As part of the run-up Fizz Feast on Saturday 19 November at Edinburgh Academy, now in its sixth year, we’re giving you a brief introduction to the fabulous feast and fizz exhibitors lined up to tantalise taste buds and please palates. We are delighted to welcome Woodhouse Wines back to Fizz Feast for our 2022 event! Wine merchant Jonathan Simpkin heads up Woodhouse Wines and is as experienced and passionate a wine expert as you are likely to find. After establishing his win

checking out some of the star players. It was yet another couple of intereseting and amusing evenings by Zoom with Lidl's Lead Taster and Master of Wine Richard Bampfield. Also helping to keep us on the straight and narrow was Lidl's Chris Scott. Everyone was asked to score the wines out of 5 and here are the results. It's very interesting to see how we, as the actual consumers, scored the wines vs the scores given by Lidl's tasting panel which is expertly headed up by Ric

Following on from last week's Wine Trivia for a Christmas Quiz and having had a fascinating tasting with Bruce Jack who packed the tasting full of interesting facts I thought it would be fun to include some. Hope it might prove as inspiration for any Christmas quiz you might have. 1. Why is The Beagle important to Continental Drift The Beagle was the name of Charles Darwin’s ship which he sailed around Cape Point in the late 1800’s. He stopped at Mouille Point where he saw t

Whether it be for family, friends or work colleagues there's often the challenge of a Christmas quiz. I thought you might enjoy some wine related trivia which could prove as inspiration if you've been set a challenge. 1. At what speed can a cork come out of a sparkling bottle of wine? 46mph 2. Why was Pinot Noir historically the only red grape planted in Burgundy? In 1395 Philip the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy was eager to keep the fantastic reputation of red Burgundy wh

Behind every Bruce Jack Wine lies a special story The Moveable Feast label tells the story of the people involved in this wine, past and present. They are all part of Bruce Jack’s wider family, off on a moveable feast; Thandi is Bruce’s mum’s old dog who was an ex bomb squad dog Benjamin, Bruce’s youngest son is carrying the food for the feast Robert his eldest is carrying a chair for the feast. Penelope, Bruce’s wife carries the candles – no doubt being the light of Bruce’

As we're all aware Lidl have some cracking wines at cracking prices. Every couple of months they have a special "Wine Tour" and the New World launched on Thursday 23 September. Here are the results of how we scored them compared with the scores Richard Bampfield MW and his team scored them. If you're tempted by any you'll need to be quick as these wines don't tend to stay on shelf for long! The White Wines The Red Wines

To add a bit of extra fun with our Lidl French Wine Tour Preview Tasting we included a few wines from Lidl's Core Range and had a great evening tasting and scoring them. Not only did a few comment on Richard Bampfield MW's similarity to Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard but it caused even more hilarity when on that theme, Richard told us about the ban on UFO's landing in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. In 1954 Châteauneuf-du-Pape's mayor Lucien Jeune issued the ban, stating “Any aircraft, k

Lidl's current French Wine Tour is another great selection of wines and those we tasted last Saturday 24 July were all very well received. We enjoyed two sparkling wines and four whites, all of which scored highly. To add a bit of fun we included some from the current Wine Tour and some from Lidl's Core Range in our tasting. It was great fun with Lidl's Lead Taster Richard Bampfield MW offering some valuable insights into the wines and why they were chosen. We also had som

My newsletters often cover a wine related book review and on this occasion I invited my sister-in-law Amanda Skinner from Private Cellars to recommend her favourite book. Since she's written such a comprehensive and superb piece I thought it was definitely worthy of a blog post. I was delighted to be invited by my sister in law to write a review of my favourite wine book. It was a really tough choice as there have been so many great publications over the past two years bu

As always Lidl's Wine Tour unveils some great hidden gems and their Summer 2021 Wine Tour is certainly no exception. There were a few familiar friends within the Tour and plenty new interesting wines to discover. Lidl's Lead Taster and Master of Wine Richard Bampfield and I had great fun presenting these wines over the course of the two weeks. Thankfully we kept on track by Chris Scott, Lidl's Marketing Manager for Scotland. We tasted 6 whites on Saturday 22 May which

