All Summaries for Wine Blast with Susie and Peter

This is a tale of deception, daring, disaster...and deliverance.It also features skinny sheep and wine robots.It's the story of Marlborough, the iconic New Zealand wine region which is celebrating its 50th wine birthday, after vines were planted by Frank Yukich in August 1973.Yukich had risked personal financial ruin getting to this point. 'Wines from here will become world famous!' he declared. Shortly after which most of the vines died from drought.But no adventure story is without its supreme setbacks. And this story features everything from the Queen to gut-rot via shiny tractors.On the wine front, it's sobering to think just how far Marlborough has come in 50 harvests, from a shaky start to sensational Sauvignon Blanc and much more besides. It's a region helping set the global agenda for the wine of the future - and a tribute to the imaginative, resilient Kiwi spirit.This is a sponsored episode in collaboration with New Zealand Winegrowers. We taste and recommend the following wines from Marlborough:Brancott Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2022Brancott Estate Chosen Rows Sauvignon Blanc 2015Hans Herzog Zweigelt 2017Hans Herzog Spirit of Marlborough 2016Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc 2022Greywacke Wild Sauvignon 2021Lawson's Dry Hills Reserve Chardonnay 2021Blank Canvas Reed Chardonnay 2022Villa Maria Seddon Pinot Gris 2020Wairau River Pinot Noir 2021We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website (link below).All details from this episode are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S5 E2: Marlborough at 50Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!

'My wife suggested we make wine. I think in the hope of cutting down our wine bill...'It's classic John Malkovich. The wit as dry as his aged Provençal Pinot Noir rosé (yes, you read that right). In this epic episode, we get to know John Malkovich the famous actor of stage and screen - but also John Malkovich the fashion designer, the theatre director, and most importantly John Malkovich the wine producer.This truly is a man for all seasons. But Malkovich seldom abides by convention - and his wine venture in the south of France, Les Quelles de La Coste, typifies this approach. He's planted atypical wine grape varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere - and (whisper it) Pinot Noir. He's even blending them together...For the wine classicists, this is nothing short of vinous heresy.So the big questions are: Is this just another cookie-cutter celeb wine project, or is it different? What are the wines actually like? Come to that, what's John Malkovich actually like? Join us as we pose the tricky questions, hear from the man himself and give our verdict on the wines.Along the way, John advises wine producers how best to launder money, defines what talent is, explains why he doesn't 'do' pride, identifies the greatest honour of his working life and tells a horror story of how he lost his 'spectacular' 2017 Cabernet. We also touch on topics as diverse as the Marquis de Sade, fabric collecting, beer chugging, 'boom boom' wines, the importance of details, and how making wine can break your heart.As the man says: 'I don't consider anything I do particularly provocative. It's just what I do. Which just seems to provoke people...'We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website (link below).All details from this episode are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S5 E1: The John Malkovich EXCLUSIVE.Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!Foot note: This episode, and the entire Season Five of Wine Blast, is dedicated to the memory of Phil Tuck MW.

This bonus episode may be the last in the current season (4) but it's also a first - the first time we've ever recorded the pod in front of a live audience!A lovely bunch of people came together in our home town of Winchester to drink a glass or two of fine Hampshire fizz and bombard us with searching questions, from which wines we'd recommend for a large and varied dinner party crowd to the implications of climate change for wine.They even asked us what were the most pretentious wine descriptions we'd ever used. I mean, the cheek of it...We also touched on issues ranging from 'sulfite-free' wine to no/low alcohol, our favourite Chardonnay and rosé, which are the best wine regions to visit, the rise of English wine, multi-vintage versus vintage sparkling wine - and what wines you should ALWAYS have at home.In our introduction we also feature some recent listener feedback from a Napa wine grower questioning how he should explain terroir to visitors to a professor on how microbes (yeasts) can influence a wine's mouthfeel.We also feature a plug for our sensational value charity sparkling wine - please click here if you'd like to buy a bottle or two of Hope & Glory to help us raise funds for the brilliant Marine Conservation Society.As for the live Q&A format, we could get used to it. You have been warned. Wine Blast on Tour may be coming to a speakeasy near you soon...All details from this episode are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S4 E25: LIVE Q&A (Winchester).Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!

