City Connect celebrates the birthday of American actress Winona Ryder who was born on this day in 1971.
Biography
Winona Ryder made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder’s first [...]
Author Archive for Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis is a wine writer and educator from Cambridge with a particular interest in Austria and France. His comments have been published on JancisRobinson.com, Local Wine Events, as well as in the local press in his hometown of Cambridge, UK. When it comes to buying wine, Tom’s philosophy is to buy as close as possible to where it comes from. He writes a regular blog, the Cambridge Wine Blogger which launched in 2009 and is a presenter for the Cambridge Food and Wine Society. To read more of Tom’s work, please check out cambridgewineblogger.blogspot.com
Wine of the Month – May 2013
Named after the Greek goddess Maia, May is the month when spring turns into summer – or should do, at least. With two bank holidays in the month, opportunities for leisurely eating outside should be plentiful – and in case we get the inevitable bank holiday wash-out, there are also some reds. This month, we also [...]
A Most Particular Taste: Haut-Brion 350 Years Celebration Dinner
On April 10th 1663, diarist, Cambridge-graduate and upwardly-mobile man-about-town, Samuel Pepys wrote to have “drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryen that hath a good and most particular taste I never met with”, thereby inventing the tasting note. Haut-Brion, the only Bordeaux first growth based outside the Medoc, was purchased in 1935 by US [...]
Two Wines from Dopff & Irion, Alsace
Dopff & Irion is based in the beautiful village of Riquewihr in Franco-Germanic Alsace; the vineyards are now four estates, created by René Dopff in 1945: Les Murailles, Les Sorcières, Les Maquisards and Les Amandiers, each with a single variety planted. The domaine sent me two wines to review: they make an oddly sensuous / nervy [...]
Ramon Bilbao Dinner at Cambridge Hotel du Vin
It’s not often you get to try a completely new appellation of wine – the Ramon Bilbao NV Mar de Frades Albariño Rías Baixas Brut Nature, the first-ever sparkling Albarino from Rias Baxas, was presented by Carlos Delage at Cambridge Hotel du Vin at a Ramon Bilbao dinner. Over canapes in the Hotel’s Library room, [...]
Wine of the Month – April 2013
April is the first full month of spring – a time when the grapes for this year’s wine will start to burst as buds on the vines. It is also the month of Earth Day, St George’s Day and the London marathon, so take your pick. Also, April Fools Day and the cruellest month, according [...]
La Cave des Vignerons de Pfaffenheim – Alsace
Dating back to 1957, La Cave des Vignerons de Pfaffenheim is a co-operative of 230 growers based in the sunnier, warmer part of southern Alsace that typically produces riper, fuller wines. Alsace, with its Germanic heritage, generally produces single-variety wines labelled as such – these two wines, however, are blends with generic names. Priced as everyday [...]
Wine of the Month – March 2013
Also on Cambridge Wine Blogger. With a name taken from the Roman god of war, March is neither quite the depths of winter nor properly spring. Chilly, rather than frosty, it is said to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. February’s snowdrops have given way to early-flowering daffodils and the [...]
Wine of the Month – February 2013
Wine of the Month took a de-tox break in January, but with those New Year’s Resolutions now merely a distant memory and half a drinks cabinet of various whiskies from Burns Night waiting to be finished off, it’s time to turn our thoughts to February and Valentine’s Day. Call me old-fashioned but I think wines [...]
Wine of the Month – December
Christmas has its origins as a midwinter festival – a time of communal celebration and feasting to mark the half-way point in the winter calendar. It’s surely no coincidence that both the Gregorian calendar and the Christian church follow pagan customs in marking out mid-winter as a notable time. In these days of central heating, [...]
Wine of the Month – November (And a Wine to Drink Out)
This article also appears on CambridgeWineBlogger On the cusp of autumn and winter, November is a month for warming spicy reds, maybe still with a bit of autumnal mellow fruitfulness. Bright days after clear nights bring misty mornings with a watery sun hanging low in the sky, golden russet hues and the season for gamey [...]
Wine of The Month – October 2012
In a recent post, Will Lowe says that the start of autumn is marked by one’s first opening of a Châteauneuf-du-Pape . I think this is spot-on and as the evenings get darker, the weather more blustery and the leaves russet and golden, the idea of a wine with more southern warmth and spice becomes [...]
Wine of the Month – September
After an August break during which the CWB household travelled to Burgundy and the south of France, we returned to a cold, wet and miserable late British “summer”. Now, with the schools just back, that seems like a distant memory with temperatures rising and a barbecue Indian Summer in the offing. It’s hard to know [...]
