What a phenomenal summer we are having in the South of England, and in all this heat, I just don't feel like Purple Teeth.  Those big heavy reds which I usually love just seem to be too warm to drink while sitting in the garden.
Instead my thoughts turn to crisp and refreshing whites, wines that pair well with salads and fish, wines that delight, wines that excite.
So this week I suggested your wine of the week should be Riesling.

A week or so ago, I was dancing in France.  I drank several bottles of Alsace Riesling. And one of my finest moments as a wine blogger came when I converted two of my vodka loving Polish dance friends to the joys of this amazing wine.  It wasn't a particularly complex version.  In fact it was dry, and available from Casino (in case you happen to be in France) in half bottles for under 3€ and full bottles for under 5€.  I suspect this "Club des Sommeliers" is a Casino own brand, and I tasted a few other varietals in the range but kept coming back to this one.  Although dry, it paired with main course and dessert.  Oh how I miss the raspberry tarts! Sure it's not the most complex or best Riesling ever, but you can't argue with the holiday bargain.

Sadly we can't pick up a bottle in the UK for less than 5€ so I made the most of it while I was there, and will be doing so again when I'm back in France to dance next week. (Yes again!). In fact, getting a decent Alsace Riesling in the UK will probably set you back at least £10.
One of my more affordable favourites has been The Wine Society's Exhibition Alsace Riesling which comes in at around £12.50 a bottle and is made using biodynamic practices.  I reviewed it last in November and the price has gone up since then, thanks to the tax man.  There's also a decent example for £9.99 from Waitrose, but really great Grand Cru versions can cost considerably more, assuming your local wine store is good enough to stock them. They're worth it, trust me!

So, while Rieslings from Alsace will probably always be my first love, I thought it was time to experiment with a few different regions to help you explore which Riesling might be your perfect example.  

The first was Austrian, from Naked Wines.  Landhaus Mayer 2011 is £10.49 to Angels and it is proof that Austria can produce more good quality whites than just their famous native varietal, Grüner Veltliner.  It comes from the Niederösterreich region where a variety of complex and mineral rich soil types produce great examples of Riesling as well as the Grüner Veltliner, which makes up 44% of the plantings in the area.

If you're not accustomed to Riesling, you may find drier styles like this highly acidic, but that's what makes it great as an aperitif and a summer refresher. To explain the technical term acidity, it's what causes the feeling of your mouth watering like crazy (or not) after a sip of wine. 

In case you hadn't noticed, I love this grape! And I really love that feeling of a mouth flood when I drink it.  It probably stems from a Scottish childhood sucking on "soor plooms" and eating hedgerow gooseberries.  No wonder my teeth aren't the best!  If you like that tartaric acid sourness, you'll probably love a good dry Riesling.

I offered the wine blind to Mr Purple Teeth and asked him to describe it.   "It's got a citrus aroma but doesn't taste of citrus.  It's full on and zingy but doesn't overpower.  It's got attack and vibrancy and makes your mouth water like sherbet.  A perfect wine for a summer evening".  He's been well trained, clearly, and I'm really enjoying his new descriptive skills. The flavours here are mineral, but although Riesling can taste of flint and slate, this one isn't too much in that direction.  There's a hint of tropical fruit but mostly sharp green apple.  It packs a punch.  I paired it with a Sea Bass salad and it worked really well.

Next up came the Villa Maria Marlborough Dry Riesling at £9.99 from Waitrose. It seems many are still influenced by the reputation Riesling has for being an off-dry or sweeter style wine (mainly from German examples), hence the prominent marking of the dry style on the label.  

Marlborough is New Zealand's premier wine region with around 79% of the country's wine production. The area is definitely better known for Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling made up only 11% of the production in 2012. In fact, almost 85% of all wine exported from New Zealand is Sauvignon Blanc.  And more's the pity when they can produce other varietals just as well.  

Villa Maria is a family owned company and self proclaimed "most awarded winery in New Zealand".  So you'd expect this to be a decent example of what this region can achieve. Again, this one has all the juiciness you'd expect from a Riesling.  There's a bit more stone fruit to the flavour, and a bit less minerality, but it's still delicious and paired well with both strong Gruyere cheese, and also a chicken dressed with sun dried tomato.  Tomato can be a wine enemy, but not Riesling.  It's like a miracle grape that can match many of those difficult foods.  

