The Aperitif Guy

This week, France celebrates its national feast. Bastille Day (usually known simply as le quatorze juillet in French) marks the storming of the hated prison in Paris, a key moment in the beginning of the Revolution. The events of 1789 did not remove the King - that would come later - and France would know more troubles yet, including new tyrants and further revolutions. However, the events of that 14th July capture the imagination and fire a people's love of their country like no other date in its history. France gets under your skin. The language has a musicality about it; it feels wonderful in the mouth. You can say things a variety of ways, but the elegantly-constructed sentence will always draw praise. Education is prized for its own sake, not just as a means to a job. Manners are greatly appreciated, and formality is valued. The pace of life is different, and that's as true in the big cities as it is in the rural areas. Friends call in on one another in the early evening,...

"Strawberries, cherries and an angel's kiss in spring: My summer wine is really made from all these things..." So sang Nancy Sinatra in Lee Hazelwood's magnificently weird tale of seduction and theft. We are indeed in the season of soft fruits and osculation, but I prefer my summer when it tastes of well-tended vines in good soil and sunshine. Call me unadventurous if you must. Summer leisure is all about sitting out in the sunshine, watching the cricket, tennis or even the boating. It's about picnics, evenings in the garden, open-air theatre and opera; music festivals, barbecues and skinny-dipping. To my mind, the wines we drink need to reflect the colour, the joy and the lightness of the warm months. There are certain wines that just feel right. On the other hand, there are some wines that, however popular, never seem to fit for me. We all have our preferences, and I'd like to share mine. I hope you enjoy my suggestions. Rosé Wine that matches the colour of ...

Although the British have been importing wines, off and on, from the time of the Roman Empire, wine drinking has been the preserve of the wealthy for much of that history. From the late 1970s, a number of wine merchants set out to change that, first by introducing sweeter, German wines, then fruity New World wines, until we were drinking so much that the UK is now the biggest importer of wines in the world. It's surprising, too, how quickly we have taken to wine growing. Historians will shout out that those Romans planted vines in the first century, but you wouldn't call it a significant industry, and it was more or less confined to the southern parts of what is now England. Today, more and more land is being cultivated for vines, as the English and Welsh discover what can be achieved with the right grape varieties and careful viticulture. Scotland and Northern Ireland have not yet produced wine on an economically viable scale. I've written about Welsh wines in the past ...

This week has seen St David's Day, a day of celebration in Wales and its diaspora. I created a couple of cocktails you might like, and the recipes can be found here: http://blog.theaperitifguy.co.uk/2019/03/two-new-cocktails-for-st-davids-day.html Ever since I was a child, I have been drawn to Wales. Not just to the land that lies a little way south-west of my native town, but to the very idea of Wales, of a country so different from my own that it is simultaneously both foreign and home. With this in mind, I organised a dinner last summer to celebrate the great food and drink produced there. The Beloved and I decided to take a roadtrip around the coast: part research and part holiday. Leigh with a selection of his produce Day 1 – wine and a beautiful dinner We had driven down to Chepstow to begin and stayed with an old university friend and her husband. Leigh was kind enough to take us out to see his property the following morning. He was very proud to poi...