“Wine is bottled poetry.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

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I am no wine expert. I don’t know a lot of the correct language to use when writing about wine. I just enjoy the journey of sampling varieties of wines from around the world like a magical mystery tour.

In place of sommelier vocabulary, I am going to write brashly and humbly about wines I have tried in recent years that have stayed with me for some reason, whether through taste, setting, company or experience.

I remember the first time I tasted red wine, when a bottle was placed on the table at my Year 11 prom and had one sip and declared it tasted like vinegar and wondered, how could anybody possibly like this?

Around my 21st birthday, a friend and I went to London and she bought me a glass of wine from the hotel bar. I felt grateful but guilty and couldn’t tell her I didn’t like it, but drank it anyway. She bought a few more, and I thought it wasn’t too bad by the end of the night.

I’ve loved to travel since I was 18 and I believe that the best way to sample a culture is through food and drink (not just alcoholic drinks; Moroccan mint tea, Italian espresso, freshly squeezed Seville orange juice and more are also delightful).

For me, tasting wine is a form of travelling. Opening a bottle from Chile from 2019, or a 2017 Chianti, or a 2020 Bulgarian, for example, is both a geographical travel and a time travel.

Here, I’d like to share some of these travels from wines that have stood out to me over the years. Reasons for my choices below vary from being because I loved the taste, to the memorable event I tried it, the beauty of the location, the life stage I was in, or a particular memory I have attached to the sensory experience.

The wines are written about below in no particular order.

1. Roblar Malbec, Dry Creek Valley, California, USA, 2015 (opened in 2018)

My sister Sammy spent three weeks in California in 2018 and she visited the Roblar Winery in Dry Creek Valley.

Not usually a red wine drinker, she was stunned by the pictured wine and brought me a bottle back which I opened in August 2018 and shared with her and our cousin, Luke. Also pictured are the Mississipi River pearl she got me and a jar of shells and sand from Monterey.

It’s hard for me to recall specifics 5 1/2 years on but I do remember it tasting like red velvet; a rich sunny Malbec with all the depth without being too dry.

2015 was a notable year for this winery and the sommelier told Sammy that this was a special one and shared with family on a warm August evening makes it indeed a memorable wine and what a privilege to have been able to try this rare wine brought all the way over from California.

2. Dom Pérignon, Champagne, France, Vintage 2004 (opened in 2014)

I couldn’t not include this, despite it being almost ten years since I drank this. It was December 2014 and the day of my master’s degree graduation. I had written the dissertation through a break-up and having to move back home with my parents, which meant I had little space to write and it was just generally a much more stressful and difficult experience that it already would have been.

I had my eye on graduation day just four months away and told myself I would buy a bottle of champagne to toast the completion through hard circumstances. Around that time, I got a bit of backpay and decided I wanted the best, so I ordered the 2004 Dom Pérignon at San Carlo in Liverpool at my graduation meal with my parents and sister. It was a literal splashing out, admittedly.

It was 10 years old, bottled the year I sat my GCSEs, which felt poignant whilst holding the certificate of the end of my formal education.

The champagne felt like mousse on the palate, low acidity, fresh and complex and was definitely a cut above others I had tried in my life.

It is said that Dom Pérignon, a French Benedictine monk born in 1638, discovered champagne by accident. The wine was left to ferment for too long and when he tasted it, he was surprised to find that it was sparkling and declared “I can taste the stars!”.

This is said to be nothing more than lore, as champagne did not become popular in France until the 19th century but he can fondly be known as the “spiritual father of Champagne” (quote from Pépites en Champagne).

3. Bedoba Saperavi, Georgia, 2020 (opened in 2023)

Luke, his partner and mother and I had all spent a gorgeous day in the north eastern coastal town of Tynemouth on a slightly overcast but warm late August day. We had a late lunch at the divine Riley’s Fish Shack where we dined on freshly caught fish and chilled skin-contact wine on the soft sands of King Edward’s Bay with a fire pit brought to the table.