Mr Purple Teeth felt this one had a sweeter flavour than the Landhaus Mayer.  Are there hints of acacia on the palate? Or is it a little more tropical pineapple? Certainly if you imagine the juicy acidity of a pineapple you'll be close, though there's none of the sticky sweetness.  
This sense of sweetness led on to a long discussion about what makes wine sweet if it's not "sweet flavours".  
Simply put, it's sugar in the wine.  You'll most obviously taste the presence of sugar by dipping the tip of your tongue into wine... 
Generally wines are fermented until all the sugar within the grapes is consumed and/or the yeast is killed off by the alcohol (generally around the same time except in some mega Zins).  An easy clue (if your wine label doesn't make an indication of sweet or dryness): if your wine is showing up at around 8-10% alcohol, there's a strong probability it will not be fully dry.  Of course, the world's sweetest wines can have a much higher alcohol content, but they're made in an entirely different way, and we'll cover that another day. After all, I have several stunning dessert wines in my fridge just longing for an excuse to be drunk.

Finally, then, I felt I should try a sweeter style just make the full comparison.  The Dr L Riesling is £7.49 at Waitrose and only £5.78 at Asda, so if you fancy trying an off-dry German style Riesling, it's definitely worth popping into an Asda store to bag a bargain. 
Dr Loosen produces this light, fruity and refreshing wine from the mineral rich slate soils of Germany's Mosel valley.  Although you'll still find the same acidity here as in the other examples, because the wine is much lower in alcohol and has a decent level of sweetness to it, it's much less noticeably sharp on the palate.  If you've got a delicate palate or stomach, perhaps starting with this example will be a more gentle introduction to the delights of Riesling.
The predominant fruit flavour is one of lime, and there is of course some honeyed sweetness on the palate, although this is by no means a dessert wine.  Wines lower in alcohol pair exceptionally well with spicy food, since chili heat accentuates the alcohol burning sensation, so, I chose to pair this with a spicy prawn, ginger and vegetable stir fry with many different flavours.  It worked well and confirms my belief that if you don't know what wine to put with a food, try a Riesling.  
The wine itself is fairly simple and lacks some of the oomph of the other wines we tasted this week, but it's considerably cheaper, if you buy it in the right place, so in value terms, this is a balanced wine, which will work well with Thai, Chinese, Japanese or even Indian food on a summer's evening.  Because it's so low in alcohol compared to many wines these days, it's also fine as an afternoon party wine.  One 100ml glass is less than a unit of alcohol so you'll still be able to enjoy the evening!

My quest for the perfect Riesling is not over.  Although still believe in Alsace, I would drink all of these again.  I also have two Hungarian Rieslings in my fridge from my friends at DiBonis, one being a dry mineral style and the other an Ice Wine, but you'll have to wait to hear about those.  

After a week of drinking this delicious but highly acidic grape, I was  ready to go back to a giant Shiraz, with all it's Purple Teeth and blue tongue side effects.  So, it was off to the wine rack to find some of Barossa Valley's finest.  As I'll be away dancing in France again next week, Wine of the Week will return in a couple of weeks.  Thanks for reading.  If you've enjoyed trying something new, inspired by Purple Teeth, do let us know.
Cheers!

I seem to be in the minority these days, and maybe it's a sign of middle age, but I'll say this loud and proud, "I LOVE SHERRY".
I'll admit that had you asked me 10 years ago, I would never have considered this even a remote possibility.  Memories of my grandmother drinking Harvey's Bristol Cream at Christmas may have had something to do with it. What I am sure has more to do with it however, is the hideous contempt that British bars, pubs and restaurants seem to have for this delightful drink.
In Jerez, in the very south of Spain, you'll find people of all ages enjoying fresh and super-chilled Fino or Manzanilla but ask for even the most famous brand, such as Tio Pepe, in a bar in the UK  and you'll find them dusting off a half open bottle, most likely sitting on a warm shelf, perhaps with the added element of a bright light shining directly onto it.  This is NOT the way to enjoy sherry.  Many people think that because sherry is a fortified wine that it will last forever.  As if somehow the hard liquor with which they fortify it means it will never go off.  (Even a single malt whisky ought to be drunk within a few months.  Alcohol evaporates and flavours will diffuse.).  

