Dish of the day March 17, 2014 Franco Gatto’s Lobster linguine INGREDIENTS (serves 4) ■ 300g linguine ■ 2 lobster 500/600g each ■ 1 onion ■ 1 carrot ■ 2 sticks of celery ■ ½ glass of white wine ■ 250ml 1tbsp tomato paste ■ 1 chopped garlic clove ■ 1 sweet red chilli ■ chopped parsley ■ Extra virgin olive oil [...]
Springbok spicing up the wine market January 19, 2014 Annabel Palmer talks to Rowan Gormley, the South African taking on wine’s giants with venture Naked Wines THE DAYS of the wine snob – so brilliantly caricatured by Richard E Grant’s the Hon Simon Marchmont in the BBC’s Posh Nosh – could be coming to an end. It’s an industry long characterised by an assumption [...]
Wine funding venture uncorks bond issue paid out in claret September 1, 2013 NAKED Wines, the wine funding business launched by former Virgin executive Rowan Gormley, has launched a £3m fundraising using bonds that pay interest in wine. The fine wine bonds, which have a three-year duration, will pay gross interest of 10 per cent in wine credits for customers to snap up more bottles from Naked Wines. [...]
Naked Wines founder prefers a cheap rosé August 22, 2013 THE CAPITALIST is raising a glass to the news that online wine merchant Naked Wines has announced a third round investment of $10m, to help it start popping more corks in the US and Australia. The British crowdfunding site is backed by angel investor customers who pay £20 per month to invest in small winemakers, and [...]
Find sanctuary from the Indian bustle November 25, 2012 ENSCONCED in a luxury yoga hotel in the Himalayas, or in a resort matrix like Goa, you might just be able to avoid the clanging, overwhelming reality of India as you go about your daily business. Not in the cities. No matter how luxurious your hotel, enclave, or colony (as certain leafy districts are known), [...]
Why making a business out of wine is no mean feat November 12, 2012 THERE CAN be something very impersonal about buying a bottle of wine. You pull something off a shelf with a nice label and some fancy writing and take pot luck. Even if it’s delicious, you don’t really know a great deal about it. There may be a few uninformative notes on the back, perhaps a [...]
Why making a business out of wine is no mean feat November 12, 2012 THERE CAN be something very impersonal about buying a bottle of wine. You pull something off a shelf with a nice label and some fancy writing and take pot luck. Even if it’s delicious, you don’t really know a great deal about it. There may be a few uninformative notes on the back, perhaps a [...]
Visit Malaysia for the birds, the bees and the leeches October 7, 2012 MY HERO swoops down in the nick of time. I’m perched atop a bare rock, too petrified to move when she flies to my rescue. Barely seven inches tall, the blue-winged pitta flits to the ground and within moments, her beak is filled with what look like needle-thin worms. I’ve never been happier to see [...]
Best bread and butter on earth at fab Dabbous April 30, 2012 RESTAURANT DABBOUS 39 Whitfield Street W1T 2SF FOOD ***** SERVICE ***** ATMOSPHERE ***** Cost per person without wine: £50 Ollie Dabbous, the man behind the most talked-about, hardest-to-book new restaurant in England, is from Guildford. I like that. It gives Dabbous – whose food was said to be so exciting by one famous critic that [...]
Be amazed by Africa’s stunning wilderness January 8, 2012 WE set off from London hotly anticipating both the serenity of the Mozambican beach and the rugged landscape and heart-pounding thrill of hunting (seeking not shooting) big game in the Tanzanian bush. It’s a trip that perfectly encapsulates the word “safari” – “long journey” in Swahili – for it takes in seven flights, five boat [...]