This isn't a blog, just a collection of some of the drink-related things (good and bad) I've been looking at recently.

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17/12/09
Piemonte in the mist
This is a vineyard in Piemonte taken at dusk in late November. Nebbia is the Italian word for mist, and the word from which the nebbiolo grape takes its name. The small valleys around Alba were filled with swirling clouds so that it looked as if a particularly frothy tide had come in.

11/11/09

Class Awards

Last night I went to the Class Magazine 2009 awards. The ceremony was an amazing spectacle. Simon Difford had arranged for a place in Borough Market to be kitted out like an East End boxing hall complete with boxing ring and ring card girls. It was packed, it was noisy, there were rattles and shouting and fierce spotlights coming down from the balconies - and the winner and runner-up in each category had to put on a boxing robe and go into the ring to get their award. I was thrilled to pick up Best Drink Writer for my book How to Drink. Not quite so thrilled to step into the ring - but it was worth it.

10/10/09
A gorgeous Asian salad with sticky chicken
Guardian readers give me a lot of stick for some of the food I mention in my wine column. The last email I had called it 'outlandish.' It makes me wonder what they eat. Anyway, here is a picture of one of the apparently weird dinners. The colourful pile of vegetables is a coleslaw of carrot, red cabbage and spring onion, sluiced in a dressing made with peanut butter, pickled ginger and the sweet-sour of sugar and lemon juice. On top of it are chicken thighs marinaded in hoisin and hot chilli sauce (Nando's, actually), then roasted in a hot oven. This dinner was drunk with an auslese German riesling whose acidity and sweetness matched that of the food.

28/09/09

Trying to drink less alcohol

I am trying not to drink quite so much alcohol. This is proving easier than I thought - I coasted through two nights in the pub last week on nothing more intoxicating than pints of lime and soda, as well as a third night in on Yorkshire Tea for hard water. There would have been a fourth alcohol-free day if I hadn't been to a Wine Society tasting (some lovely stuff there). Even when you're spitting you know your liver is still getting some of it. By coincidence last week the Guardian asked me to write a short piece (to go with a news story that appears in today's paper) on the taste of low alcohol or dealcoholised wines. I called a couple of dozen in and ploughed through them one morning. The best I could say about any of them was that they were the best of a bad bunch. It says a lot that even as I am trying to drink less, it didn't even occur to me to keep some of the wines back for a glass to go with dinner. They all went straight down the sink, no hesitation. I love wine. But I love wine because it tastes interesting and its taste pleases me. If I'm trying not to drink alcohol there are a million things I'd go for - a Bramley apple juice sharpener, perhaps diluted with fizzy water; oolong tea; a virgin Mary; tap water - before so much as considering dealcoholised wine. Not everyone agrees with me though. I've had an email from John Risby, managing director of The Alcohol Free Shop in Manchester. He's sending me some samples that he promises will be better than the supermarket versions I have tried. Once they arrive, I'll let you know....