Would you keep Sauvignon Blanc open for more than a day or two?
All wines are not created equal, and not all are meant to improve with bottle age.  The very specific type of cork you'll find in your bottle of sherry is a clue to the fact that it's meant to be enjoyed young and fresh.  Although you can keep a bottle open in the fridge for up to a week, after that it will lose freshness and vibrancy.  So that dusty bottle on your local bar's shelf? Avoid like the plague.  
But DO go ahead and taste some sherry.  
For the Wine of the Week this week, I selected Solear Manzanilla because it comes in an easy 50cl screw top format, and can easiliy be polished off as an aperitif for 4 (or 2 very thirsty drinkers) in one night, allowing you to enjoy it at its best.  I hope that some of you purchased it at around £5.89 from Waitrose and gave it a go.

Solear Manzanilla is a light and very dry sherry, as perfect as an aperitif as a Gin & Tonic will ever be and goes equally well with olives.   Like all Manzanilla, it's made in Sanlucar de Barrameda, and this marks it out from other Finos (Manzanilla is basically a type of Fino) because it has sea breezes and the local Flor yeast which makes Manzanilla the most delicate of the sherries.  Solear is no different. It's made to be drunk young and fresh, and provides flavours of biscuit, and nuts, probably most akin to a Marcona Almond, and is very delicate.  This makes it an excellent "starter" sherry, at least for the dry end of the spectrum.  Sherry comes in all shapes and sizes and if you enjoy a Manzanilla style, you can move on through Fino towards the other styles.  But fear not, if you didn't enjoy it, because the range of sherry styles mean there's more than likely to be something for everyone.
Just be careful of ordering a Manzanilla in northern Spain where they're less likely to pour you a glass of sherry and more likely to serve you a herbal tea!

So what to expect from sherry? There are a number of styles from bone dry to lucsiously sweet.  The sweetest, Pedro Ximenex is syrupy thick and sweet enough to pour on ice-cream.  (PX is technically a very different drink made from different grapes to the Palomino which is used in other sherries) 
My personal favourite is probably the Fino style.  I'll drink it instead of a glass of champagne as an aperitif before a meal in a fancy restaurant (there's a chance they may be storing it correctly and turning enough over for it to be fresh).  In common with champagne, it has very dry with biscuity flavours.  Of course, it's not fizzy, but instead you'll find it at least half the price of the fizz, crisp and yeasty with a freshness that belies the fact it's a blend of wines from a solera system and a minimum of 3 years old. Manzanilla is an even more delicate version, while Amontillado and Oloroso are types of richer, darker sherry with more oxidative flavours of toffee and caramel, despite also being dry. Sweeter styles of these wines are also available, made by adding some PX.  If you like tawny port, you'll probably like these.
And, you'll still find Croft Original and Harvey's Bristol Cream out there. If you like a sweet wine, then why not?  These are Fino style sherries which have been sweetened with a kind of concentrated grape juice.  

One of the best ways to sample a full range of quality wines from sherry with minimal risk is via the innovative half litre bottles of own branded, Finest range sherries available from Tesco.  A half bottle can easily be drunk within a couple of days as an aperitif each night, or shared among friends in an evening.  What's more, these are bargain-tastic.  In store, they're around £5 each and it appears the online store has a 31% reduction in place right now, so it's a great opportunity to try them if you don't want to shell out on a full bottle in the £10- £12 price range.  It's a low risk way to explore something new.  I won't go into all the details of how sherry is made, but if you're interested, you'll find a detailed explanation here and the town of Jerez is well worthy of a visit as a tourist, with plenty of sunshine, great food, and many bodegas open to the public. It's certainly the best way to try lots of different sherry types and brands as well as enjoying the Spanish tapas culture.

Finally, if you need more convincing of Sherry's attractions, it's worth noting that it was one of the very original "branded" wines.  Back at the end of the 18th Century when companies like Sandeman and Gonzales Byass set up, the aim was to provide consistent and recognisable wines, under brand names such as Tio Pepe, with Port and Sherry brands being some of the most enduring through the centuries.  Think of it as drinking a history lesson.

So raise a copita, and drink to your expanding knowledge and tastes!  Cheers!

Finally, as the hot weather looks set to continue, our Wine of the Week #16 will be Riesling.  Choose your own bottle and tell me what you think.  There are many styles available with the best arguably from Alsace and Germany.

