I’m not a celebrity watcher, and I even had to check up first – but yes, Sam Branson is Richard Branson’s son, and heir to his £3.4 billion fortune. Well Sam just got married to his beautiful bride, actress Isabella Calthorpe, at his dad’s luxury retreat in South Africa, and he requested Grangehurst Pinotage for the [...]

Yesterday’s budget by Chancellor George Osbourne did nothing for wine drinkers as he kept the existing alcohol duty escalator as put in place by the previous Labour government. This means the excise duty on a typical bottle of wine will rise by 10 pence plus VAT. On sparkling wines and wines over 15% ABV the [...]

In light of the horse meat scandal it was announced on the BBC today that processed meat increases the likelihood of both cancer and heart disease – something that regular readers will know I’ve been saying since the very start of this blog site, although being a wine website I didn’t focus on just meat of [...]

Just as we’ve got used to buying wine online to get the best deals, Google and Amazon between them have changed their rules and are monopolising the market to make a fortune out of us! From March 2013 the best deals will now be much much harder to find as both Google and Amazon heavily promote the [...]

Yes, we’re all now well aware of the horse meat scandal. With large retailers continually driving down the prices they’re prepared to pay to manufacturers, the quality of ingredients in processed foods has been dropping like a stone. Horse meat in burgers and ready meals, “meat dirivatives” in sausages – who knows what goes into [...]

Yes, new figures just released show that the average price of a bottle of wine bought in the UK has soared from £4.97 to £5.04. It makes me cringe to think of the harm the UK public are unwittingly doing to themselves drinking this cocktail of additives. Would anybody actually buy this stuff if they [...]

Yes, after the phenomenal success last year, RAW is back on again this year. It’s in the same location, the Old Trueman Brewery on Brick Lane, which worked really well last year. Entry will be smoother this year as lessons have been learned from last year’s show when the unexpectedly high turnout led to a build up [...]

On the news this morning was an article about the growing problem of dementia in the UK as our population are living longer. It is estimated that by the year 2021 over 1 million UK citizens will suffer directly from dementia and associated ailments, which will of course impact on many millions more looking after relatives [...]

Mauricio Lorca, owner and winemaker at Bodega Y Vinedos Mauricio Lorca, is one of Argentina’s finest winemakers. His superb wines are now available to buy online in the UK. Mauricio has been head winemaker at boutique winery Enrique Foster for a number of years, and before that learned his trade at such famous wineries as Catena [...]

Like many of us these days I spend the majority of my day at a computer, predominantly on email and the web. While I appreciate advancements in technology can make our business lives easier and more productive, there is also a negative, invasive side to it as well. Facebook and Twitter are self explanatory. They can actually be [...]