There's a new wave of English and Welsh wine producers disrupting the neat and tidy order of the classic UK wine scene. Guerrilla producers - cool kids who aren't afraid to go off-piste and craft dangerous, divisive wines packed full of quirks and kinks. Their attitude? It's better to be naughty than nice. As one winemaker says - he wants to make, 'wines with a cheeky smile.' In this wide-ranging episode we dive headlong into this world of creativity, experimentation and free thinking. Our journey takes us from wines made under a London railway arch to sheep savaging vines in a Welsh hillside ..read more

Not many wines ascend to the status of 'icon'. But Sassicaia is one of them. The beauty is that it's not a flashy wine - quite the opposite ('old school' might be a more appropriate description). What's more, its ascent to the wine stratosphere is largely accidental - this scented, elegant Bordeaux blend from Bolgheri in coastal Tuscany was only ever intended as a quaffing wine for friends and family on the Tenuta San Guido estate, a farm initially dedicated to breeding horses, growing crops and a wildlife reserve. How times change. In this episode, we peek behind the scenes of Sassicaia, as ..read more

It's called 'The Grenaissance'. This exhilarating revival of the grape variety known as Garnacha in Spain and Grenache in France, once the world's fourth most widely planted wine grape, which has gone from workhorse to show pony in the blink of an eye. How come? What's changed? Who's leading the charge and fuelling the new wave? And what's this we hear about inherent suitability vis a vis climate change?! We ask all these questions and more, focusing on the epicentre of Grenache renaissance: Spain. We hear from leading Spanish wine lights Sara Perez, Fernando Mora, Alvaro Palacios and Norrel ..read more

So - orange wine. Is it any good? What qualifies a wine to be 'orange'? Does it sell? And who's going to win our argument about one particularly divisive orange wine?! Dive into the controversial, topical and intriguing subject of orange wine with us as we chat with Saša Radikon of iconic orange wine producer Radikon (who gives us an exclusive revelation about a new project) and nautral wine guru Doug Wregg of Les Caves de Pyrene. We taste (and largely disagree about) orange wines from Mlečnik, Vagabond and Dario Prinčič. Peter also gets very excited about his, 'lamb litmus test'. This is th ..read more

'Please can you do an episode on orange wine?' pleaded listener David. 'It's not just hipster wine! These are some of the finest wines in the world...' How could we resist? Orange wine is topical, misunderstood, controversial... It's also an intriguing story featuring a wine style lost in the mists of time being painstakingly resurrected by a handful of brave pioneers in the face of stiff opposition. So we leap headlong into this arena, asking the all-important questions like: what even IS orange wine? Where did it come from? Why is it misunderstood and controversial? How does it relate t ..read more

Wine. Food. Merriment. And a touch of southern French sun. That just about sums up this episode. We're exploring Occitanie - the sun-kissed southern French region that stretches from the western Rhone through Languedoc and Roussillon into South West France. Taken as a whole, it's the world's largest vineyard and makes around 5% of global wine output. In the past, these regions have been criticised for focusing on quantity over quality and being out of touch with the modern wine world. But things have changed significantly in recent decades, as the vineyard has been drastically shrunk and ..read more

Our Wines of the Year format has grown into this riotous, rollicking rollercoaster of a show which we humbly offer up for your amusement and delectation. This is no shopping list. Nor is it a chest-beating exercise in showing off how #wineblessed we are. This episode is the story of a year in wine: a celebration of special bottles and special times, set against the backdrop of news, views and a lot of laughter. Featuring in this wine-soaked adventure are Dutch nuns, kiwis, Homer Simpson, talking corks, Susie in a balloon suit, gravy, Nigel the dog, a broom-brandishing Greek grandmother, Je ..read more

Odessa Black. It's the name of a (Ukranian) grape variety. But it could almost be code for the desperate times the people of Ukraine are living through. In this episode, we explore the history and current context of Ukraine, hearing first-hand insights from Tania Olevska of the Ukrainian Wine Company and Svitlana Tsybak of the Beykush winery. Despite the chaos and devastation in Ukraine, wine represents a point of hope, an expression of Ukrainian culture, terroir, identity and resilience. Although what is Europe's second largest country has a long relationship with the vine, quality wine i ..read more

Languedoc is a wine region on the move. Sure, it's a huge region with plenty of history, some of it troubled. But there are things happening in Languedoc wine now that are innovative, surprising, intriguing and...well, delicious.  In short, it's well worthy of our attention. In this episode, sponsored by AOP Languedoc, we chat to writers Rupert Millar and Rosemary George MW, and we also hear from wine growers Benoît Bertrand (Domaine de Malavieille) and Jenia Vermillard (Domaine Ampelhus). We hear of ambitious attempts to revive long lost grape varieties from the verge of extinction ..read more

We're going full-on Moses mode in this episode, nailing down the ten wines you should always have at home. Of course, personal taste plays a part. You want to have wines to hand you're going to reach for - which means your favourite styles. But beyond that, it helps to have some expert insight into the bigger picture in order to always have delicious, affordable and useful wines when you need them. Our primary objective is joyous everyday drinking. But also: what works best with food, versatile wines to serve guests, give as gifts, wines that get better over time if you buy a few, ideal wi ..read more