Wine Blast with Susie and Peter – Details, episodes & analysis

We all know champagne - but what if you fancy a wine like champagne but maybe less pricey, more fruity or just different? The good news is: there's never been more choice, as production blossoms in regions as diverse as Serbia, China and India.

Our stellar guide to the intriguing world of traditional-method sparkling wine beyond Champagne is Essi Avellan MW, one of the world's foremost fizz experts.

Essi has just published a brilliant monograph, Sparkling Wines of the World, in conjunction with The International Wine & Food Society (IWFS). 

The IWFS is the world's longest-running food and wine society, founded in 1933 by André Simon. Nowadays it has more than 5,500 members across the globe, with regular get-togethers, tastings, tours and events. Do check them out!

The IWFS are sponsors of this episode and are kindly offering our listeners 40% off the price of Essi's monograph, so £6 down from £9.99, until 31st December 2025. You can access that via the following link: Sparkling Wines of the World offer for Wine Blast listeners.

Also in this episode, we chat with long-time IWFS member and UK wine trade guru, Mimi Avery, recommend some decidedly different traditional-method sparkling wines, and reflect on the importance of deliciousness. And big bottles.

Thanks for tuning in. We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe. Or you can find all details from this episode on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S7 E9 - Top of the Pops: Classic Fizz Beyond Champagne

To get early access to all episodes, full archive access to our back catalogue and exclusive occasional bonus content, subscribe to Wine Blast PLUS at wineblast.co.uk

Instagram: @susieandpeter

We're in the middle of, 'the mystery of the world's most expensive bottle of wine.' We've seen the auction, met the protagonists, got a vivid taste for the heady wine-boom time of the 1980s and 90s...hell, the cork has even dramatically dropped out already (an appropriate metaphor if ever there was one). That's all in Part 1.

Now we get stuck into the heart of our story. 

What were the doubts about this magical bottle of wine, and others like it? Who was this mysterious Hardy Rodenstock character really? And how on earth might a dead frog, a dentist's drill, windscreen wipers, an 'egghead', and radioactive isotopes crop up in the plot?!

Benjamin Wallace, author of The Billionaire's Vinegar, is our expert guide, also exploring the fall-out not just from his book (including his publisher being sued) but also the broader ramifications for the key characters and the wine world in general. We also have some final words from influential wine trade characters featured in the book, with their unflinching take on Hardy Rodenstock and his legacy.

Thanks for tuning in. We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe. Or you can find all details from this episode on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S7 E7 - The Story of The Billionaire's Vinegar: Part 2

To get early access to all episodes, full archive access to our back catalogue and exclusive occasional bonus content, subscribe to Wine Blast PLUS at wineblast.co.uk

Instagram: @susieandpeter

In fiction, Shangri-La was a mythical place of boundless human wisdom and agelessness. These days, after China re-named a city in north-west Yunnan Province, it's the backdrop of a potential game-changer for Chinese wine.

This particular backdrop is forbidding. Think: precipitous mountain gorges above the raging Mekong River at nearly 3,000 metres altitude. A patchwork of small-holding vineyards cling to the hillsides. Prunings are fed to yaks. Tea, tobacco and mushrooms are Yunnan's historic crops. No wonder the wine potential in the Meili Mountain region long remained hidden.

That is, until a particularly stubborn and resilient Australian winemaker, Tony Jordan, embarked on an arduous search on behalf of global luxury group LVMH to unearth a Chinese Grand Cru terroir. He found Shangri-La. But would his bet pay off?

In this episode we discover the intriguing story of Ao Yun - how (on earth) it came to be, just how challenging this operation is to run, and most importantly - what's the wine actually like? At nearly £300 a bottle, it has a lot to live up to. We talk to winemaker Maxence Dulou, Chinese wine expert Janet Wang and Berry Brothers & Rudd Asia buyer Tom Baxter. We also deliver our verdict on the wine whose name means, 'soaring above the clouds'.

Thanks for tuning in. We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe. Or you can find contact info, together with all details from this episode, including some eye-catching photos, on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S6 E21 - AO YUN: The Insider's Guide

Instagram: @susieandpeter

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 option, the best wine we've ever tried out of a can (a white, as it happens), and a gorgeous red that represents a large slice of humble pie for Susie.

You can watch on YouTube via this link (even if just to see just how tragic Peter's Christmas jumper really is): Susie & Peter's Wines of the Year 2021 on YouTube

Show notes, including all wine details and the video, are on our website: Susie & Peter's Wines of the Year on susieandpeter.com 

The three wines we feature are:

• Raul Perez Bierzo La Vitoriana 2018, Spain
• Banks Brothers Chardonnay No. 3, South Africa
• Santa Tresa Rina Russa Frappato 2019, Italy

Catch up with us and say hi on Instagram or Twitter - we'd love to hear from you. Cheers!

Oz Clarke has done most wine things you've ever thought of, and some you maybe haven't even imagined.

But we're not here to dwell on sex in a Margaux vineyard (though we do, of course, ask the question). This is about Oz Clarke OBE the wine titan, the great storyteller, the acclaimed author and broadcaster, surely the most successful person who ever claimed to have spent his, 'whole life avoiding getting a proper job.'

We try not to slur as we work our way through a bottle of 1985 claret and discuss what Oz would criticise about wine today, climate change, natural wine, his favourite (and least favourite) wine grapes, Bordeaux, whether Burgundy should re-plant Pinot Noir with Syrah (heresy though it might sound)...and how to disagree.

A sponsored episode in collaboration with Academie du Vin Library, publishers of Oz Clarke on Wine, who are generously offering £5 or $5 off the cover price when you use the discount code WINEBLAST5 at www.academieduvinlibrary.com

Show notes are on our website via this link: The Oz Clarke Exclusive on susieandpeter.com

Catch up with us and say hi on Instagram or Twitter - we'd love to hear from you. Cheers!

