With the bulk of English vineyards within an hour’s train journey from London, wine tourism could be key in helping to grow the UK tourism industry, says the association. The WSTA, which represents more than 340 companies producing, importing, transporting and selling wines and spirits, believes that wine tourism remains an untapped asset for continued growth in the tourism sector. In July, the Prime Minister…

Spain Equals Rioja – so ran the strapline on the website of a well-known wine importer a couple of years ago. The statement is obviously nonsense – but it accurately reflects the opinion of a considerable chunk of the world’s wine drinkers.  The bald truth is that, in sales terms, Rioja efficiently eclipses the rest of Spain both domestically and internationally. In the…

Nothing in my life was ever planned,” was the answer to my first question to top drinks packaging designer Neil Hirst. Quiet, very laid back, the 52-year-old comes across as someone who is his own man but also a man who strolls through life unfazed by most things. Yet asked if he is lucky, Hirst responds: “Anyone who knows me would say that…

China, cognac’s post-millennial promised land, has taken on a distinctly dystopian feel since the Beijing government rediscovered its communist principles and enforced an anti-extravagance crackdown at the end of 2012. Rumours of its demise as a market worthy of the attention and investment of the cognaçais have been exaggerated to the point of caricature, but it is a very different China that is emerging…

> The legal vodka markets of both Russia and Ukraine are in turmoil due to the economic problems facing both countries and a drop in the populations’ income.  According to data from the Federal Service for State Statistics (Rosstat), in 2014 sales of vodka in Russia dipped 8% from 2013 to 1.3 million nine-litre cases, which is the lowest figure since the…

At a reception in Delhi hosted by British High Commissioner in India, Sir James Bevan and Maneka Gandhi, Union cabinet minister for Women & Child Development, the programme was dedicated to the women of India. Launched in September 2013, the programme in its second year aims to contribute to entrepreneurship education by training women master trainers, and through them train a larger group of women…

“TRENDS ARE HOKUM,” declares Hamburg bar Le Lion’s Jörg Meyer – whose bar regularly makes the World’s 50 Best list – in a lengthy blog post. He may not like the media’s hunt for trends, but the entrepreneur has definitely started some all by himself – the most famous probably being the world’s first ‘internet cocktail’, Gin Basil Smash.  Currently Meyer is making heavy…

BUENOS AIRES FOREVER THRUMS WITH THE NOSTALGIA OF EL TANGO but, as a massive cosmopolitan city, it is constantly advancing its unique cultural trends.  This same spirit exists in its bartenders, who not only look to the history of local cocktail culture, which has been well established for over a century, but also to New York, London and Berlin to incorporate the latest cocktail…

> COCKTAIL TECHNIQUES AND THEORIES spread fast and wide thanks to internet reach, international conferences and guest bartending gigs, making it more challenging to define true regional tendencies. Major French cities regularly employ now industry-wide techniques such as bottling, barrel ageing, smoking, slushies and taps. But, 2015 looks to be the year France comes into its own as it develops a definable cocktail personality driven…