This episode opens by linking Oppenheimer, Covid-19 and wine - and proceeds to go big by focusing on the small stuff.Microbes. The invisible world of yeasts, bacteria and beyond.We're just starting to understand how important microbes are in terms of defining wine style and quality. Sure, yeasts ferment grape sugars into alcohol. But they also do a whole lot more, as fascinating new research is revealing. Previously, many definitions of 'terroir' (what might be defined as a wine's 'sense of place' or perhaps 'distinctiveness') were limited to the role of soil and climate. If you were lucky, human influence garnered a passing mention.Now it's becoming clear that biology - and in particular microbiology - has more of a say in how a wine turns out than what was previously thought. Time for the textbooks to be re-written...In this episode, we talk to world-leading researchers Professor Matthew Goddard and Ignacio Belda, to get to the heart of the latest thinking and science. Turns out there is such a thing as, 'the microbial face of terroir' - even single vineyards have unique microbial signatures, and there's a proven percentage we can put to how much a wine's chemistry is influenced by that microbiome from the vineyard to the fermentation and beyond.In short, wine is the product of invisible bugs as much as it is the product of human hand or climatic and geographical phenomena. The implications are profound. Not just regarding how we define terroir. But also in terms of how winegrowers should farm to protect their unique vineyard microbiomes, how winemakers should best manage their fermentations, even how we wine drinkers should appreciate our wines (while protecting our own human microbiomes - the two can work together!)There's even talk of synthetic yeast being developed that can not only craft specific flavours in wine but also inform a winemaker when a fermentation needs to be checked...This is a fascinating field of research, one currently reaching fever pitch right now, so we report on and discuss the latest findings, which will be sure to make you think about wine in a new light.We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website (link below).All details from this episode are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S4 E24: The Microbial Face of Terroir.Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!

We all know port. But there’s a whole universe of fine Portuguese table wine out just waiting to be explored. It’s far less known but certainly no less exciting…so we dive in.Peter’s fired up after a recent trip to host a masterclass in Porto, where he tasted wines back to 1978 and recorded with a selection of Portugal’s top wine talent, from Dirk and Daniel Niepoort to Sandra Tavares, Luis Pato, Susana Esteban and Tomas Roquette.Once back, he made sure to call in some special wines to taste and share on air, including the legendary Barca Velha, Portugal’s most famous red – a wine that launched a thousand bottles… It’s not a wine you get to see very often, let alone taste, so this is a privileged insight.Let’s not beat around the bush: this is a tasting featuring a healthy amount of disagreement. These are undoubtedly fine, characterful, often intriguing wines – but they can (clearly) polarise opinion. We explore the reasons why.Also featured in this episode are (sometimes anguished) listener feedback about our Santorini mini-series, the ‘Porta 6 effect’, Maserati, roof-hoping, Javier Bardem, field blends, ozone, and a €1,000 magnum. Peter gets a blind-wine challenge live on air – and we also touch on how to lose €10m with one word…Wines tasted in this episodeLuis Pato Vinhas Velhas Branco 2022, Bairrada, 13%Susana Esteban Procura Branco 2020, Alentejano, 13%Niepoort Redoma Branco 2021, Douro, 11.5%Meandro do Vale Meão 2020, Douro, 14%Mouchão Tonel 3-4 2013, Alentejo, 14.5%Barca Velha 2011, Douro, 14.5%We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website (link below).All details from this episode are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S4 E21: Portugal's Fine Wines - Here Be Treasures.Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!

‘From virtually any soil a high-quality wine can be made. The use of geology to promote the quality of a wine is thus merely a marketing tool.’ This is an episode that may ruffle a few feathers. We speak to two wine-loving geologists, Professor Alex Maltman and Dr Geert-Jan Vis (the latter responsible for the quote above). Both of them raise serious questions about the line the wine world often endorses about how geology (think: limestone, schist, granite) influences wine.Vis calls the notion that geology and soil influence wine style, ‘romantic b*llocks’. Maltman says it’s, ‘over-hyped’ and writes, ‘simply saying a wine comes from a particular rock doesn’t convey anything about what I might expect from a wine.’ And yet we regularly see wine literature talking about limestone or granite, Kimmeridgian or Jurassic (and so on) and linking this explicitly to wine quality and style.And this isn’t even to get started on the topic of ‘minerality’ in wine…So what gives? What’s really going on here? To what extent can geology and soil be seen to impact the vine and wine? Or, to flip it round, to what extent do experts think that the role of geology and soil is over-rated and misunderstood when it comes to wine?It’s important to say we’re not being deliberately controversial or trying to undermine the concept of terroir (the notion that specific places produce wines with specific characteristics). What we’re doing is asking questions and challenging a set of prevalent assumptions which we feel is…well…questionable. We’re aware this episode might provoke debate so please feel free to get in touch. Send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website.All details from this episode are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S4 E20: No Schist Sherlock - How Wine Gets Rocks Wrong.This is the first in a loosely-connected series of programmes in which we’ll tackle tricky or controversial issues in wine, from minerality to microbiology and yeasts. All with the aim of provoking informed debate, challenging questionable opinions and seeking clarity above all.Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!Ps and if you don’t know what petrichor is – we’ve got the answer…

