Judgement of London: English Sparkling versus Champagne 
Other Asti styles surprise 
Brachetto d’Acqui: red, sweet, sparkling, different 
Barbera d’Asti and Nizza: finest Barbera? 
Moscato d’Asti, Asti Dolce and Asti Secco 
Asti: Barbera, Moscato and friends Tempranillo
532. Miguel Torres, Conde de Superunda Curicó Valley Chile, 2000
A great birthday gift from Tina, that I used to Christen SJ awesome present of a spangly Riedel decanter. And a wholly-appropriate wine with …
385. Vegaval Plata, Valdepeñas Gran Reserva, 1999
A gift from a part-colleague, from Valdepeñas (she is, as is the wine). Given to me as an intro to the wines of the …
Marqués de Riscal: Gehry hotel outshining solid Rioja and Rueda
Marqués de Riscal is a long-established, prominent bodega in the Rioja Alavesa village of Elciego, 20 minutes’ drive West of Logroño. At 5m bottles …
La Rioja Alta: benchmark classical Riojas especially top flight Gran Reservas
La Rioja Alta, established in Haro in 1890, is certainly one of the major players in high quality, traditionally-styled Rioja. In their top pair …
Marqués de Murrieta: Rioja aristocracy built around Castillo Ygay
There are many Rioja bodegas with the vaunted title Marqués in their name – Riscal, Cacéres, Concordia inter alia. In the UK, those of …
CVNE: Combining volume and classical quality
CVNE, the Compania Vinicola del Norte de España, is popularly known as Cune (‘koo-nay’) in Spain – so much so that they adopted Cune …
Contino: Château-style Rioja and Graciano pioneers
Contino were the first Rioja bodega to be set up in the mode of a Bordeaux château, with estate grapes from vineyards surrounding the …
Bodegas Ysios: a Rioja to watch
I’d had a recommendation from one of the folks at Wines of Rioja to visit Ysios since it is close to Laguardia where we …
Ramón Bilbao: modern Rioja with altitude
Ruth and I first visited Ramón Bilbao just as tourists in 2014, when visiting Haro the first time. In 2018, by random allocation, we …
Artadi: single vineyard revolutionaries
After meeting César Román, Artadi’s commercial guy, at ProWein, I arranged to visit them with Ruth and fellow MW, Madeleine Stenwreth. We went into …