There is nothing the Italians love better than a good festival. They have a festival for everything; chocolate, olive oil, truffles, tomatoes, pizza – you name it, they have it. Throughout the year, each village or town will spend many months organising and planning its own extravaganza for everyone to enjoy.

The sense of community spirit is amazing, not only because everyone has a fabulous time, but often because these festivals raise a huge amount of revenue to support their local ...

There is great news for wine fans all over the world. Red wine has been credited with a number of miraculous health effects throughout history and now scientists have tied down some of the verifiable benefits of drinking it.

Firstly, red wine produces polyphenols, which protect against heart disease and clogged arteries. Scientists in Spain have studied the area in detail and decided that drinking wine, especially red wine, stops people developing colds. People drinking more than tw...

As the first frosts nip our green and pleasant land, each year autumn allows us the chance to gorge on British seasonal food at its best.

Summer strawberries and picnics in the park give way to October oysters and warming winter vegetables. Light sandwiches are sidelined in favour of hearty stews – food to stick in the ribs and send you out into the frost-bitten months.

These are the days of mega supermarkets where we can buy virtually any food at any time of the year. On the ...

As the wider general public prepare to fly away for a few well-earned days in the sun, studies have shown how ill-prepared the average traveller is for one of the most common vacation ventures; eating out.

“There’s local etiquette with a host of unspoken rules in almost every country you visit,” says Jonathan Cudworth of booking agent Expedia. “Because these differ so much from country to country… tourists are left confused and often compensate by over-spending.”

Exp...

Even if Italy and France produce the same amount of wine, many of Italy’s best bottles somehow get lost along the way. Too often critics talk about Pinot Grigio or Chianti without venturing beyond. There are hundreds of DOCs in Italy, and 36 top quality areas, known as DOCGs. When it comes to grape varieties, there are around 350 official varieties, and around 500 more unofficially.

Italy is really a country that rewards getting intimate with one area. Take a broad approach, and it i...

Australia sells more wine than any other country in the influential UK wine market. But that doesn’t mean that it enjoys the best reputation – its wine are frequently dismissed as being over-ripe, over-alcoholic and over-exposed.

And although Australia itself is well known, there is very little recognition of the individual wine regions in the country – in fact Barossa Valley in Australia was the least well-known major wine region in  a recent survey of 3,000 ...

India
The mighty sub-continent is a haven for veggies. With a massive 20-40 percent of Indians estimated to be vegetarian themselves, India claims the single biggest population of vegetarians in the world. Most food for sale in supermarkets is marked with special labelling to aid veggies’ selection and almost all restaurants serve delicious vegetarian food.

UK
The Brits have one of the most ad...

Chateau Haut Peyrous ‘Retour de Palombiere’ 2007, AOC Graves (approx £10)
Marc Darroze’s foodie credentials are pretty solid – the brother of Helene Darroze, Michelin-starred chef at the Connaught, and from a long line of chefs and restaurant owners. Marc has now been the owner of Chateau Haut Peyrous, in the Graves region of Bordeaux, since June 2008, and has just put his first white wines onto the market, with the 2008 red due later in...

We know instinctively that good wine should be about the convergence of the place that it comes from, and the person who lovingly tended the vines – but there is additionally a great drama behind many bottles, that may combine history, politics and geography in their creation, and that can add another layer of pleasure to sharing and drinking it.

In the spirit of this, I have selected some bottles with fascinating stories behind them, whether of hardship, innovation or history. T...

It’s easy to be cynical about over-hyped wines, particularly when they come from Bordeaux. The region has played ‘boy who cried wolf’ too many times to be taken seriously. Not enough sunshine to soften the wines? You can trust the Bordelais to describe it as a ‘classic’ vintage. Too much rain leading to diluted tastes? ‘Early drinking wines’. They have an answer for everything, and a reputation for putting the prices up to match.

But every once...

In February, when the sun is at its hottest in the Limpopo Valley, the Zulu tribes of the region fan out over a vast area to harvest the fruit of the wild-growing marula tree. Light yellow in colour when ripe, the fruit gives off a distinctive fragrance that is irresistible to the herds of elephants which have, since time immemorial, come to gorge on it at the height of the African summer. But first they have to shake it off the top-most branches, hence its unofficial title of the “elep...

The day I stop being excited by the prospect of a champagne tasting is the day that I give up this job… I am definitely in agreement with France’s 18th century gastronome, the mouth-fillingly named Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin, who said, ‘Burgundy makes you think of silly things; Bordeaux makes you talk about them, and champagne makes you do them.’

But if we are to believe the scare stories, we had better all take care to stock up on our favourite brands before...

One of the most enjoyable things about wine is how it can constantly surprise you. I have picked two regions here that have done that for me recently: one from the traditional region of Bordeaux, and another from the more obviously ‘modern’ Languedoc-Roussillon. One is emerging; the other is rediscovering its dynamism. One is all about Grenache, the other Cabernet Sauvignon.
Of all the different regions of Bordeaux, it is the Medoc that we think of as being the most traditio...

Caipirinha
Often overlooked in favour of the now ubiquitous Mojito, the Caipirinha comes across as a sweeter, more syrupy version of the Cuban classic. Just as Fidel Castro has seen fit to step down from the presidency, perhaps the Mojito will follow suit and relinquish its hold on world’s cocktail consumers.

50ml Rum
Lime into eighths
15ml Sugar syrup

Preparation:
Cut the lime into eight pieces. Muddle the li...