‘The Top 100 Restaurant Wine Lists’ is an indispensible guide.
We are building some links with some of our favourite websites on the food, wine
and travel front - not the giants, but small sites which we have found extremely
useful. These basically cover our interests in Wine, Food and Travel and we hope
that you will enjoy them, too.
Wine...
Jancis Robinson MW is one of Britain's leading wine writers and one of the very few
who will write about quality wines as opposed to the lowest common denominator wines
that you see on the supermarket shelves. There is a public section and a members'
section which is far more interesting, but you have to pay an annual subscription
of £69 to get into these "purple pages". Well worth it though, because to get extras
like an online access to her tasting notes and the latest edition of the Oxford Companion
to Wine, which she edits. There is also a lively Members Forum, where you can air
your views on anything to do with food and wine.
Probably the best blog in the UK - Jamie Goode's informative and authoritative writing
on wine gets better and better.
Nat Decants FREE Wine E-Newsletter Wine picks, articles and humour from Natalie MacLean,
named the World's Best Drink Writer at the World Food Media Awards in Australia.
Natalie is also the author of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine Soaked Journey
from Grape to Glass. For more details on this book and to sign up for the newsletter,
visit her site.
And, of course...
Have to confess an interest here - I am part of the publishing team! Their Wine Behind
The Label is now considered the definitive reference book for locating the best wine
producers around the world.
Food...
New website set up by food and wine matching guru Fiona Beckett. Like Jancis's site,
there is a free bit and a members bit, but membership is only £18 a year which is
probably worth it to find out everything you need to know about food and wine matching
and never dared to ask!
A new website set up to bring together some of the best producers of high quality
foods in the U.K. from whom you can buy online. Will this become the amazon.com of
food?
The old established link to Britain's best food producers founded by Henrietta Green.
You can't buy directly from the site but you are linked to hundreds of producers'
websites from whom you can buy direct.
Mario Wyn-Jones was formerly the chief inspector for Egon Ronay Guides. He now hosts
this website which gives advice on where to eat out in the UK and why and a regular
newsletter for anyone interested in food and eating out with guest contributors including
me!
Travel...
Imagine staying in an historic villa atop a hill in the Umbrian countryside - listening
to birdsong as you drink your morning coffee on the terrace, sipping an aperitivo
at dusk under a gazebo smothered in jasmine after coming out of the swimming pool,
and being looked after by warm, friendly hosts.
This is an eight bedroomed villa to rent in Umbria, near the Tuscan border, where
you are in the vicinity of an estimated 20% of the world's artistic heritage. Luckily
as well, you are in the vicinity of a number of great wineries you can visit, and
in fact, the villa is located right next door one of the best in Umbria, Poggio Bertaio.
Sonia and I have hosted wine tours in the area from this base and the property also
lends itself to organising a "cook-in", led by Sonia, with everyone participating
and learning. You don't have to take all eight bedrooms, but could join in with other
guests already staying there.
