James Bercovici - The Big Red Wine Company

Being British, I am obliged to comment on the Provencal weather this summer. Mostly hot with the occasional Mistral wind and, a few weeks ago, a threatened storm which yielded some highly unusual clouds, identified by a friend’s meteorologically talented daughter (moments before o ne of my own clever clogs) as being of the mammatus variety, these being, in effect, upside down clouds which, said expert explained occur when   the cold, moist poc kets of air sink rather than rise. Pic included of clouds over neighbouring property (would you believe me if I said it was sunny over us? No?).   What I ca n ’t give you a picture of bec ause (a) it hasn’t properly occurred this year yet (a brief flirtatio n last night but that’s all so far) and (b) my technological wizardry has yet to master how to tak e a still image of a (literally) flying circus, is tonight’s extravaganza of shooting stars, known as   Per séide s . (Some of you will, by now, have figured where this is going.) T...

I would like explicitly to invite you to post comments in response to this or any other post on this blog. You must have opinions which are more relevant than mine about some of the things I come up with and I  would  really like to read them. Anyway, a vaguely Middle Eastern barbecued chicken meal was planned for a few days ago so we thought we should make a couscous to go with it. The kettle boiled and hot water stirred into the couscous before we realised we had no harissa in the house and, frankly, I wouldn't go into our local town for a tin of harissa at the best of times so that wasn't going to happen. An alternative had to be thought up and fast. The good side of the internet is the sharing of recipes and tips on cooking, DIY, fixing lawnmowers and all sorts. OK, so not all the tips are good but you quickly recognise which sites are not going to offer anything credible. We combined a couple of recipes to come up with the following harissa which was fresher and tast...

A couple of weeks ago, I dropped off a box of wines at the London office of Jancis Robinson MW, affectionately known in the trade as HRH (she is charming, gracious and knows her stuff!). Earlier this week, I received an email telling me, 'Like the Juvenal white' and, after a few more email exchanges to get photos etc to her, it transpired she was going to make this her Wine of the Week . Them, a couple of days ago, another email asking for some more information about the red wines which were also in the box. Today, with reviews of all four wines posted on her website ( jancisrobinson.com , well worth the subscription for all serious wine enthusiasts), her WoW review is published and includes all the wines. A coup for Juvenal indeed! Here it is (published with permission): Château Juvenal is a name that is new to me. The Forestiers bought the property in 2001 and in 2011 joined forces with local vignerons the Alban family, who had until then delivered their grapes to the ...