Tracy's Wine Blog
How bright is the future for British fizz?
Benenden’s wine expert takes a look at the economics of the thriving domestic sparkling market Christopher Merret (16 February 1614-19 August 1695), was a 17th-century English physician and scientist who became the first to document the deliberate addition of sugar...
The Road to Rioja
The last village wine tasting was Weird and Wonderful and very successful, with a full house at Benenden School enjoying a broad spread of strange grapes and unusual bottles from uncharted regions.The New Zealand Gruner Veltliner and the Calabrian Guardavalle vied for...
Chateau Hopping in France
Our roving wine correspondent Tracy Claridge reports back from a summer spent in pursuit of the finer things... My youngest daughter Alice, post GCSEs, my partner Deborah and I headed off for la belle France this summer for what might best be described as a busman’s...
From Portugal to Provence: The Rose Revolution
When I first joined the wine trade in 1975, very few rosé wines adorned the shelves of supermarkets or wine merchants, so I grew up watching my mother down many glasses/bottles of Mateus rosé. The history of Mateus goes back to 1942, when the founder of Portuguese...
First Taste of 2015 Clarets
Bonjour! Every year around the beginning of April samples of the top wines of Bordeaux are shown to the Wine Trade for the first time. The wines are very youthful, having only been in barrel (225L oak barriques) for 3 months. Some will stay there for a further nine to...
A Corking Argument
The debate continues. Old gits like me enjoy the sound of the cork popping when opening a bottle of wine. My dear friend Bill Shrapnel in Australia has always championed the cause of the aluminium screwcap. Why? Hardly any bottle variation. They do not cause any...
New World/Old World … Chaqu’un a son gout
In the 1970s the choice of wines available on the High St was poor. Brands such as German Blue Nun Liebfraumilch, Bulls Blood from Hungary, Mateus Rosé from Portugal and Mouton Cadet from Bordeaux were benchmark styles of what was popular at the time. These all came...
Drinking Sensibly; a medical viewpoint from a local resident
The medical advice about drinking alcohol and health is at best confusing and at worst contradictory. There are a number of problems with interpreting the data about any health related activity, both for professionals and for the public. For the professionals there...