Homer and Virgil sent Odysseus and Aemeas to her island shores; there they encountered harpies, Cyclops, Laestrygonians, sirens and Aeolia the God of Winds. This is a place where The Gods broker deals with mere mortals and wreak havoc upon anyone who refuses their will. When Dionysius, (Bacchus) was said to have given the first wine to man, it was on the island of Sicily that he chose to bestow his gift. Read More >

One of many bottles that were consumed over dinner with legendary wine merchant, Noel Young, at the Three Horseshoes Inn, was a Vincent Girardin Santenay Les Gravieres Premier Cru 2009 that impressed me greatly with its juicy succulence of berry fruit and sheer drinkability. This is of course an attribute of the 2009 Burgundy vintage with ripe and plush red wines across all the appellations however, it surprised me that these wines have not gone into their shell at all yet, normally characteristic of red Burgundy after a couple of years in bottle. Read More >

Only a few more days and we will be off to the UK, heading up to Nottinghamshire first, we will be Glamping for a few days, then spending the weekend in Cambridge with my good friend Noel Young, of Noel Young Wines to which my liver will get a severe beating. Read More >

I came across this excellent website http://loveyourlocalmarket.org.uk when researching fresh food markets in Nottingham, England. Yes the Wandering Palate is going to be in Sherwood Forest – Glamping on a farmstay in Caunton, should be fun! Read More >

I’ve just completed an online booking for air travel between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and perplexed not only at the extortionate cost of the airfare but more so, the deceiving if not despicable means of using fuel surcharges that turn a purportedly low-cost fare into a decidedly high-cost fare by means of fake additional charges. Read More >

As regular readers know, the Wandering Palate is rather partial to pig and one of the best places on earth to get pig parts or more precisely, fantastic bacon, is Madisonville, Tennessee in the good old US of A. Read More >

The 2010 vintage in Gibbston Valley, Central Otago, in the deep south of New Zealand’s South Island is one of those years that will bring a smile to the face of the regions winegrowers for all eternity. You can sense this by just looking at the grin of satisfaction on Sam Neill’s face, the proprietor of Two Paddocks; it’s the look of a man vindicated–of what they said was a folly–that the region he planted in was ‘too cool, too marginal in climate to ripen pinot noir”. They said, “You cannot make truly great pinot noir in Gibbston” Read More >