Tag: red wine
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Wine and Dine: Polpette with Tomato and Basil
Easter marked the start of better weather and longer evenings. The gloom of winter is fading and blossom is appearing with cherry, apple and hawthorn all showing their best and lifting our spirits. Evenings can still be a little chilly and we still enjoy cosy home cooking but with fresher, lighter flavours. The downside is that April is part of ...
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Wine and Dine: Poule au Pot
We have an image of classic French cuisine being complicated, fussy and full of big flavours. These dishes certainly exist but don’t represent real French country cooking. Take cassoulet for example; very rich and hearty, but it’s true magic lies in the subtlety of beans and bay leaf, a hint of tomato and whiff of garlic, with nothing ...
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Wine and Dine: Chicken Liver Parfait
It’s almost Christmas and time to get prepared for your festive feast! This is an impressive starter that the whole family will enjoy. It can be prepared up the week before and kept refrigerated. Ingredients 450g room temperature fresh chicken livers, trimmed of all sinew and any bile sacs 75 g banana shallots, finely sliced 2 ...
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An Introduction to Pinot Noir
Fickle to grow, tricky to make and delicious to drink, Pinot Noir is the grape of Burgundy, but is also grown all over the world, most notably in Oregon, New Zealand and California. It is also one of the major blending grapes for Champagne. Whilst the wines from the old and new world are undeniably different, Pinot Noir is a very distinctive ...
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Your Essential Guide to Beaujolais
Beaujolais is often overlooked as a poor relation of Burgundy or slightly out of fashion, However, the quality for price it unbelievable and as producers embrace traditional vinification rather than carbonic maceration (used in Beaujolais nouveau, which is declining), the wines continue to improve and show what Gamay and the Beaujolais region are ...