visited his distant uncle, a retired farmer, John who lives in Kent. Everything seemed old fashioned and in the best possible way until it came to dinner and he brought out the wine. It was a bottle of claret, a very basic Bordeaux wine that had cost him less than a fiver. He explained where this low-price own-label wine originated. It was somewhere called The Wine Society. But he would not automatically be able to buy from it because it was a closed club of which he was a shareholder. New members were only admitted if nominated by an existing member and then approved by a panel.

The article reports that bending grape varieties can bring benefits to a wine. The wisdom of blending grape varieties has long been recognized. Wine growing authorities around the world recognize the need for blending, so much so that, while a wine can be labeled with one grape variety for ease of customer recognition, small amounts of other varieties can legally be added without mention. Traditionally, it was assumed that any mix of high-quality grapes would make good wine. Growers focused on matching grape varieties to soils and microclimates, and then threw the best resulting grapes into the mix.

The article focuses on rating wines with Parker points which is divisive and harmful. In wine, the quality equivalent has got to be the rating scale of one Robert M. Parker. An American, Parker rates wines out of 100, with a good score for a particular wine having the power to secure the future of a wine estate for years. But just as a surgery's quality score is based only on certain factors, the same is true for Parker and his scores, and the result is controversial. Consequently, many "fine wine" producers are now seeking to make the most concentrated wine they possibly can. Fruit-packed, short-lived wines often receive 89-point ratings.

The article reports that the price of a bottle of wine will rise as a new tax comes into force in Great Britain. The bottle, cork, label, shipment and excise duty are a fixed cost behind a bottle of wine. The law will require separate licenses for the person selling the alcohol and the premises where it is bought. A premises licence may cost hundreds, or perhaps thousands of pounds. The author remarks that taxes can change our behavior by confusing us about the value of a particular product. So understanding how wine is taxed could actually improve the quality of the wine we drink.

The article states that according to Sarah Bamford, Valpolicella has changed since her early teenage sips. She says that her first experience of wine when growing up was being allowed to taste the occasional glass her parents had with meals. At that age, she found red wines too dry and too different to the norm of a child's diet. Like much of the rest of European wine, which trades on the myth of a regional name guaranteeing quality, production has been allowed to dramatically increase.

This article presents views of Sarah Bamford about her favorite wine. She says that Shiraz, a type of wine is actually a candidate for France's greatest grape variety, yet its presence goes almost entirely unadvertised. This seems unfortunate when one considers the fantastic popularity of Shiraz-labeled wines in Great Britain today. Australia has led the way in bringing Shiraz wines to their attention, and now all the New World wine-producing countries have started planting vines and producing wines from this grape.

In this article the author shares his experience when he came to know that his cousin is a chemistry graduate with diploma in winemaking. He was all the more intrigued to discover that his cousin was applying for a post-graduate medical course in New Zealand. The cousin has also spent the past two summers in charge of wine production at a small Bordeaux estate. It was clear that this had equipped him with 'life experiences' that may prove relevant to his intended profession. The author expects that his cousin will go on to be more focused on his studies than he was and have more confidence with patients.

The article focuses on a drink that goes well with Chinese food. On a recent shopping day, having acquired some moderately fresh food, Sarah Bamfod cooked for friends. Some of her favourites are Ken Hom's lemon chicken recipe, a basic beef and black-bean sauce recipe, and plenty of Chinese vegetables. They started the meal with a bottle of red wine from the picturesque, hilly, Jura region of France. The name derives from the presence of wood in the flavour, which actually occurs naturally without the wine being aged in wood.

This article reports that Chenin Blanc is produced in vast quantities all over the world, says Sarah Bamford, a physician. She says that she became suspicious the other day when her husband offered her one particular statistic--that their three least favorite ever wines have been South African Chenin Blancs. This seemed really strange, because, in general, she says that she liked wines made from Chenin Blanc. She says that she must admit that she thought that Chenin Blanc wines were only made in South Africa and the Loire. Chenin Blanc often has very high acidity, so it can be useful for adding a pleasant crispness to Chardonnay wines.

this article reports that many people want wine to be a predictable commodity, and supermarkets have reacted by trying to source exactly such products. The strongest rule is to choose the youngest wine. As a general rule, the cheaper the wine, the more important it is to take the younger wine. If a supermarket is moving from a pounds 7 red made in Europe in 2003 to the 2004 of the same wine, it is worth remembering just how hot the summer of 2003 was. They are particularly useful when a wine is a mainstay of the vendor--if the vendor takes every vintage of the wine they will take the bad as well as the good.

The author states that old vines produce the finest wines and command the highest prices. He said that they chanced upon Mr Mushroom when they visited his property on the advice of a wine book. The new vines he subsequently planted would not yield profitable wine for many years (the rules of his wine-growing region prevent young vines from qualifying to make wines with the local wine name). Mr Mushroom was not so worried about today's income, thinking instead of preserving the uniquely identifiable wine that hailed from his patch of land.