If you are ever in Tyneside or anywhere in the north east, I recommend you go there and book a table in advance.

Afterwards, we spotted a wine shop on the high street whose name I cannot find. It was my last night visiting Luke so we decided to get a bottle of something special to bring back to his home in Darlington. We perused the reds, unsure of which one to go for, spoilt for choice.

For some reason, a bottle with artwork of religious imagery caught our eye but I wasn’t sure, it looked like it might taste really dry and heavy, like a really old oaked Bordeaux. When we saw it was from Georgia, we thought, let’s give it a go. Let’s try a wine from a country we haven’t sampled before. The shop owner told us that Georgia is sometimes credited as being the birthplace of wine.

The Saperavi grape is inky, spicy and acidic. Incidentally, saperavi means ‘paint, dye, give colour’ and the wine itself is a deep rouge-noir.

We took our first sip after allowing it to breathe and it was like a (pleasant) shockwave to the sensory system. Wow. Instant, sheer pleasure. Like the silkiest of chocolate, the softest of satins, the warmest hug you have ever received. Stunning.

I can be very indecisive and struggle when people ask me things like “what is your favourite book?” or “what is your favourite song?” but I can safely say that to date, Bedoba Saperavi is the most beautiful red wine I have ever tasted.

You can order it from Butler’s Wine Cellar here.

4. Bolyki, Egri Bikavér ‘Bull’s Blood’, Hungary, 2020 (opened in 2023)

My Grandad János was born in Budapest in 1930 so there has always been an intrigue in our family about Hungarian wine. It can be hard to come by in England and a wine tasting experience on a trip to Budapest in December 2023 informed us that the main reason for this is that the Hungarians prefer to keep most of their wine in their country.

I occasionally find it in Lidl, Aldi or Majestic Wines, or Luke and I order from Best of Hungary. Hungary is most known for its Tokaji wines usually made from the white Furmint grape which can be dry or sweet like a dessert wine. I buy it for my mum sometimes and I can enjoy a glass but it isn’t my favourite wine to drink.

I much prefer a red wine, and Hungary really delivers on its reds, or vörösbor. My mum’s maiden name is Fehér, which means ‘white’, and she prefers white wine, like my sister.

Her father, János, loved his vörösbor, particularly Bikavér, ‘bull’s blood’. You can order the Bolyki brand from their own website, Best of Hungary, and Amazon, costing usually around £15-£25 for standard bottles.

My grandad passed away in June 2023 and Luke hosted the wake at his house, cooking Hungarian fare such as gulyás and pörkölt for everybody. He provided a couple of bottles of Bolyki Egri Bikavér (‘bull’s blood’) for us to raise a toast to the memory of János’ life which was poignant and just as he would have liked and approved.

This wine tastes lively and peppery like paprika, a bit like a shiraz but with a sort of smokier undertone. It’s not as heavy as it sounds and it goes very well with goulash as you would expect.

“Wine is sunlight, held together by water”

-Galileo Galilei

5. Sierra Oriental, Naranja, Maldonado, Uruguay, 2021 (opened in 2023)

We had gotten into orange wines, or as they are properly called, skin-contact wines, on a trip to Warsaw in May 2023. Some wine drinkers still aren’t convinced and I will always revert to red but there is something so pleasant about a glass of naranja on a warm summery day.

We picked up this bottle from R&H Wines in Liverpool; a wine all the way from the subtropical oceanic climate of Maldonado in Uruguay.

We drank it over the August bank holiday weekend at our grandmother’s house in Redcar, on the English north eastern coast on a sunny afternoon.

It was served semi-chilled in my nan’s dinky crystal goblets which I held up to the dappled light beaming in from the dining room window and it looked like liquid gold. It is a delicate skin-contact, more amber than orange, which recalls azahar, or orange blossom flower.

