Expert wines, beers, spirits, low & no reviews & reports

A picture postcard location in the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Beauty, watercress growing in its chalk stream for centuries. An English idyll admired by Chaucer, Jerome K Jerome, TV drama and Hollywood movie producers … and a vineyard smiling in the background. Welcome to Ewelme village and Ewelme Hills estate.

Global statistical data company, Statista, recently reported that "The gin industry is alive and well in the United Kingdom". With other spirits like vodka cultivating a more youthful, trendy image in a modern cocktail-focused market, gin had been losing ground. Yet now, ironically fuelled by traditional, refreshing cocktails like the good old Gin and Tonic, Tom Collins, Martini, Gin Paloma etc, there's renewed interest in 'mother's ruin'. With global gin volumes rising 1% in 2025 and 2% in 2024, the outlook looks more positive. So, is there anything new and different in this sector? Cue The Viceroy 1977 Monsoon Heat!

Georgian Wine: Heritage and Innovation was the focus of a recent panel discussion & tasting at London's Saperavi Social, hosted by Topouria Group in collaboration with Les Caves de Pyrene, the UK's largest importer of Georgian wines. The panel of wine professionals was joined by fifteen guests from London's wine trade & press.

The craft beer revolution took the drinks world by storm. The novelty factor and impact on drinking habits may have somewhat subsided from the heady heights of the 2010s, but new beers still keep appearing, typically as 'variations on a theme'. It's rare when something generally different appears and makes you sit up and take notice, while your palate dances around trying to make sense of it all. Cue Chorus Fine English Sparkling Beer!

Famiglia Casadei is a family-led group of estates located across Tuscany and Sardinia, united by a shared vision of terroir-driven winemaking and sustainability. From Chianti Rufina to Alta Maremma, Sardinia and the Casentino, each estate reflects its own landscape and microclimate. The family’s philosophy, known as Bio Integrale®, goes beyond organic farming to embrace biodiversity, ethical agriculture, and long-term environmental balance. New approaches are found through projects such as Le Anfore di Elena Casadei, exploring amphora fermentation as a contemporary cultural expression. A recent tasting in London showcased a selection of wines from three of their estates, including some of the amphora wines.

Multi-award winning Artelium is a wine estate based in East and West Sussex with two vineyards, one on clay soils and the other on pure chalk. Founded by Julie Bretland and Mark Collins, they began the project in 2014, planting the vineyards four years later and there are now around 27 hectares of vines. In 2022, they moved into their own winery and throughout their journey have been working with José Quintana, head winemaker at London urban winery, Vagabond. Artelium's latest wine is the Artelium x Vagabond Nature Series Cuvée 2019, a collaboration between the two wineries and Kent-born artist, Sam Hodge, that showcases the connections between nature, wine and art.

Emilia-Romagna is an administrative region in Northern Italy comprising Romagna (including Ravenna and Rimini) in the east and Emilia (including Parma, Modena and Bologna) in the central/western part. One of the oldest wineries in Romagna is Ronchi di Castelluccio, about 50km south-east of Bologna. The estate, located in the Modigliana hills in the district of Forlì-Cesena, covers around 30 hectares, and protrudes, like a happy secret just revealed, from the surrounding fog-blanketed lowlands and nearby Adriatic. Vineyards in this hilly, wooded territory near the Tuscan border, around 30km away from the Adriatic coast, lie at an altitude of 250 to 500 metres above sea level.

The Pacific Northwest is a stunning region of mountains, forests, beaches, breathtaking views and so much more, including many vineyards. The area comprises Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia, along with parts of southeast Alaska and western Montana. The region will be of interest to anyone who loves wines of volcanic origin, as a combination of volcanic activity and ice age floods created the basalt-rich, diverse soils in much of eastern Washington and northern Oregon. A few weeks ago, a new wine, food and travel event, focusing on the Pacific Northwest took place in central London and three wines stood out.

Non-alcoholic wine is a tricky category. Tricky, because it's difficult to get right and also because the market for it isn't that clear. Gen-X, Y, Z, millennials, anyone who wants to give up alcohol or go zebra-striping on a night out, regular wine drinkers or non-wine drinkers …? So are we any closer to finding the holy grail of flavour, texture and wine-like character in the alcohol-free sector? Well, Roberto Vanin, founder and wine maker at BOLLE Drinks, thinks that the gap is narrowing.

Italy is a great source of volcanic wines. While Sicily and Campania might immediately spring to mind, there are areas of volcanic soil many miles away from Etna and Vesuvius. In the North, the Veneto region is also home to ancient soils formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago. One of these wineries is Cavazza, founded in 1928 in Montebello Vicentino, a town located between the commune of Soave and the city of Vicenza.

Umbria is known as the 'Green Heart of Italy'. The only landlocked region in the central part of the country, Umbria borders Tuscany, Le Marche and Lazio. With Rome to the south and Rimini to the north, it's an area full of forests olive groves, medieval towns and scenic hilltop views.

In the UK market, Orvieto, a full-bodied white wine based on Grechetto and Trebbiano Toscano, has had some success over the years, but other native and international grapes shine brightly too. One winery combining Umbrian tradition and modern thinking is Madrevite.

At a time when hazy, tropical fruit bombs and bitter, hop-heavy brews are everywhere, is there a place for traditional beers that fly in the face of craft beer's excesses? Well yes, for exactly those reasons. Although real ale hasn't completely shed its image as an 'old man's drink', there are some encouraging signs that it may be reaching out to a new audience. CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) reports a 10% increase in cask ale brewed by Britain's independent brewers, with darker beers increasingly popular. However, only 16% of 18-24 year-old beer consumers drink cask ale, so there's still much work to be done. Many modern drinkers are seeking lower-strength, lighter, more sessionable beers and Mild is one category that could potentially help fill that gap.

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, covering over 25,000km². Most of the island is hilly or mountainous, with only 14.1% flat land. Due to a Mediterranean climate of hot summers and mild, wet winters with a large diurnal range, plus mineral-rich soils, Sicily is blessed with excellent conditions for grape growing. Its rich wine heritage dates back 2,600 years with the ancient Greeks giving the island the nickname of Oenotria. More recently, the wines of Etna in the east of Sicily, made from indigenous grapes grown on the slopes of the volcano, have gained increasing international recognition. You can read an extensive report about viticulture on Etna on The Write Taste. However, there's much more to the island's wine culture, as demonstrated perfectly at this year's Sicilia En Primeur

What better excuse to visit an English vineyard than English Wine Week, which this year took place from 21^st to 29^th June? With the sun playing hide-and-seek before blazing mercilessly across the country's vineyards, multi-award winning Hampshire's Hattingley Valley opened its doors for a tour, tasting and insight into its uniquely English story.

Kent may be the garden of England, but perhaps it's the cradle of ambition too. Whether Chapel Down, Gusbourne, Balfour, Domaine Evremond or others, there's no shortage of wineries with big ambitions. However, perhaps the biggest player coming is one that has been shouting the quietest … so far … It's Silverhand Estate.

It's not as if the Languedoc is unknown, but as a region, it's not always on the average wine drinker's radar. So what better way to promote these wines than an über-cool 😎 tasting with chilled jazz, a manageable number of wines, delicious food, three mini sensory experiences and, if the weather had been better, great views of the London skyline!