The article reports that a seasonal wine quiz can spice up a family gathering, according to Sarah Bamford. One question is How old was Oz Clarke when he first went to Australia? Another question is what grape variety is most red wine labelled "Bordeaux" made of? Which country is not famous for making wine from frozen grapes ("icewine")? and Which country has recently overtaken France as the largest supplier of wines to Great Britain?.

The article informs that there are upsides and downsides to serving a successful wine with Christmas dinner. The upside is that it enhances sometimes indifferent turkey roasts. The presence of acid, a key quality in matching the wine with the meal, is something else that isn't cited on the label of red wines. This (hopefully only very slight) tartness can be offputting when tasting a red wine without food. The simple rule of thumb would be to not choose the cheapest New World wines with a meal like this. Many of the more expensive New World wines, perhaps from pounds 7 upwards, will have sufficient acidic structure because this is also important for ageing, which is a goal of these more expensive wines.

The article informs that big wine producers are now offering consistently excellent wins. Everyone is familiar with Hardy's, Penfolds and Jacob's Creek. These are big companies, who make remarkably good and consistent wines. Penfolds and Co. are in part negotiants, they can choose good grapes in each vintage. They have natural economies of scale that allow them to afford the best equipment and the best expert winemakers. Co-operatives have less flexibility about their grape sourcing, but many are focusing on quality.

The article presents information on wines. On holiday in Northern Spain, Dr. Sarah Bamford tries some distinctive Ribera wines. Over the years people have dipped in and out of Spanish wines, with generally Rioja being most to the fore. Northern Spain is definitely to be recommended as a holiday location. Just imagine oneself checking one's e-mail one evening and one receive a message saying that the online bank account will be suspended if one do not confirm the bank details. Ribera wines stack up well with strongly flavoured meats. A good country wine aspect that serves it well with wild meats.

The article presents information on some sweet wines. Chateau d'Aydie, 2001, Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh, 50cl; pounds 8.99 from Modern French Wine. Made from the rare Petit Manseng grape, this is a very unusual wine from the leading estate of the region. Chateau de Seuil, 1999, Ceron, 50cl; pounds 9.95 from the Big Red Wine Co. Cerons is a small district neighbouring Sauternes. Similarly good value to the d'Aydie, it is made from Semillon and hence more classical dessert wine. Very correct intensity, yet possessed of good acidity that gives a useful freshness.

The article cites that according to physician Sarah Bamford, a spiral cellar may solve the problem of long-term wine storage. For years people have stored personal wine in "wine cabinets." These cabinets are rather like big fridges, and are supposed to keep wine at the right temperature and humidity so that it will age in an optimal way. It's been great to have these and it has been a pleasure to experience how wines change as they age, but there are one or two drawbacks. If one buy wines by the case, space is quickly used up. It's said that one should always go for twice the wine storage capacity that one thinks will be needed.

The article presents the author's comments on some grape varieties used for making good wine. The author says that mass wine production, combined with increased poverty, saw wine prices plummet and Argentina set about pulling up its Malbec vines. By itself, Cahors, France makes half as much Malbec wine as Argentina. In this year's Decanter World Wine Awards, a Cahors wine won the trophy as the Best Regional French wine. French Malbecs can be dramatically powerful and full of blackcurrant fruit, very different from their Argentine counterparts, but very much in the global vogue for big red wines.

This article focuses on the author's plant to attend the Food and Drink Festival at East Anglia, England. The focus of the event is more food than drink. Celebrity chefs, livestock and all manner of specialist foods are the main attractions so we're hoping to get a chance to have a look around. We have always been skeptical about English wine, and our formative experiences had not been good. However, we were surprised when we tasted this wine. It was decidedly impressive: lots of ripe green fruits held in check by a delicate structure.

The article focuses on the wine Chateauneuf-du-Pape which has a strong brand. The author suggests of being wary when selecting ones vintage. Apart from Champagne there is probably only one wine that can routinely get a lot of people to spend over pounds 10. Chateauneuf-du-Pape has the name, the labels and the stylishly embossed bottles. Branding aside, Chateauneuf has undeniably produced great wines for many years. It was the birthplace of the French wine labelling system, the first wine to be labelled on account of its place of production and other attempted guarantees of quality.

The article presents information on the Beaujolais' wine. The flavor of Beaujolais changes quickly over time. The flavor of these wines changes very quickly over time. In youth they are wonderful summertime reds: serve cool for a truly fruit-packed experience. But their second Christmas is a Cinderella midnight — all fruit is lost. In the case of 99 per cent of any 2002 Beaujolais, you will need to drink it before the end of this year. Older Beaujolais tastes very different. The message then, is to drink Beaujolais young.

The article presents a discussion on wine "Malbec" that came into its own when grown in the uplands of Argentina. Argentinians were rather more into quantity that quality and they soon had the third-highest per capita wine consumption in the world. However, the 20th century saw Argentina lurch from one economic disaster to another. Mass wine production, combined with increased poverty, saw wine prices plummet and Argentina set about pulling up its Malbec vines. Low in fruit, austere, and not citing its grape variety on the label, it seems to epitomise all that is often wrong with French wine.