My regular readers will know that my life for the past year has mainly centred around studying alcohol and drinking it, and dancing blues or west coast swing. Yes, I've even combined both by blues dancing in a brewery and a recent wine trip to Serbia followed by west coast swing dancing in Hungary. Or perhaps you remember my vodka drinking exploits with the Polish dance community...
Over the last few months, I've heard several tunes on the dancefloor that got me thinking about the relationship between music, alcohol and dancing.  Who said white men can't dance sober?  Musicians certainly seem fond of a drink.  There aren't many dance floor classics that have the word wine in the title, so I've rummaged and broadened the remit to include general alcohol to provide you with:

The (not quite definitive) Purple Teeth Guide to Getting Grooving, or, Boogie by the Boozy Blog...

Back in April while dancing the blues in Scotland, a Dutch DJ played D.R.I.N.K. by the Asylum Street Spankers.  It's a cheery sounding ditty that contains a very telling lyric "don't like to think about how much I drink".  If you're as much of a wine fan as I am, this thought probably passes through your mind more often than you'd like.  But let's hope yours is not "a habit that's out of control"...  If you like old time swing sounds, you'll enjoy this reworking of The Jazz Butchers' song.  Hearing it again recently inspired me to write this post. And a good friend of mine is probably among those who'd happily sing along to "hope I never get dry before I get old".

It's in the world of west coast swing where I really started hitting the bottle on the dance floor.  I always used to drive to dancing, and so even when I went to weekend events, I felt quite at home with just a water or the occasional  coca-cola  if I needed an energy boost. 
But, feeling nervous before competitions and keeping friends company led me down the slippery slope.  Dancing was no longer an opportunity for my liver to recover, but instead became a chance to experience such  joys as calvados concealed in an apple juice bottle.  Oh how very classy I am.

West Coast Swing isn't  a genre of music like "blues". We dance it to a few different kinds of music from blues to modern R&B & pop classics.   I wish I could find some videos showing the dance with the songs I'll mention but here are a few drinking classics that will fill the west coast swing dance floor.

Ed Sheeran's Drunk is popular but some think Ed is a little challenging to dance to.  I say, it all depends on my partner. More suitable for beginner dancers would beBartender by T-Pain featuring Akon which features such incisive lyrics as "she made us drinks to drink, we drunk 'em, got drunk, and now I know she thinks I'm cool".  Well, nothing like inspiring your public to start drinking by promising you're alluring to the opposite sex when you drink.  In fact, promoting alcohol in this way  is against the law in the UK, so I'll just remind readers to enjoy a drink in moderation and consult drinkaware.co.uk if you're at all concerned about how much you're drinking.

Gin and Juice  by Snoop Dogg is another relatively easy to dance to number.  I hadn't listened closely to the lyrics before writing this article and it's certainly not music from the genre "politically correct pop".  The lyrics that stand out for me, though, are those that many of my dancer friends will recognise, from weekend events if not from the song itself...

"I got me some Seagrams gin
Everybody got they cups, but they ain't chipped in"

It's not Shakespeare, but the predicament of the one who always seems to bring the bottle is as universal as any theme by the bard.

A blues song that would not be out of place on either dance floor is Denise Lasalle's Gimme Yo' Most Strongest Whiskey.  While demanding the spirit she also calls for the establishment's "finest bottle o' wine".  I can only assume Ms Lasalle has never heard the old adage about never mixing the grape and the grain. I also wouldn't recommend using fine wine simply to get drunk. There's plenty of cheap stuff around that serves the same purpose, as many a dancer will testify having witnessed a rapid decline in my spinning ability.  Though it has to be said, at a recent dancers' tasting, the tendency was to prefer the pricier bottles.  At least we took the high road as we annihilated our danceability.

Stick McGhee recorded the original version of  "Drinking Wine Spo Dee O Dee " in 1947, although he didn't have a hit with it until he re-recorded it in 1949 and released it on the Atlantic label.  The song was perhaps made more famous by Jerry Lee Lewis  and there are probably several more "dance friendly" versions out there.  Though there's plenty of swing in this tune. What's interesting is that Stick McGhee may have been the Snoop Dogg or Eminem of his day.  I'd always wondered what the point of the lyric "spo dee o dee" was.  Apparently the song originally had far more risqué lyrics, at least that's according to the person who uploaded this YouTube link...  Listen, dance, and imagine, if you will, what this might have sounded like with the original lyric. In 1947, it's fairly likely Stick McGhee would "never work in this town again" had he gone ahead with the gangster rapper style hook. 