Wine of the Month – July (and a Pie on the Side)
Now that Wine of the Month is into its second year, I thought it might be interesting to start mixing things up a little by adding a matching food element – and a competition. Whilst Cambridge may still not be a great dining-out city (due in part to the large numbers of tourists we get who [...]
Joseph Barnes Wines at Cambridge Food and Wine Society
The Languedoc, according Charles Hardcastle of Joseph Barnes Wines, is a rustic, peasanty land with an ancient and bloody history – a land of impenetrable dialects, heresy and repression. The strange, earthy character of the region is also reflected in the wines, which tend towards an expressively rustic, spicy charm. Add to this Charles’ natural [...]
Tour de Belfort: The Challenge (and an offer)
The other week, I met Muriel Lismonde who, with her family, runs Tour de Belfort, a start-up winery in Cahors. The Background The project started when Muriel’s father sold the his Paris-based business and used the proceeds to buy a ruin and some land in the village of Quercy. I get the sense this must [...]
Wirra Wirra The 12th Man Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills
This Wirra Wirra The 12th Man Chardonnay hails from the Adelaide Hills in Australia and is aged in French oak. Australia was the first country to give us big, ripe, buttery Chardonnay – a style that spread across the (New) World only to be usurped in a backlash against oak first by pungent kiwi Sauvignon [...]
Wine of the Month – June
Congratulations And jubilations I want the world to know I’m happy as can be “Congratulations” Cliff Richard (1968) June is a month of multiple celebrations – the Diamond Jubilee, an extra day off work. Plus Wine of the Month is one year old. And who knows, after the wettest drought on record, the current heatwave [...]
Villa Maria Pinot Noir
If New Zealand’s Villa Maria is the John Lewis of wine, always dependable and well-made in a middle-class, slightly expensive sort of way, and Pinot Noir is the Alfa Romeo of grapes, capable of greatness and disappointment in equal measure, what then to make of a pair of Villa Maria Pinots ? For some, good, reliable [...]
Wine of The Month – May
April showers bring forth May flowers English proverb The weather so far in May has been mixed to say the least with the wettest drought any of us can remember and any occasional sunny days being distinctly chilly. So, this month’s recommended wines from our local independents are an appropriately varied mixture. La Fornace Gavi [...]
Limoncello at Cambridge Food and Wine Society (with La Dante)
After I arranged a tasting of Italian wines for La Dante in Cambridge last year, Giulia Portuese-Williams, who runs the centre, suggested we do a joint event together with the Cambridge Food and Wine Society. When, shortly afterwards, I made contact with Steve Turvill who runs Limoncello on Mill Road, everything fell into place and [...]
Let’s Go Punting
A list of the Top 3 Things To Do on a visit to Cambridge would probably include looking round King’s College chapel, seeing The Backs and going punting. Having lived in Cambridge for over a decade now, I occasionally find myself becoming rather blase about the city’s charms – before a trip to the historic [...]
Hedonist Wines at Cambridge Food and Wine Society
I first came across Hedonist Wines when owner Anthony Jenkins got in touch after reading an article of mine in the local press in Cambridge. We exchanged emails and I agreed to review a couple of his wines and was reasonably impressed, so I later arranged for him to give a presentation to the Cambridge [...]
Noel Young Wines at Annual Austrian Tasting
At the Annual Tasting of Austrian Wines in London last month, I caught up with Noel Young and tasted my way through the wines he had on show from various producers. Wieninger Based in Vienna, Fritz Wieninger cultivates 33ha of vines on either side of the river Danube – for 2011, conditions were warmer after [...]
Wine of the Month – April
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). The Waste Land. 1922 These days, I measure the time since I studied TS [...]
Wines from Turkey, India, Greece and Georgia at Laithwaites
Earlier this week, I went to a tasting of wines from Turkey, India, Greece and Georgia at Laithwaites‘ HQ, Vinopolis. In a game of word association, say “Laithwaites” and I will generally think of ripe, fruity, unchallenging wines that are usually overpriced and oversold – I wrote as much in a post last year On [...]
A Sunday Morning in Saffron Walden
Last weekend, I took #2 child on a Boys’ Trip out down to the genteel market town of Saffron Walden, which lies just 15 miles or a half-hour’s drive south of Cambridge. One of the unfortunate things about Cambridge is that, although very beautiful indeed, it is a rather tiny city, surrounded by rather dull [...]
Style
Hot Furnishings in Cool Pastels
Pastels are making a comeback this season, so buying new home furnishings or decoration in these cool colours will add some hot style to your home and update the look of your [...]
Relationships
Brush Away Those Singleton Blues
With the sudden dip of temperature causing us to dust the cobwebs from our hats, gloves and scarves, Winter is definitely here! For most people, thoughts turn to the planning of impending significant family occasions [...]
