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The London Wine Fair 2019 revisited. A look back at a selection of wines and spirits from exhibitors at the 2019 London Wine Fair. This annual UK wine fair proved once again, why it is the best!
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The novel coronavirus, now designated SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), was identified in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, on the 7th January 2020. This specific coronavirus causes the disease COVID-19, and there have been unofficial reports of confirmed cases going back to 17th November 2019. Subsequently, the world has seen a race to identify which medications could stop or alleviate the symptoms from this highly infectious disease.
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For some time the UK, under pressure from the US, has dillied and dallied about the installation of Huawei 5G equipment in the UK. Lack of leadership, a UK conundrum or a US false flag? Should it bow to US pressure and ban outright Huawei 5G equipment on national security grounds, or allow Huawei’s 5G more advanced and cheaper technology?
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The Bellavita Expo 2019 was held on 7-8th November at the Design Centre, Islington, London. The European Pizza & Pasta Show 2019 was held shortly afterwards on the 13-15th November at Olympia, London. These almost back-to-back events provided an opportunity to discover some of the finest Italian and Mediterranean food and beverages. In this review I will highlight some of my favourite products, important Italian food UK suppliers and scenes from the shows.
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I recently travelled along the Shenyang-Dalian Expressway (also known as the Shenda Expressway) in Liaoning province, China. This is a 400km motorway from Shenyang, in central Liaoning province, to Dalian, which is at the southernmost tip of the Liaodong peninsular. My destination was the beautiful Jinshitan scenic area of northeast Dalian and the Golden pebble beach, known as Jinshitan (金石滩).
Having some knowledge of Dalian’s historical past, I was equally keen to track down and visit Japanese, Russian and Soviet historic buildings. My search began at Zhongshan Square, in the centre of Dalian city.
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The 38th London Wine Fair, with over 14,000 wines from 40 countries available for tasting, was a truly fantastic wine event for buyers, sommeliers and anyone involved with the wine industry.
This year, the event seemed somewhat physically smaller. Nevertheless, there were still many exciting wine (and spirit) discoveries to be made.
Here are some highlights from the Fair – the tastings that I enjoyed and the good experiences. As a matter of course, I am not providing any tasting notes as these can be found on the relevant winery/merchant website. Of course, many wines demanded to be matched with food, which really is another dimension and demands another article!
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The London Wine Fair, with over 10,000 wines to sample, is always an event of fascinating wine discoveries. From the chalk downs terroir of Hampshire, England to the arid lands of the Turpan Valley, Xinjiang, China; and from the chalky-clay and gravelly soils of Bergerac, Dordogne, to the sandy, chalky, limestone-rich soils of Valencia, Spain – there were some amazing tasting experiences.
For the first tastings, I decided to concentrate on the numerous smaller French producers of Champagne. I was particularly impressed with the high standard from these lesser-known producers. Naturally Champagne tastes vary, and if food matching is normally a case of complementing the food against grape (varieties) and added sugar. So I am just going to list those champagnes that I enjoyed the most.
Continue reading “37th London Wine Fair 2017”
North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has again provoked international condemnation whilst developing its current ballistic missile and nuclear programme.
On 12th February 2017, North Korea launched a Pukguksong-2 missile (North Star 2, 북극성 2), from a tracked mobile launch vehicle. The solid-fuel missile is believed to have reached an altitude of 340 miles (550km) and travelled downrange 310 miles (510km) into the East Sea. The missile fell into North Korean territorial waters of the East Sea (disputed by Japan, which it considers it to be the Sea of Japan), and did not pose any risk to Japan. This missile test was primarily of chief concern for the participating nations of the Six-Party talks.
Continue reading “North Korea: a vexing situation for the USA and China”
On a recent visit to Shenyang, Liaoning province, Northeast China (Dongbei), I discovered an interesting earthenware container or cask. The blue-white cask had, I was told, been excavated at some time during the 1980s at Taiyuan Jie, near Shenyang Railway Station.
At first sight, the rope-banded style cask seemed to be of Chinese origin. After further inspection, I considered that it might be a sake container or cask from the Japanese Meiji period (23 October 1868 – 30July 1912 ). Meiji period earthenware is generally characterised by blue and white decoration.
Continue reading “Soy Sauce Casks and History of Shenyang”
The 36th London Wine Fair turned out again to be one of the world’s leading wine and trade events. With an anticipated 700 exhibitors from across the globe, showing some 13,000 wines, there was much to see and expect.
This year’s wine fair was held two weeks earlier than usual, so as to ensure a better fit with UK and International buying schedules – a good move.
It was interesting to see a selection of Japanese sake at the Fair, so it was an easy decision to start with sake tastings!
Continue reading “36th London Wine Fair 2016”
This year has seen an increase in the popularity of Japanese food in London, and there are now nearly 500 Japanese restaurants in the Greater London area. However, and more importantly, there has been a surge of interest in Japanese sake ( Nihonshu日本酒 ).
During 2015, there have been many interesting events and tastings to promote this marvellous drink. The IWC 2015 Award Winning Sake Tasting, held at the Embassy of Japan, and events by World Sake Imports: including a talk given by Philip Harper, the first non-Japanese sake master brewer( Toji 杜氏 ) in Japan, from the Kinoshita-Shuzou brewery, Kyoto. Continue reading “2015 Sake and Fujii Honke 藤居本家”
The 35th London Wine Fair 2015, held at Kensington Olympia – one of the best international events for discerning wine buyers and aficionados.
Over 10,000 wines from over 80 countries were available to taste, and which provided every opportunity to discover some real wine gems. As a regular event goer, and with so many wines available to sample, it is often difficult to know where to start on a new journey of wine discovery. But I did, and here are some of my discoveries and an old favourite!
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