Stick seemed well aware that if you want to get along as the new boy in town, passing around some wine is a fine way to do it.   I'm not sure how well this would work nowadays with the nickel and dime elderberry and blackberry wines he mentions in his lyrics, but it's still a reasonable strategy.
Lightnin' Hopkins however threw away his gin bottle and implored us not to pass him any wine.  Can there be any musical genre better suited to the plight of the dipsomaniac?  In this case though, it's probably not the song that will send me rushing onto the dance floor...

Americana details the lush's situation also in country music form.  While I'm no dancer of country two-step, or any of the other "country" dances, there are plenty of dancers out there who will happily whirl around the floor to a stetson bedecked band, and they will not want for tippling tunes to twirl to.  For example, Merle Haggard advises us that Heaven was a Drink of Wine.  I can only assume he was talking about a high end Napa wine, rather than those cheapo vinos Stick McGhee was sampling.

I simply cannot imagine a night of West Coast Swing dancing without at least one track by John Mayer.  While it's unlikely that Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey will go down in history as one of his most danceable tracks, I couldn't resist including it in this list since at least he reminds us to drink plenty of water after a night on the booze.  And this is even more important if you've been dancing too.

For those more likely to do their dancing in a nightclub than with a partner at a blues or west coast swing club, there are plenty of tippling tracks for you too. For example Drinking from the bottle by Calvin Harris will certainly work up a sweat, though I prefer Theophilus London's Wine and Chocolates - and not just because it extols the virtues of two of my favourite things.

I may have mentioned it before but, I'm Scottish, so it wouldn't do for me to go without including a tune by one of my favourite Scottish bands of the late 1980s, Love and Money (two more of the things which, like wine and chocolate, make my world go round).  Whisky Dream is in waltz timing so it probably won't make it onto any playlists for dance events I'll be attending in the near future, but it contains the lyric  "dance with me, dance with me, in a whisky dream" and I'm not sure anything else sums up a blog post about booze and bopping so well, so humour me.

There is a long list of other songs that didn't quite make it onto the list but if you're looking for some more tunes to assuage your drunkenness or inspire a gentle bop around your front room, why not try some of these:

Dancing with the women at the bar - Whiskeytown
Drunk in a band - Del amitri
Lilac Wine - Jeff Buckley
Last of the big time drinkers - Stereophonics

You may wonder at me including "The humours of whiskey" which is a traditional Irish folk song...  I guess you can jig to it.  My real excuse is based on meeting an expert on sea shanties at a Blues dancing event, so I'm sure there is someone out there who may enjoy this apart from me.

And if you're worried that your drinking has gone too far, a listen to some of these cautionary tales may help.
Rehab - Amy winehouse
Old red eyes is back - Beautiful South 
But if you ever get in the state the Dead Kennedys did after drinking and dancing all night,  well, it might be time to seek out the 12 steps, and I don't mean those to the dance floor.

Meanwhile, I'll continue with my dancing and drinking as I head to France for a week of West Coast Swing and wine.  I'm sharing an apartment with some Polish friends so I imagine plenty of vodka will be drunk too! .  There's just about no chance I'll be dancing  to Deano, but if ever there was a song for Purple Teeth, I guess this is it... "I'm praying for rain in California, so the grapes can grow and they can make more wine." Little old wine drinker me.
Cheers!

PS, feel free to add your own favourite tunes to tipple to in the comments!