Santorini's future is in jeopardy. This ancient, famous island vineyard risks being lost beneath the tourism industry's bulldozers. So how can its wine community fight back?By making exceptional, characterful, inimitable wines and selling them to the world, that's how. In this episode (our 100th Wine Blast programme, appropriately enough!) we dive into what makes Santorini's wines as distinctive and unique as they undoubtedly are. From the steely, majestic dry Santorini Assyrtiko to the sumptuous vinsantos and all the curios in between, this is a vibrant wine scene that's only getting more diverse and quality-focused.Taking in views form the younger generation as well as more experienced hands, we discuss eye-opening topics from how the minerality of Santorini wines is exacerbated by the salt blown in off the sea to why Burgundy might be growing Assyrtiko soon.Along the way we touch on orange wine, flor, tasting an 1847 Santorini Assyrtiko, amphorae, alcohol, the future - and Peter somehow signs up for hard manual labour.This episode is the second and final installment in a sponsored mini-series in collaboration with Wines of PDO Santorini.All details from this episode are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S4 E19 - Santorini: Wines to Save an Island.Please do keep your comments and questions coming! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website.Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!

Let's go on an adventure to a place variously described as, 'Like being shot to the moon with a glass of fine wine in your hand' and where, 'you basically have the personality of an active volcano in your glass.'Santorini is arguably the ultimate wine destination - a windswept, arid, infertile outcrop of an island in the glittering Aegean Sea. Stunning - but bleak, and where the memory of one of the most violet volcanic eruptions in human history can not only be seen but also tasted in your glass.Wine is one of the few crops to thrive here, albeit at the cost of back-breaking labour and marginal profitability due to tiny yields and regular setbacks. The island's historic sweet vinsantos have most likely been enjoyed for thousands of years - the dry whites made from the majestic, fierce Assyrtiko grape are astonishing symphonies of bracing acidity, steely structure and salty minerality.These are true jewels in the wine world's crown. One producer speculates, with good reason, that Santorini, 'is the oldest vineyard on the planet.' Phylloxera-free, you see... Hence the Jurassic Park reference.For Peter, Santorini Assyrtiko is the ultimate food wine, able to pair with everything from delicate oysters to rich lamb and beyond. No wonder one wine grower describes this place as, 'the Mecca of wine'.But all is not well in wine paradise. Climate change batters the vineyard in the form of heatwaves and hail. Mass tourism threatens not only to overwhelm the island's infrastructure and drain the workforce but, more critically, erase vineyards permanently as land is sold to developers.The result is that Santorini's vineyard has declined by a third between 2005 and 2022. 'Sometimes in Santorini it feels like we're forgotten by God' commented one local wine producer. Now, though, the island's wine community is fighting back. In this first episode of a two-part mini-series in collaboration with Wines of PDO Santorini, we set the scene - taking in the island's intriguing history, exploring the bizarre vineyards, talking to key wine producers, and not shying away from the challenges the island's wine community faces.As for how the wine producers are fighting to ensure wine's survival, we discover plans to declare the entire island's production organic - which would be the first ever entire PDO appellation to do such.There's also a UNESCO application in the pipeline - and plans to raise prices in order to ensure the survival of the vineyard.Don't miss the next and final episode in this mini-series, where we explore Santorini's fierce, remarkable grapes, wine and food - and look to the future, both in terms of challenges but also reasons to be hopeful.All details from this episode (including photos of these unique kouloura basket vines) are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S4 E18 - Santorini: Wine's Jurassic Park.Please do keep your comments and questions coming! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website.Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!

What wine news is worthy of your attention? How should you warm up your (fine) wines in an emergency? What wines are really worth paying silly money for? And which wines should we have loved...but didn't? These are just some of the questions we dive into in this Listener Q&A episode, where we respond to your brilliant comments, feedback and questions.And we field one other question too: are we even married to each other?!No spoilers here... Suffice it to say that along this particularly fun ride we touch on subjects as diverse as Japanese wine anime Drops of God, wildfires in Chile, Michel Roux Jr, marriage counselling, Cahors, Malcolm Gladwell, alternatives to Grange, our infamous 20-20 wine rule, re-writing wine's ancient history, Leonardo di Caprio - and 'pan-gate'.We also ask that most critical of questions: are you a wine cuddler...or a wine microwaver?All details from this episode (including the juicy photos and tweets we refer to in this episode) are on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S4 E17 - News & Views 1.Given this episode is all about your comments and questions, please do keep them coming! We'd love to hear your views on our subscription plans too. Do send us a voice message via Speakpipe or you can find more details to get in touch on our website.Thanks for tuning in. Here's to the joy of wine - cheers to you!