Wino’s Favourites

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Many people have contacted me asking why it is so difficult to find recommendations on my site.  Sample quote, “I just wanted to find a decent red to take to a dinner party and I had to page through the whole bloody site!”

I am generally against rating wine because it is so subjective.  Who am I to judge whether you will like a wine or not?  However, I can judge whether I like a wine or not, so I use a binary rating scale.

1 = I like it
0 = I don’t like it

So I am not going to award 5 stars, or 90/100 points, or even a top ten.  But I have decided to start a favourites page where I will highlight wines that I tried recently and really liked.  Some food venues are also covered.  It is completely subjective and totally at my discretion how long an item stays in my “favourites” and demotion does not mean I no longer like it.  It’s just a fun way of sharing my thoughts, albeit somewhat randomly.

You can find Wino’s Favourites under “Pages” (see top right on the home page).

Any feedback is appreciated.

The cheesy barber of Barbaresco

Sunday, August 26th, 2007

I wanted Bresse Bleu but I just can’t find it in the UK, so I settled for second best, Cambozola, which is a German Cheese available at any supermarket.

For me, eating a German Blue “Brie” is just plain wrong.  It must be like eating a Dr Oetkers Pizza (you really are having a laugh – An Italian product, made in Germany and sold in England – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha).  I’ve never tried it but surely nobody buys that marketing line?  Have you seen the TV ad?  A loving couple on a first date sat on a suspension bridge in the open air at a fully set table, eating a pizza made in Germany, approximately 1.3 miles from the nearest oven.  I haven’t laughed so much since I found www.hugeurl.com – waging the war against brevity.

But sometimes we can’t always get what we want, so we have to settle for second best.  In my case I can’t afford a decent Barolo so I sampled a bottle of Langhe Nebbiolo de Forville Barbaresco 2005 as my second best.  After tasting the wine I guessed it was from a supermarket at about £4.99.  In fact, online, I found this wine at Majestic at a whopping £7.99.

 Langhe Nebbiolo next to a box of Honey & Nut Clusters (for some reason)

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