Does a wine really need to breathe?
Lots of people have asked me this on my wine tastings. Is it necessary and what does it do anyway? The answer is definitely ‘yes’ but the amount required will depend on the type and age of the wine. Generally, the heavier and more tannic the wine the more it will benefit from being allowed to breathe. Don’t just remove the cork and leave the bottle on the kitchen side, the surface area in the neck of the bottle is about the size of a 1p/1 cent coin so you need to give the wine a chance by increasing the surface area. The traditional way to do this is with…
Cairanne ‘Les Six’ AOC 2017
I was looking along the shelves at Priory Wines in Lymington the other day and noticed a bottle of ‘Les Six’ Cairanne AOC. I was intrigued because I expected it to say Cotes du Rhone Villages but it doesn’t it simply says Cairanne AOC. The answer, I discovered after some investigation is that Cairanne has now been elevated to Cru status which means that it gets its own appellation. This was only confirmed on 25th June 2018 and all vintages since 2016 may now show Cairanne AOC. If you are lucky enough to find a 2015 Cairanne it will be labelled as Cotes du Rhone Villages. There are three levels of…
Hello world!
Welcome to my blog. I’m David and I’m a fan of wine. This blog will contain recommendations and general information about wine and wine related things. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to add comments to my posts. If there are any subjects you’d like me to cover or if you have questions on wine related matters, then use the contact form to send me a note and I’ll try to add your requests into my blog. Happy reading!