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Frapin – artisanal Cognac from a single estate

Château Fontpinot – photo courtesy of Cognac Frapin.

Touring Frapin’s Château Fontpinot is an incredible experience. The Château is a very beautiful place, while the cellars are a veritable warren with floor after floor of Cognac peacefully ageing in ancient barrels.

The very oldest Cognacs are kept in glass demijohns with the most venerable being the 1870 – harvested when Napoleon III was still…

Empire Sate of Wine – New York’s Finger Lakes Region

Sunrise over Keuka Lake – photo courtesy of Dr Frank.

Understandably most UK wine drinkers think that American wine is pretty much all from California. Certainly California is the most important of the wine producing states, but there are some superb wines made elsewhere in the US too.

Some consumers are aware of wines from Oregon and possibly Washington State, but usually my students are…

The hilltop town of Montefalco – photo courtesy of Tabarrini.

In 2019 I visited Montefalco in Umbria in order to learn about the wonderful wines produced there. You can read about my visit by clicking HERE.

Map of Umbria’s wine areas – click for a larger view.

It is a delightful part of the world. Rural and tranquil with beautiful medieval hillside towns, like Assisi and Montefalco itself and…

Wine of the Week – a delicious Riesling

A Happy New Year to you all.

My first piece of 2020 is a Wine of the Week. It is also a bin end bargain, so grab it quick!

Clare Valley vineyards in South Australia.

As many of you will know, I – and most people in the wine trade – love Riesling. I think it is the combination of delicate, hinted flavours, purity, minerality and acidity that draws me back to Riesling time after time. It also…

2019 draws to a close and a new future for the United kingdom beckons, one that I feel no optimism for at all. We are promised ‘sunny uplands’ and a ‘new golden age’ outside of the EU. I do not believe these promises as they have no basis in logic and ignore the reasons why we joined in the first place, but desperately hope that I am wrong. It all makes me terribly sad for my country and fearful…

Gosset – perfect Champagne for Christmas

Some of the vineyards near Aÿ that supply Gosset with grapes – photo by Quentin Sadler.

At this time of year my thoughts turn to festive fare, especially wine and the stuff that I like to drink at Christmas above all else, because it goes with everything and nothing, is Champagne.

Well as it happens I visited one of the greatest Champagne houses of all the other week and thought that I would…

Some beautiful olive oils

Recently I was sent some olive oils to taste and I must say that I found the experience really interesting. I do not know a huge amount about olive oil, but it is a fascinating subject and has much in common with wine – and chocolate, coffee, tea and I expect many other things that make life better.

The similarities of course are that olive oil, like wine, is an agricultural product. Therefore…

Lebanon – an ancient land, modern wines

Vineyards in the Bekaa Valley – photo courtesy of Château Kefraya.

Lebanon caught my imagination as a wine country a long time ago. We tend to think of it as a new wine producer, but the Phoenicians – the ancient people of Lebanon – were among the world’s first maritime traders and exported wines from Tyre and Sidon all over the Mediterranean world and so helped to spread wine and viticulture to…

Switzerland – a beautiful country with wonderful wine

Vineyards in Valais, overlooking the Rhône Valley – photo by Quentin Sadler.

Switzerland is famous for many things; banks, mountains, lakes, cheese, chocolate and, erroneously – courtesy of Orson Wells – cuckoo clocks. Not many people, in Britain anyway, seem to associate this Alpine country with wine.

Swiss wine is a bit of a mystery because almost none of it is exported. The Swiss are a thirsty…

Wine of the Week – a surprise from Chile

Vines at Casa Silva.

Readers of these pages will know that I revel in finding something new. For me loving wine is all about seeking out the unexpected, the different and the surprising.

Whether it is a region that I have never heard of, a grape variety, or a whole new wine producing country, that is what excites me most about wine.

So, in truth the wine I want to share with you today doesn’t…

Valencia – a great wine region rises

Moscatel vines growing in Xabia/Jávea in Alicante’s Marina Alta. They are used to make the traditional sweet Muscats and more modern dry versions.

So often when we talk about Spanish wine, we mean wine from northern Spain. This is simply because up until the late twentieth century the south was just too hot to make anything that was considered worthwhile. So the good wines, the wines with a…

Wine of the Week – a stunningly tasty rosé

Vines at Bodegas Sierra Norte, Utiel-Requena.

I simply do not want the summer to end and one way to delay the return to normalcy is to keep drinking rosé wine.

Nothing says summer like a glass of rosé, so if you keep drinking the pink stuff it will keep you in a summery mood and fend off the Autumn gloom. Or that is my hope anyway.

Personally I love rosé as it gives similar refreshment to white…

Wine of the Week – an affordable & delicious orange wine

I am not always one for the current fad and right now Orange wines, or Amber wines, and natural wines are the in thing. Mind you they have ‘in’ for quite a while, so perhaps they are here to stay.

For those of you who are not yet in the know, an Orange (or Amber wine) is a white wine fermented on the skins – indeed it can also be called skin-contact wine or skin-macerated wine. It is the skins,…

Wine Blog of the Year

Well in ten years of writing this blog I never imagined that something like this would happen to me. Quentin Sadler’s Wine Page has been voted Wine Blog of the Year in the Harpers and Wines Direct Consumer Awards 2019.

I am really thrilled by this award and very grateful to everyone who voted for me. I hope it shows that people really appreciate some of the articles I put on here and actually try…

Please help me, Quentin Sadler’s Wine Page has been shortlisted for Wine Blog of the year as part of the 2019 WinesDirect Awards.

Please vote for me by clicking on this link and following the instructions. It would mean a huge amount to me: https://www.winesdirect.com/winesdirect-awards-2019/

Thanks so much, Quentin

White Wines from the Rhône

Mountain vista of the southern Rhône – photo by Quentin Sadler.

France’s Rhône Valley is a fascinating wine region that is traditionally much more famous for its red wines than its whites. Indeed a mere 6% of production is white, but that does not mean that it doesn’t make really good white wines that will repay a little seeking out – it does.

Having been a cheerleader for the region’s red wines…

Montefalco – Italy’s Rising Star

The Bocale winery and vineyards, showing the landscape of Montefalco – photo courtesy of Montefalco wine.

I love Italian wine and am fascinated by the enormous potential there is in every corner of that amazing wine producing country. 

Excitingly every now and again a region emerges from relative obscurity to sit alongside the famous classic wine regions such as Barolo and Chianti. We might well…