Bottle Juice

Consumers are keen to see government plans for calorie labels on wine become legislation as calorie counting becomes an increasingly important factor in the wine buying process. Speaking during a seminar at the London International Wine Fair at ExCel yesterday, Johnnie Forsyth, senior drinks analyst for global market research group Mintel, explained: "Health has become more of a priority in the past few years with calories now at the forefront of the consumer decision making process, and wine is no longer exempt."

• Topics: International Wine Fair, Mintel, Excel
• JancisRobinson.com: Giving thanks for John Avery MW (Don't quote me)
• Organic Wine Journal: Those rival natural wine fairs - Jancis Robinson

Thorn-Clarke Wines Shiraz has wowed judges at the 2013 International Wine Challenge in London. The 2010 William Randell Shiraz has been award the trophy for Best Australian Shiraz and Best Barossa Shiraz. Senior winemaker of Thorn-Clarke Wines Helen McCarthy said it was a fantastic feeling to be awarded two international trophies.

• Topics: Shiraz, Helen McCarthy, 2010, Barossa Valley
• New Wines from Berry Bros. & Rudd: Berrys' New World Selection
• Berrys' Wine Blog: Penfolds Bin Series
• Natalie MacLean: Southern Ontario Sommelier Alliance Picks Best Ontario Wines
• The Naked Vine: Wine Advice for the Rest of Us.™: Mod Ozzfest 2013 - A New Year's Taste of Australia
• My Wine Education: Wines That Go with Grilling Season
• Through The Walla Walla Grape Vine™: A Rocky Start: Proper Wines

In Vintners' Hall in London last night, at a dinner for the great and good of the international wine trade, I had the great pleasure of proposing the health of the Vintners' Company on its 650th anniversary. I had to adjust my speech at the last minute because of receiving news that the total.

• Topics: Vintners, Company, Hall
• napaman.com: 2011 Napa Valley Premiere Auction - Highest proceeds ever, $2,366,000!
• Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog: The West of the West Wine Fest: Reality Over Fantasy
• My Wine Education: 2012 Wine Festival Preview!
• Purple Liquid: a wine and food diary: In vino veritas: wine grapes are an early warning system for the effects of climate change
• Winery & Vineyard Blog: Vintners' Festival Photos
• Luscious Lushes: It's that time again!

One of the best Dad's Army wheezes of the British home guard in the phoney war which later went postal, was to jumble up the sign posts on country lanes in England so that when the panzers rolled up the road to London, they'd end up in Middle Wallop. SA vinous terroir is very Mom's [...]

• Topics: England, Army, Neil Pendock, Dad
• Daily Wine News: Central vineyards pinot powerhouse
• Benito's Wine Reviews: Civil War Wine Reviews
• Willamette Valley Vineyards: To all those that have served and continue to serve, THANK YOU!
• St. Louis Eats and Drinks With Joe and Ann Pollack: Shadowlands

Wine professionals in London have a choice of two wine fairs to visit today: the first day of the London International Wine Fair at Excel exhibition centre in London's Docklands (on a Monday rather than a Tuesday for the first time) and the second and final day of the RAW wine fair, on which I.

• Topics: International Wine Fair, I., Excel, Docklands
• Sommelier - Harpers.co.uk: At Your Service winners announced at Harpers Awards
• Diner's Journal: Can You Recommend a Few Nice Cocktails That Use the Same Spirits?
• CellarBlog: Virginia Wine Board Sponsors Circle of Wine Writers Holiday Party
• Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog: The Threat and Shame of Natural Wine
• Cortes de Cima: Ageing an Alentejan
• élevage: Frascati from Conte Jacopo

…croissant and a listen to the Archers omnibus today. Instead I'm heading to that London and the RAW Fair (open Sunday 19th and Monday 20th May 2013). Natural wines all the way today and, I daresay, quite a few of the orange variety. These are white wines made in a red wine style with extended skin contact to garner that extra colour, aroma and concentration. Some can be sensational. Others more akin to cider in aroma and flavour. With luck a few of the former, as delicious as …