This wine is memorable to me due to the sensory qualities: the golden hue, the floral notes, the warm bank holiday afternoon spent at my nan’s house surrounded by flowers, ornaments and family, to the sound of trees rustling and birdsong. It is a perfect August wine.

6. Château La Croizille, Saint-Émilion Grand Cru, Bordeaux, France, 2013 (opened 2019)

Now this one was drunk mis-en-scène, at its very winery in Saint-Émilion, Bordeaux, on a trip there with Luke in 2019. We knew we were in for some brilliant reds in the heartland of wine and a mini bus ride to Saint-Émilion after a poor night’s sleep due to a noisy refrigerator in our aparthotel was totally worth it.

The Château La Croizille winery was set in beautiful rustic grounds with acres of vast greenery strung with wines of various grapes with roses and lavender around the cottages and the château itself.

We were taken on a mid-morning tour around the estate by the winemaker’s daughter, dressed in a white blouse and jodhpurs with impeccable eyebrows.

We learned a lot about the wine making process and I was surprised to see a lot of it ageing in steel containers as opposed to oak barrels. Some of their oak barrels were imported from Scotland which had aged whiskeys, for a particular Scotch-infused wine they also made on site.

Afterwards, we were invited to sample some of their best-selling wines, each thimble punctuated by a palate-cleansing square of dark chocolate or a shard of cracker.

Luke and I decided we liked their 2013 best, so I bought us a bottle to bring back to the apartment, as Luke had bought our tickets to the winery. We then decided to be lavish and order a crate of 6 which to be fair, we did spread out over years.

A couple of weeks after returning home from our trip to Bordeaux, I was sat at my parents’ house marking exams when a van pulled up and a crate was off-loaded, and it was as exciting a delivery as a year prior when all my worldly belongings came over a week after I moved back home from Spain.

Even relatives who do not usually enjoy red wine were stunned at its drinkability, a velvety regal red that had so many layers of complexities yet finished off smoothly. I would love to buy this wine again in the future but it is admittedly an expensive but worthwhile treat.

7. Chã, Vinho do Fogo, Tinto, Cape Verde, 2017 (opened 2023)

I visited the island of Boa Vista in Cape Verde in August 2023 and purchased this bottle from the hotel shop to bring back home. Wine is produced on only one of the ten islands: Fogo, home to a volcano called Pico do Fogo.

‘Fogo’ is the Portuguese word for ‘fire’. The vines grow high up on the volcano in black, volcanic soil, and the annual production is tiny in comparison to other wine regions. Being relatively close to the equator, it has high-ish alcoholic content at 14%.

As far as I know, you can’t buy Fogo wines anywhere else. In fact, most of the wine in the hotel shop was from Portugal. I got the last bottle of Cape Verdean Tinto. Even the airport didn’t stock any!

I brought it back to England and shared it with Luke in our nan’s conservatory one night. We let it breathe for a while then smelt and tasted its smoky, volcanic earthiness. It would taste beautiful with barbecued meats.

Part of the privilege of tasting it was in its exclusivity, knowing it wasn’t something we could just buy again next week or order online for another time. I’d love to get my hands on another wine from Fogo but it might just be a once-in-a-lifetime thing unless I return or someone I know goes to Cape Verde.

8. Bodrog Borműhely, Dry Tokaj, Hungary, 2022

I’ve always liked to try Tokaj as a nod to our Hungarian heritage but to be honest, I’ve never particularly enjoyed it, except for when Luke and I were given a taste of a 2002 Tokaji Aszu on a wine tasting trip to Budapest in December 2023 which tasted like liquid gold.

We visited our grandmother in the northeast and decided to pick a Tokaj to go with Luke’s paprikash. I wasn’t expecting how lovely it was going to be: a refreshing mineral stone washed crystal clear white wine with hints of pear and melon. I would usually drink red wine with paprikash due to the red colour of the sauce but a crisp white like this cuts through the mild spice and sour cream beautifully. We have also learned that the way to taste white wines properly is to only semi-chill them before serving.