Made by Caves de Turckheim, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Alsace Gewurztraminer is a great way to try this grape at a price that won't break the bank.  (£7.99 13.5% abv)
Gewurz is German for spice, and this is a French wine that pairs perfectly with slightly spicy Asian cuisine such as Chinese or Thai food.  I put it to the test with Scottish dance friends, Karyn and Craig, while we stayed in Hackney for a recent event.  Both of them tend to drink more red than white wine, so I wasn't sure how it would go down.  I described it as aromatic, perfumed and with a flavour reminiscent of lychees.  From this description, they were both happy to give it a go.  Lucky for me that Craig loves lychees!  I'm pleased to say, we all loved it.  So much so that we nipped out to buy another bottle, only to find the local Sainsbury's mini store didn't stock it.  "The best laid plans..." to quote our national bard (yes, the Scottish one).  We plumped for the Taste the Difference Albariño which went down well, but left us wanting as the spice level grew in our food.
There are flavours of rose petal and a hint of spice in the Gewurztraminer  and although it's probably not the most complex Alsace Gewurztraminer you'll ever taste,  at £7.99 it's a good way to try the grape for the first time.
And, if you're looking for something simple to pair with a take-out, what could be better?  Waitrose sell an Alsace Gewurztraminer for £9.99 also made by Cave de Turckheim which I've previously really enjoyed when I've sampled it.  I would like to taste them side by side to find out if the extra £2 brings a higher quality of grape and a more complex favour, or whether we are simply being offered more of a bargain at one supermarket.  It appears that there are a number of different versions avaiable directly at the Cave de Turckheim vineyard including single vineyard and old vines versions, so I'd like to think we literally could "Taste the Difference".
The over-riding flavour is of lychee, and it's been scientifically proven that the Gewurztraminer grape carries many of the same flavour compounds as the lychee.  Fortunately this comes without the squidgy eyeball connotations of the fruit!  
Another Purple Teeth reader from Scotland, Sheena, is a big fan of Gewurztraminer and so she was happy to try this Wine of the Week on for size.  She enjoyed the "syrupy texture" - this wine has a bit more body and can sleep slightly viscous, though it's still refreshing. "At more than £10 less than my bottle of choice I'd definitely buy it again." 
So, in Scotland at least, the Sainsbury's stores better stock up as it's a universal hit. I'd love to hear what some more of tyou thought of this one.
 Ideally, I'd like to organise a trip to Alsace with a few Purple Teeth readers some time in mid-September.  If you're interested, let me know. 

Need some inspiration for a trip to Alsace?  This excellent Guardian article will help. Delightful grapes such as Pinot Gris, Riesling, Pinot Noir and many more abound. What are you waiting for?

I'm off to France for a week of West Coast Swing dancing on Sunday, so I'm going to have to pick another French wine for the next Wine of the Week.  Watch the Facebook page for details.
Cheers!

July 4th. The day Americans celebrate their liberation from the Brits, and any excuse for a wine theme at Purple Teeth. So, whether you're hosting a barbecue and looking for robust reds, or simply hoping to sip a cool white in the evening, the wines of the USA have plenty to offer.

Of course California is the "go to" state with around 98% of American wine exports hailing from there, but there are notable wines on offer from other states such as Oregon, gaining a world class reputation for Pinot Noir and Virginia, where whites like Viognier come into their own.

Here's my selection of what to enjoy...

I could not resist opening this Frog's Leap Zinfandel tonight as a warm up to accompany a lovely beef chilli.

It's a very spicy wine which is full flavoured enough to stand up to such hearty fare, yet surprisingly only 13.5% abv - pretty light for a Zin.  It's £22.99 from Alfred the Grape, so a little indulgent for a midweek treat, but with good tannin structure this should keep well on the wine rack for a few years and result in something even more awesome.  Just a pity I had no will power!

The Bonterra Organic Chardonnay is currently on offer at £8.99 at Waitrose reduced from normal price of £11.99 
I've reviewed this back in November so I'll keep it simple.  This is probably the Chardonnay I buy the most frequently.  As well as the benefit of being organic, it's got just the right amount of oak to provide body and vanilla without overpowering the fruit.

I first drunk this back in March alongside a Napa Viognier both of which were rather fabulous.  I had to go back to Tanners to get another bottle despite it's heft >£20 price tag.  Oregon Pinot Noirs can be hard to get hold of but they are well worth seeking out if you get the chance.  Hopefully Purple Teeth will get the chance to visit Oregon in the next year for a more detailed look.  As I mention in the March blog post, the Napa Viognier was also rather incredible, but sadly Alfred the Grape have sold out.

Ridge Lytton Springs is a Zinfandel blend with Petite Sirah as the next biggest grape component.  I've got a bottle of 2007 on my wine rack.  You'll be lucky to find anything older than 2009 and the 2010 is available for £26 a bottle from The Wine Society.  I'll be saving mine for a special occasion and will continue to look out for this on restaurant wine lists when I'm with hard to please friends.  Ridge makes some exceptional wines.  One day I hope to sample some of their even more pricey wines!

Finally, for those lovers of huge wine, I suggest a Napa Frog's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon.  This is definitely the signature grape of Napa and I first tasted this one as part of my WSET advanced course.  Mr Purple Teeth loves a good Cabernet and I hope he will like this one as much as I did when we get round to opening it.  It's full of blackcurrant and comes in around £30 a bottle - about the same as a decent Bordeaux, but to my mind, far more rewarding.