'Nobody thinks of wine as the villain in the climate story. But in fact we are.' So says When In Rome's Rob Malin, who spoke at COP26 about how shipping wine around the world in glass bottles leads to significant carbon emissions.

'We have to take this seriously because if we don’t do something about climate change, you can forget a lot of your nice wine producing regions,' says Oli Purnell of canned wine startup The Copper Crew.

WTAF stands, in this case, for Wine Traders for Alternative Formats (things like bag-in-box, pouches, bagnums, cans, kegs and plastic bottles). In this episode, we hear their impassioned case for building a more sustainable future for wine, citing figures showing glass bottles have nearly ten times worse carbon footprint than bag-in-box. Their secret weapon? Quality wines and new technology meaning no scrimping on drinking pleasure - while presenting a strong case for sustainability. 

We also get a sense of the overview from packaging experts WRAP. And along the way, we talk about featuring climate impact on labels, new ways to recycle plastic, cost savings of alt format wines, wastage, carbon tax...and Nero d'Avola on cornflakes.

Featured in this episode are:

- Rob Malin, When in Rome
- Ollie Lea, The BIB Wine Company
- Rich Hamblin, More Wine
- Nik Darlington, Graft Wine
- Oli Purnell, The Copper Crew
- Adam Herriott, WRAP

As ever, show notes for this episode (including our 'alt format' wine recommendations) are on our website. 

You can catch us and say hi via Instagram or Twitter.

Please join in the fun! For our Big English Wine Adventure, we've gone and made 3 one-off English wines, with all profits going to charity. Now the project is reaching its climax: the wines are going on sale on 25th November 2021. But we're no experts in making or selling wine. Our necks are on the line and we need your help...

We have some BIG announcements in this episode, which features plenty of drama, intrigue and jeopardy. We reveal our brilliant charity partner as well as the name for our sparkling wines - both of which were voted for as part of a public competition we ran over 5 years.

What's more, our labels have been designed by mysterious street artist Hendog so we talk illegal art and free walls. Finally, the tension ramps up when we taste our wines for the first time in 5 years: will they be up to scratch?!

We also spill the beans on how you can support the project - where and how you can buy the wines, and what your support will mean (not just to us, but a fantastic charity doing vital work). Thanks for listening, and for supporting - we really appreciate it!

As ever, show notes for this episode are on our website.  You can catch us and say hi via Instagram or Twitter.

Did you know Bordeaux used to be mainly white, not red wine? And that there's a universe of delicious diversity (and great value) to be discovered among the dry and sweet whites of Bordeaux (not forgetting the fizz)?

This is the second part in our mini-series in association with the Bordeaux Wine Council (CIVB) and we dive headlong into the fascinating world of white Bordeaux. We talk to the brilliant Laure de Lambert Compeyrot of Chateau Sigalas Rabaud as well as 'renegade' winemaker Olivier Cazenave of Chateau de Bel. Bordeaux expert Jane Anson also makes a cameo appearance.

The episode also features the ULTIMATE breakfast cocktail (involving Sauternes and blood orange), masochism, robots, 'heavy metal' orange wine, the 2021 vintage, earthworms the size of snakes, rescuing Muscadelle, loving 'the game' and some amazing value wine tips. By way of bonus, both Susie and Peter break into what might be loosely described as 'song' at different moments.

As ever, show notes for this episode are on our website.  You can catch us and say hi via Instagram or Twitter.

Are you a bargain hunter, a new-experience seeker, a drinker-in as well as taker-out, someone with thirsty friends or friends to impress?

Whoever you are - we can help you buy wine better.

Buying wine isn't easy. So much choice, so little time - but getting the right bottle, and the right experience, makes a big difference. To help inform, guide and hopefully inspire you, we draw not only on our personal experience (confession: we buy too much wine) but also Peter's experience of chairing the Decanter Retailer Awards, a major UK competition whose 2021 results have just been announced.

We ask Pierpaolo Petrassi MW of UK supermarket Waitrose and Paola Tich of small independent merchant Vindinista for their go-to 'bang-for-buck' wines. Plus we discuss discounts, wine in cans, subscription plans, diversity in wine, own labels, sustainability, virtual events and POTENTIAL WINE SHORTAGES.

Somehow, lampshades and frozé also get a mention. To correct the karma, we recommend a great value red from Majestic and a Croatian white from Tanners. Enjoy!

As ever, show notes for this episode are on our website.  You can catch us and say hi via Instagram or Twitter.

It's gone from a joke to world-class in just a couple of decades - but what does the future now hold for English and Welsh wine? Will it be a case of boom and bust, as some are predicting? Or will this be the success story that just keeps on rolling?

We dive into this debate with plenty of facts and figures to hand, plus we hear from Dermot Sugrue (Wiston), Ruth Simpson (Simpsons), Sergio Verillo (Blackbook) and Josh Donaghay-Spire (Chapel Down). We talk about climatic challenges, the 'nightmare' 2021 vintage, over-production, sales, exports, wine tourism, controversial new brands and styles, still wines...and reindeer sausages.

Talking of success stories, this could be YOU as this episode features a FREE GIVEAWAY where you could win six (6!) award-winning bottles of brilliant English and/or Welsh wines. Just give us a rating and review wherever you get your podcasts, then let us know, and you'll go straight in the hat. (Deadline: Sun 17th October 2021, but we'll still love you if you do it after then too.)

To top things off, we've also got a brilliant value English wine recommendation for you. 

As for how to get in touch, you can send us an email.  Or let us know via Instagram or Twitter. As ever, show notes for this episode are on our website. Cheers!