Ordered online at Butler’s Wine Cellar.

9. Maurer Oszkar, Kadarka, Serbia, 2021 (opened in Poland in 2023)

Kadarka is a Hungarian grape, the wine maker is based in Serbia, and we drank it in Warsaw, Poland, in May 2023 at an excellent wine bar called Źródło in the trendy Praga district. The resident wine expert, Adrian, greeted us with his humorous and cheeky style and helped us choose from their extensive selection of Polish wines.

Admittedly, I had no idea that Poland makes its own wine before this trip and it is divine. They are big on skin-contact, or orange, wines, and pét nats (pétillant natural– naturally sparkling in French).

We were finding it hard to choose and didn’t want a heavy red wine in the mid-afternoon so Adrian guided us to choosing this Kadarka which we chose for three reasons:

1. It is made from Hungarian grapes and Sammy, Luke and I are 1/4 Hungarian
2. We like to try wines from lesser known wine countries so Serbia it was
3. It is on (or has been on) the wine list at Noma, a three-Michelin-star restaurant that has been named the best restaurant in the world at least five time

It is a natural and organic wine (so sulphite free) that is lighter in alcohol content at 12.5% which makes it fresh and easily drinkable. The colour, as you can see, is like a richer shade of Vimto and the cartoon labelling indicates its fun and lively character.

It was a pleasant way to pass a couple of hours on a sunny May afternoon in the Praga neighbourhood in great company, with young Polish couples chilling with their fluffy dogs and small children (it is a restaurant, not just a bar!) with laid back music and amazing Polish cheese.

Big shout out to the water featured in the photo by the way- it was no coincidence that as soon as we had a sip of it, we all said at once how beautiful it was! I can’t explain what makes it different to any other water, it was just so fresh and soft, like drinking liquid crystal, water that had flowed to us directly from the Rivers of Babylon… anyway, it ensured that there was no dehydration and was almost as good to drink as the wine itself (in some ways it was more memorable).

Cisowianka Water – read more here

10. Niagara College Teaching Winery, Merlot, Canada, 2020

My friend Lawrence went to Canada and visited a teaching winery in Ontario. I had seen a picture on his Instagram story and thought how amazing it would be to try Canadian wine.

When he came out for my birthday meal a week later, I was delighted when he passed me a wine gift bag and inside was a bottle brought back from there.

It was a pure merlot and surprisingly high in volume at 14.5% for a cold region wine.

I saved it for a few weeks then shared it with Luke and we both said at the same time that it tasted richly of leather and tobacco, a style of wine neither of us had ever tasted before. I have never been to Canada or tasted a wine like this therefore this is proof of wine as a form of travel; faraway lands and seas brought to your palate and senses in a sip.

Add the music of the country and maybe even the food and there you are, as if reading about this place in the pages of a book.

There are others and there will be others that make a mark on me but this is a selection of 10 that have truly been a pleasure to taste.

When we order online, we tend to use the following UK merchants:

RH Wines (Liverpool)

Butler’s Wine Cellar (Brighton)

Best of Hungary (Cardiff)

Majestic Wines (UK-wide)

Finally, in the spirit of wine as a form of travelling, here are some words for “cheers!” that I have collected from various countries or places I have visited or people I have met:

Cheers!- English

Santé!- French

¡Salud!- Spanish

Salute!- Italian

Saúde!- Portuguese

Terviseks!- Estonian

Prost! German

Yiamas!- Greek

Mazel tov!/ Mazal tov!- Yiddish/Hebrew

Egészégedre!- Hungarian

Skál!- Icelandic

Skål!- Swedish

Tell me, what are some of your most memorable wines?

Are you a red, white, rosé, skin-contact, sparkling or other lover?

What is your favourite wine region or grape?

Let me know in the comments!