• Topics: Wine, Slovenia, Orange Wine, Vineyard, Archers
• Natalie MacLean: Southern Ontario Sommelier Alliance Picks Best Ontario Wines
• Catavino: Portuguese Wine Pack to Entertain Family without Breaking the Bank
• Wine Peeps: Best of 2012 in Washington Wine Country
• The Wine Economist: Extreme Wine South Africa: The International Connection
• East Coast Wineries: NY DRINKS NY SPECIAL REPORT - KEUKA LAKE VINEYARDS
• STEVE HEIMOFF| WINE BLOG: What I'm reading

Having worked in restaurants in Dubai, Barbados and South Africa, London is now home for Frederick Forster, who has been heading up Boundary Restaurant, in Terence Conran's boutique hotel in East London, since the end of 2012. He has worked with Michelin-starred chefs including Raymond Blanc, Gordon Ramsay, Thomas Keller and Pierre Gagnaire and in 2011 was announced Craft Guild National Chef of the Year.

• Topics: Raymond Blanc, Pierre Gagnaire, Thomas Keller, Barbados, Michelin-starred
• Sommelier - Harpers.co.uk: Restaurant and bar openings
• Off The Presses: Drinking History
• East Coast Wineries: The Best Books on East Coast Wine
• tokyo through the drinking glass: Talking with Chefs: Isaac Mchale and James Lowe of the Young Turks
• JancisRobinson.com: Some of South Africa's best (Tasting articles)

Aperitivo is an Italian ritual that originated in Milan. It sees friends and family unwind together in the early evening with a cocktail and a few nibbles, or cicchetti. As more and more restaurants and bars in the capital start to offer Italian-style post-work cocktails and snacks, aperitivo has gradually found its way into the London lexicon. If you're planning to go continental this summer, here are our picks of the best restaurants and bars offering the aperitivo experience.

• Topics: Milan, Aperitivo
• Off The Presses: Take Two Before Dinner and Thank Me in the Morning
• The Passionate Foodie: Thursday Sips & Nibbles
• On the Wine Trail in Italy: A Tale of Two Italian Wine Dinners.
• Sommelier - Harpers.co.uk: Mariano Braga - sommelier based in Buenos Aires
• Wine Fever - enjoying wine is a way of life: Reinvention
• spume: Italy Pics, Part 1

…Doctor -- or else a heated competition is going on right now between the greatest wigmakers of London.

So - having not yet watched an advance copy of "The Name of the Doctor" (and not even knowing as yet if one will be made available) - I'm going to make my prediction: Clara is the Doctor from the future. We're getting a surprise regeneration this weekend. Count on it. You can check back here this weekend for either my groveling admission that I was wrong, or - much …

• Topics: Doctor, BBC, Smith, DVDs, Christmas
• Benito's Wine Reviews: Riesling in Spring
• Wine.Woot: The Secret of El Arenque Rojo, Chapter 4: The Fifth World Rises
• Reign of Terroir: California Dreamin', Part II
• 1 Wine Dude: Mission: Mendoza - How Well Does Malbec Age? (Guest Post)
• On the Wine Trail in Italy: Here Today, Gone Tonnato
• Off The Presses: Scenes from the Manhattan Cocktail Classic Gala

…It had been a brief but somewhat hectic stay, an unexpected detour during my three-week sojourn in London. I flew back to Tokyo full of stories and delirious from a lack of sleep. A little over a week later, I got on a plane and turned right back around again. This is my life recently.

I fell asleep last night -- by which I mean technically this morning -- in a huff, squeezed into the middle seat of the middle row of a ridiculously packed flight from Tokyo to Paris. JAL had enraged me. …

• Topics: Paris, Tokyo, Sea, Germans, Spaniards
• Chocolate & Zucchini: Onigiri
• jgr images: Isse - Paris
• On the Wine Trail in Italy: Natty Wine and Nasty Cops: April in Paris
• Caveman Wines: Wine Business, Wine PR, Wine Public Relations, Wine Marketing: ‘The Judgment of Paris Revisited' at Napa Valley Museum
• Drinks Are On Me: Champagne Campaign, Day 108: Flute Bar Is The Greatest Place On Earth
• Slate Articles: The Bewildering Art of the Air Kiss