Wine Blast PLUS with Susie and Peter

This is not just any old fish pie. This is LUXURY fish pie. And we've got some properly luxuriant wines to match... There's nothing worse than a dry, eggy, potato-drenched fish pie. Our version uses smoked fish, chunky prawns, mustard, cream and cheddar - so we need some seriously high octane wines. No sense fooling around: this is rich white wine territory. One of our favourite styles o...

A new report predicts climate change will see English red wine becoming the norm rather than the exception as part of a global shift that will upend the world's wine map as we know it. It's a tough one to get your head around. On the one hand, these are exciting times for English winemakers. On the other, climate change represents an existential threat to humanity. Plus, although rising...

It's a mid-week classic. But the BIG question is: what wines work best to make your spag bol taste like MAGIC?! We tackle this weighty issue like the true gannets we are, featuring some delicious Italian reds (Montepulciano + Valpolicella Ripasso) as well as more quirky pairings, from a South African Syrah to a Chilean Pais.  All the while talking through WHY things work as much as the specif...

Fancy joining us as we break into the Fort Knox of wine?! It's an old mine and former munitions dump in the middle of the English countryside that now holds over 9 million bottles and £1bn+ of stock. It's one of the biggest such storage facilities in the world and one (whisky) bottle stored there recently sold for £1.2m. Only downside? Security is tight. And you have to climb up 157 step...

First up: what on earth is a GREEN PIZZA??!! Well, it's a summer vegetable tart. But we couldn't quite bring ourselves to have that as our title. So we ran with 'green pizza'. Which it...almost is.  What it definitely is, is utterly delicious comfort food. As well as going superbly well with a whole range of wines. So our kind of dish.  It cries out for a fresh, crisp white. Pa...

Susie and Peter are back! Still Masters of Wine, still married (the wine helps) and still serving up thrills and spills for your general delectation. Season 4 dives right back in where they left off,  and promises tons of great wine content, thought-provoking angles, top guests, listener questions answered, opinion, food, recommendations - and of course a lot of fun too… So welcome back - or welco...

So: what wine to pair with your roast lamb? Our answers might surprise you. Lamb is a classic in the wine matching pantheon. But it's not as easy as it may first seem. In fact, we'd argue a lot of supposed matches are way off the mark. Lamb is a very delicate red meat so needs a specific kind of wine to get the best out of the combination. Sometimes (in fact, really quite often) the best...

Curry. We all love it. So what's the best wine to drink with it?! Here be answers. As well as a bit of chomping (sorry), mention of whipping (no idea how that came up) and of course delicious wines all in the mix. This is a short-form Live episode, the first in our food-and-wine matching mini-series brought to you in association with Wine Club by Majestic. It's also available in video fo...

Some people say choosing the right wine for your food (or vice versa) is too complicated. Or that it's all nonsense, so not worth bothering with - just go with whatever you fancy. We beg to differ - in the most strident of ways. We've both spent more than 20 years matching wines to food on TV, radio, events, podcasts and print. We know food is one of the best ways to make sense of wine,...

Aghi Ourad is a Brit of Algerian descent who wants to change the way we think about wine from the 'Arab world' (his phrase). Places like Algeria and Lebanon, where wine production has a surprisingly long history but currently operates in a challenging environment for religious, social or economic reasons. Such wines from Muslim-majority countries, in Aghi's view, are under-appreciat...

Fancy tasting 18,000+ bottles of wine in a week? Humping and dumping 73,000+ bottles? Herding 250+ international wine judges? Dodging bottle crushers and giant wormeries? And, after all that, the real question is: what's it all for?! We go behind the scenes at the world's biggest wine competition, the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), to tackle these very questions and issues. What even...

Armenia is not the first country to spring to mind in terms of wine. But this is one of the most ancient winemaking cultures in the world. The broader Caucusus region - including Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, is where the winemaking vine is believed to have first been domesticated. By way of proof, a 6,000-year-old winery was unearthed in the Areni-1 cave complex in the Vayots-Dzor regi...

Some wines or vintages achieve legendary status. The 1982s in Bordeaux are a case in point. So what's it really like to taste a bunch of 1982 clarets, 40 years on - featuring some of the best wines of the vintage?  1982 was a year that famously split opinion - the Brits copping the flak for labelling it too high-yielding, too ripe and 'Californian' in style, saying it would never ag...

