Posted by peter | September 1st, 2010 (by Jo Pratt; intro by peter)
Culinary artiste Jo Pratt – the Winchester Wine School’s very favourite food person – is weaving her typical magic again with this gorgeous steak-and-salsa recipe.
This originally appeared in our August newsletter and makes for a great late summer recipe, whether you do it on the BBQ or in a pan.
To sign up to receive our free newsletter, which features Jo’s recipes as well as our top tips for the best wine bargains on the high street right now, please
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Posted by susie | August 12th, 2010 (by susie)
Do you like your holidays to be of the delicious variety?
Or perhaps you fancy re-living some gastro memories from recent times spent abroad?
Either way, I have a suggestion for you – which also works as a fine excuse to feature another fantastic Jo Pratt recipe, accompanied by my wine matching tips.
I’ve just done some work for a company called www.villarenters.com.
They wanted to promote some of their holiday properties on the basis of their gastronomic credentials – ie if
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Posted by peter | August 6th, 2010 (by peter)
Prior to my lunch date at Terroirs with Susie (plus dozing baby), I had been attending an event at the Royal College of Physicians in which the UK was described as being in the grip of a ‘raging epidemic’ attributable to alcohol, a substance branded ‘a corporate-borne disease like mosquitoes carry malaria’. (More of which scientific harrumphing you can read on my immediately preceding blog entitled ‘Corporate-borne disease’.)
Time for a drink, and a meditation
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Posted by peter | July 26th, 2010 (by peter & susie)
For those readers who think we’ve sunk into some sort of wine-soaked morass, or become wrapped up in newborn-baby bliss – think again.
While admitting that there is at least a grain of truth in both these charges – we have been busy on the wine front, and certainly revelling in the family fun – things have been as eventful as ever.
We’ve actually been taking advantage of this time to do some work under the radar (including quite a few tastings, which we’ll
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Posted by peter | July 20th, 2010 (by peter & susie)
The 2009 vintage in Beaujolais is currently being praised to the rafters.
One suspects this might have something to do with the general sense of shock among wine lovers at the unprecedented prices associated with the similarly lauded 2009 Bordeaux wines.
Just as Bordeaux has its en primeur campaign, Beaujolais used to have a canny marketing machine designed to shift lots of wines at an early stage in their existence. It was called Noveau and, for a while, proved to be a
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Posted by peter | July 15th, 2010 (by peter)
This was an extra special edition of Saturday Kitchen for us.
Not only was it the last live show of the season, showcasing the usual gastronomic fireworks. It also featured a very special announcement: that of the arrival of our new son, Thomas Frederick, born on 6th July.
They flashed up some photos of the little fella together with proud parents and James Martin kindly congratulated us on the news. So thanks to all the lovely people at Cactus Studios, as well as to James, for
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Posted by peter | July 13th, 2010 Here’s another utterly delectable recipe from the Winchester Wine School’s resident gastronomy guru Jo Pratt.
Jo has a brand new website – www.jopratt.co.uk – which is well worth a browse for more foodie fun.
And if you want to receive Jo’s recipes as part of our occasional newsletter, together with loads of brilliant wine bargains, sign up by clicking here.
Jo Pratt’s honey and cinnamon duck breast with lentil and pomegranate salad
Serves: 4
This is a simple summery recipe,
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Posted by peter | July 9th, 2010 (by peter & susie)
We’ve had some good news to celebrate this week, what with the new (and littlest) addition to the Winchester Wine School fraternity.
We wanted to wet the baby’s head with something suitably fizzy and delicious – and we turned to a bottle of Champagne Delamotte Blanc de Blancs NV.
This particular bottle had been sent in celebration of Delamotte’s 250th anniversary (making it the sixth oldest champagne house, apparently) by the kind people at
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Posted by peter | July 9th, 2010 (by peter)
It’s been a funny old week.
On Sunday, we were enjoying the carnival atmosphere of the Hat Fair in Winchester.
On Monday evening, we were in hospital – and by early Tuesday morning, we had a new son.
On Wednesday, I was off to film Saturday Kitchen. The Cactus team (step up, Andy Clarke) had been very understanding in the build up to this shoot, given there was some notable anxiety on our part about when the baby might come and the implications for whether the show would have a
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Posted by peter | June 20th, 2010 (by peter)
This week, as southern Britain basked in balmy sunshine, the Saturday Kitchen wine team went to the seaside.
And I, for some inexplicable reason, decided to wear a raincoat while more sensible souls lolled on the beach semi-naked.
You can check out the faintly absurd results on BBC iplayer for the next week or so. (The wine bits are at 16:20 and 56:37 minutes.)
Dodgy clothing choices aside, I’m glad to report the wines went down exceptionally well.
For Silvena Rowe’s
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