I've mentioned before my stock reply to the oft-asked question I get in the shop, "what's your favourite wine out of all of them?". It's like asking me which of my kids is my favourite — it depends on the day. Schola Sarmenti is unapologetically my favourite child right now.
About a million years ago, when my now early teens were in nappies and we were just getting Curious Wines off the ground, I met Sam Brannigan at a wine tasting in Enniskillen.
So I have to confess, up until very recently whenever someone mentioned "Bergerac" my immediate thoughts would go to John Nettles driving around Jersey in a Triumph roadster*.
The last of the new finds for this year, from one of the world's furthest wine outposts (well from Cork anyway) and New Zealand's oldest winegrowing region, Hawke's Bay.
Amidst the Schild family estate in Australia's Barossa Valley lie four rows of gnarled, ancient Shiraz vines, planted in 1847 by Johan and William Jacob (of the famed creek), just eleven years after the foundation of South Australia.
A couple of weeks ago we introduced the eye-catching (and utterly gorgeous) Claymore Wines, a new range of music-inspired labels from Australia's Clare Valley including the Joshua Tree Riesling, Bittersweet Symphony Cabernet and Dark Side of the Moon Shiraz.
Chocolate Factory | Shiraz | McLaren Vale from Zonte's Footstep on Vimeo. Many of you will be familiar with our stand-out wine of last year, newcomer Elysian Springs' Spring Lamb Syrah, from Australia's Adelaide Hills.
Six months previously we'd never even heard of Kangaroo Island but in planning our trip to Australia I went straight to looking for wineries on the hunch that just off the south Australian mainland someone would have planted vines there.
Claymore Wines founder and owner, Anura Nitchingham, has three great loves in his life – wine, music and football – and he celebrates all of them through the winery he began in the 1990s, having arrived there with his family after a successful medical career in the UK.
The first bottles of Bleasdale Wines in Ireland landed into our small (and constantly freezing cold!) warehouse in Bandon in late 2009. We were just over a year old and planning our first direct shipments from Australia the following Spring.
[caption id="attachment_13078" align="alignnone" width="600"] Paul Hotker of Bleasdale: James Halliday's Winemaker of the Year for 2018[/caption]THE FIRST BOTTLES of Bleasdale Wines in Ireland landed into our small (and constantly freezing cold!) warehouse in Bandon in late 2009.
Le Mas de l’Ecriture ('ecriture' means 'scripture'), run by Pascal Fulla (who enjoyed 20 years as a 'juriste', or legal expert, before, in a carpe diem moment, turning to wine) and his daughter Lea, is situated in the south of France, a short drive from Montpellier.
In search of the grailWE OFTEN TALK IN CURIOUS about finding the grail in wine terms - those wines that look great, massively over-deliver for their price point, and give us something resembling a religious experience on drinking.
Hotker gushes over timely floods(Dispatch from South Oz: weather update via Bleasdale Winemaker Paul Hotker. )Hi Curious!Hope all is well and you’re enjoying summer. We’re having an excellent winter and have had the best floods for years.
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"Gewurztraminer, most associated with Germany, or France's Alsace, is a brilliant-but-Marmitey white wine - love it or hate it. Full of character (overburdened, some might say), wines made from Gewurzt are full bodied and exotic, often with hefty alcohol and noticeable sweetness.
WE WERE DEEPLY SADDENED to hear of the passing of a true legend of the wine world at the weekend when the founder of Mas de Daumas Gassac, Aimé Guibert, died at home in Aniane at the age of 91.
WE'RE HAVING A MINOR DIFFERENCE OF OPINION with one of our Spanish suppliers, Ego Bodegas, over the naming of one of their extremely popular wines and we need your help to sway them. Meet Gorú. That's the mass of hair above that shares a name with the winery's organic label, confusingly also called Gorú.
EXCITING, wooded Albariño that bagged a GOLD MEDAL at the prestigious International Wine Challenge! ________________________________ ..
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Inside Track Q&A: Mike Kane, co-owner of Curious Wines – click the pic below to read the full Irish Times interview! _______________________ ..
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IF YOU’RE LIKE US you probably ‘cellar’ your wine in some idiosyncratic combination of fridge, wardrobe, pantry, attic and glove box; and, while those spots will do in a pinch, it’s of course much nicer if you can gather all your beloved bottles in one handy place where the ..
BROTHERS Frederic and Benoit Lavau (pictured above) have really taken their family domaine upmarket since taking over from their parents in 2000, switching to bottling their wines under their own name instead of letting local negotiants take the glory, and partnering too with Château Maucoil, a 40- ..
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