Did you know that sugar and brandy can be added to sparkling wine? Were you aware that champagne was originally a sweet fizz? And that it regularly had things like port, cognac, elderberry, kirsch and raspberry brandy added to it? Now there’s a plucky English wine producer adding all sorts of fun things to his fizz – from Sauternes to Sherry, Madeira and Tokaji – to see what’s possible. His aim? T...

What's this about the world's first 'pet nad' wine? Why has a wine-list-free restaurant been told to, 'stop being so bloody stupid'? Who is releasing the latest cynical glassware range? And, STOP PRESS: hot-cross-bun gin??!!  Yes, this is your latest audio instalment of the riotous, ridiculous world of Fake Booze, the entirely made-up news site focused on the world of...

So what exactly IS natural wine? How to define it - or is that even possible? What does it taste like? Why are we seeing so many natural wine bars, shops and events springing up? Natural wine remains niche yet it seems to be influencing mainstream wine - but how exactly? And why does natural wine get everyone so darn hot under the collar..?! Join us as we tackle all these burning questions and mor...

This episode is dedicated to the people of Ukraine.  We talk to two leading figures in the Georgian wine scene - John Wurdeman (Pheasant's Tears) and Irakli Cholobargia (National Wine Agency) - to get a sense of what the feeling is in the region, and what wine people are doing and can do to help. Georgia, like Ukraine, is a former Soviet nation on the Black Sea that has had part of its territ...

Scooter basket. Pet coffin. Vinyl shelves. Zoom stand. Veg storage. Bird box. Fire starters. And, if you're the Prime Minister - for making models in which passengers are, 'enjoying themselves on this wonderful bus...' Yes, all of these are the creative (sometimes baffling) uses to which wooden wine boxes have been put by creative wine types.  But why do some wines come in wooden ca...

Did you know that just changing the light and music can alter how you perceive a wine by up to 20%? Ever wondered why that bottle of holiday rosé was such a crushing disappointment when you got it home?  High-tempo music can make a dish taste more spicy - lower-pitch sounds bring out bitterness in wine. (Though, 'we can't turn water into wine musically...yet.') Rubbing velvet versus...

At one point, it looked like Covid was going to be the death-knell for Champagne. And then...the bubbles bounced back. Big time. But things aren't quite the same as they were - in intriguing ways... In this fascinating episode we catch up on all the latest hot topics from this famous and historic fine wine region in northern France with none other than legendary winemaker Jean-Baptiste Lécail...

They're hotbeds of innovation, experimentation, affordability and sustainability. For as much as they fly under the radar, the Côtes de Bordeaux are instigating and leading a dynamic kind of change in the world's largest fine wine region. So what are the Côtes de Bordeaux? Where are they? And who are all these mostly family-run, smaller-scale producers who together produce 1 in 10 bottle...

Everything you need to know about the Burgundy 2020 vintage - in just 5 minutes! It's a pretty special vintage (at least something good came out of that otherwise catastrophic year...)  But is it better for white or red wines? Was it warm or cool, big or small, what styles of wine can we expect? And, most importantly, what of the prices?! In this quick-fire Q&A, Peter puts Susie on the sp...

Wanna hear us get humbled and schooled? Interested in exploring whether expensive really means better when it comes to coffee and wine? Or how we're getting it wrong when it comes to storing coffee and wine?! This is a collaborative episode in which we get together with Scott and Jools from the brilliant Adventures in Coffee podcast. We give them a blind wine tasting, they serve us a blind co...

So: the big question. What to drink when you're not drinking?! In this short Wine Blast Live, we share our favourite non-alcoholic concoction, one which goes some way to replicating the joy of wine. It's based on Aecorn Bitter, which is made using (unfermented) English sparkling wine grapes mixed with botanicals, mixed with Fever Tree Aromatic tonic plus ice and orange. We also share a f...

At this time of year, we get asked two things. What wines we'd recommend. And will we wear silly Christmas stuff. So here you go - the double whammy, all wrapped up in a brand new format: Wine Blast Live , a 5-minute video-podcast, for your delectation. Listen (or watch) as we try to gloss over our absurd festive attire while recommending our three top wines of the year, including a bargain o...