Red ice wine from China

© Bernd Müller  Pixabay

Wine has been grown in China for around 4,600 years. There are currently almost 900,000 hectares of vines. However, the largest part of around 800,000 hectares is used to produce raisins – only around 100,000 hectares are used for viticulture. On this area, around 15 million hectoliters of wine are produced in 11 wine-growing regions,

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Niepoort’s characterful LBV 2018


Wine landscape on the Douro © Ramiro  Pixabay

Niepoort is a well-known name, not only in the Douro region, where the company has been producing port wine since 1842. Dirk Niepoort has made it even better known through the dry Douro wines he has produced since the early 1990s, as well as through his diverse wine projects with winemakers from other countries. Two of his most famous projects are his

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Liatiko – Crete’s red sweet wine


Liatiko - Crete's red sweet wine

Southwest of Heraklion lies the Psiloritis massif, also known as the Ida Mountains, on the north-eastern slopes of which the vineyards of the Dafnes wine-growing region are located at heights between 300 and 500 m. There, mainly local traditional vines, such as the white varieties Vidiano, Vilana or Thrapsathiri as well as the red varieties Kotsifali, Mandilaria and Liatiko, thrive on lighter, sandy, often gravelly, mostly poorly fertile soils.

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Classic chocolate companion – Maury Grenat


I can seldom resist the naturally sweet French Vin Doux Naturel wines, this is only partly due to the wonderful holiday memories of Roussillon, the region where 80% of Vin Doux Naturel is produced and – due to its omnipresence there – also consumed in my opinion. I think my first encounter with a Banyuls Rimage as companion of a chocolate dessert was probably much more formative. That was most probably the reason why we chose this wine style of Vin Doux Naturel for the chocolate mousse.  A  style with very fruity notes due to

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Benificio A – Sandeman’s VAU Vintage Port 2000

© RAM21 Pixabay

Sandeman, an important sherry and port wine house, owned by the Portuguese company Sogrape since 2001, offers very high quality vintage ports. An ideal Christmas present for someone who likes to drink red port. So it’s the best to order more of it! At Christmas we enjoyed the Vau Vintage Port 2000 from Sandeman with homemade chocolate ice cream, which it went very well with.

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Aleatico Dolce – southern Italy’s fragrant, red sweet wine

© pascal OHLMANN Pixabay

About 20 km northwest of the Apulian Lecce is the small town of Salice Salentino, whose name is known to many, mostly because of its dry red wine, mainly produced from Negroamaro. It has to be be mentioned that the Salice Salentino also is produced pink or white and not only as a cuvée, but also from a single grape variety. The Salice Salentino Aleatico is also available in a sweet version, as well as liqueur wine.

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West Styrian Mistella from Schilcher


© ÖWM / Robert Herbst

Schilcher is the name given to the rosé-colored shimmering wine of western Styria, which is made from the red grape variety Blauer Wildbacher. From this variety mainly still wine is produced, only about 3% of the Blauer Wildbacher grapes harvested from more than 360 hectares are made into sparkling wine and even much less into red wine.

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