Given the selection, it's perhaps not surprising several people have been asking to hear a bit more about our foray into Greece, Macedonia, Georgia and Lebanon for the Off the Beaten Track Winemaker Series on 17 and 24 June. I therefore thought it would be worth a bit of a preview. We've got six great wines from six very interesting producers so if you feel like something a bit different you'll love this. Also, many of you are aware of my passion for indigenous grape variet

Despite being very sorry not to have been zooming into see winemaker Faouzi Issa in the vineyards of Domaine des Tourelles last night, we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening with hugely knowledgeable Brand Ambassador Madeleine Waters tasting through this premium range of stunning wines. We started with Marquis des Beys, a dously fresh & clean Chardonnay, followed by the Old Vines Cinsault - a mouth-filling Cinsault which was certainly not the marmite love it or hate it style w

This is perhaps the most exciting red wine selection Lidl has put into a Wine Tour. Being Lidl's first New World focussed Wine Tour, judging by the scores from our esteemed group of tasters it's not going to be the last. We had great fun and much laughter with Lidl's Lead Taster, Richard Bampfield MW and Chris Scott Lidl's Marketing Manager for Scotland joining me to present the wines. As with the Whites (results here) the favourites our audience of wine lovers chose were

How different can five Sauvignon Blanc based wines at entry level be? Lidl has certainly excelled with their latest Wine Tour which we had great fun tasting last night. Our 40-strong audience over two sessions was invited to score each wine out of 5 and the results were not what we’d expected. It would probably be fair to say that my fellow presenter and Lidl’s Lead Taster Richard Bampfield MW and I thought the elegant Axis Margaret River Sauvignon Semillon would steal

On 16 July we Zoomed off to the beautiful Colchagua Valley to visit Viña Caliterra. Admittedly that evening we could see the rain clouds coming in the distance beyond the vineyard but it was still beautiful. One of the first wineries in Chile to be certified sustainable, Viña Caliterra focusses on what they do best and what they do naturally. With an extensive range starting around £8.99 they have something to suit all wine enthusiasts and every occasion. Winemaker Rodrig

We certainly had a very bubbly evening on 1 July for our Lidl Fizz on Friday. Along with Lidl's Lead Taster, Master of Wine Richard Bampfield we tasted through six popular sparkling wines from Lidl's range, scoring each as we went along. With an audience of 30 all independently giving their comments and scores it was quite a unique event. The winner was, perhaps not surprisingly, Lidl's Comte de Senneval Champagne. The full results based on the average scores out of 5 were;

Following on from tasting the Lidl Whites from the latest Wine Tour last week we had fun tasting the reds on Monday. Since the latest Wine Tour was launched a few weeks ago and many of the wines had already been whisked off the shelves we decided to just taste two from the latest Wine Tour and others from Lidl's Core Range. Everyone was given the list of the wines we were tasting and chose if they wanted to find all 6 wines or just a few to taste along with us. Lidl's Le

We had a lot of fun with Lidl's Lead Taster, Richard Bampfield MW showing these Lidl wines in the latest style of our Zoom tastings. Most were from Lidl's latest the Summer Wine Tour range with the addition of the Pecorino from the Core Range. After getting their ticket everyone given the list of wines we were tasting and it was up to them if they'd like to get one, two or all of the wines. Alternatively, they could simply listen to what everyone else had to say about the

We had a great evening on Monday trying a host of wines I'd selected from retailers in and around Edinburgh which were either on special offer or offering exceptional value for money. We normally taste 6 wines but being Christmas and there were so many to choose and we had a few extras! All the wines were winners, some more than others so I thought it would be fun to share them further in case you're looking for some inspiration . Everyone was asked to score each wine out o

As part of the run-up to our fourth annual Fizz Feast on Saturday 16 November at Edinburgh Academy, we’re giving you a brief introduction to the fabulous food and fizz exhibitors lined up to tantalise taste buds and please palates. In the spirit of constantly trying to bring something new and off-the-beaten track to Fizz Feast, let us introduce you to Goldenacre Wines, which is tucked away at the back of Costcutter in Inverleith, so quite literally off that well-beaten trac