On a warm, sunny spring day, I drank a bottle of old champagne with a dear friend. I have been feeling out of sorts for over a week and the Jacquesson Grand Cru Avize from the very good 1995 vintage was the perfect pick me up. It was one of several from a visit to…
I like to drink champagne mostly as an aperitif and some times with seafood and white fish. Chardonnay based wines from the Côtes des Blancs fit the bill very well. The big Champagne Houses in Reims and Epernay make excellent non-vintage blends and prestige cuvees using their vast and varied reserve wines. The good smaller…
Ever since I first read Ernest Hemingway‘s “Sun Also Rises” as a schoolboy, I have been fascinated by the July feria in Pamplona. I have been devoted to Hemingway and his writing since encountering the Nick Adam Stories.When I finally I got to Pamplona in 2005, it was only for a quick look and ‘running with…
Back home in Yorkshire after ten weeks away in Sri Lanka eating mainly fish and drinking only beer and Black Label, I have been relishing the Reds – both meat and wine. Even wines I did not care for very much like Rockford’s Moppa Hills 1999 tasted pretty good. Pontet-Canet 2002 was sublime. A bottle…
Rumassala Hill near the southern Sri Lankan city of Galle is well known for exotic plant life and the Japanese Peace Pagoda. It also has a splendid, isolated beach the locals call the Jungle Beach. A foot path from the Peace Pagoda takes you down through dense vegetation to the small, sheltered sandy beach facing…
Kala Pola, a street art market, is held on Green Path in Colombo every Sunday. The street is packed with stalls selling works of unknown or little known Sri Lankan artists. Some are remarkably good. Paintings cost between Rs.4000 and Rs.30,000. There is a little stall at the Kala Pola where two women make Kavum…
Last evening I visited my son and his family who were staying at Tintagel – the elegant boutique hotel in the heart of Colombo. The rooms are large and elegantly furnished but the black-clad staff appeared rather bored and not quite quick off the mark. We had a drink in the courtyard dinning area but…
It was reported today that Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka has suspended two mahouts and a curator following the death of a 23-year-old male elephant in their care. The elephant is said to have died of wounds suffered when its keepers had poked it with sharp implements in November 2009 at the orphanage. The…
I had dinner with an old friend in Colombo yesterday who has the most remarkable cellar of over 4000 bottles – Rheingau Rieslings from Tony Jost, Frescobaldi‘s Brunello, Ornellaia, Sasacaia, Hill of Grace, Grange etc. Untill his new air-cnditioned cellar is ready, he keeps the wine in 25 Eurocaves!
Today, I wrote to Sri Lanka Tourism about taxi fares in Sri Lanka: “About 40 UK visitors attended my daughter’s wedding in Sri Lanka last week. Almost all of them made adverse comments about how much the taxi drivers demand from foreign visitors even for short journeys.They all wanted me to book transfers to the…
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