Chateau Patache d'Aux, 1997

You know when you loose track of a friend? Living a distance apart, having kids, a job, their wife, their kids.
These are just some of the reasons, why people slip out of your address book. However, there are some people who slip right back in.

There are some people, who were very good friends, but second time round, you don't quite know what to expect. Chateau Patache d'Aux, 1997 is one such friend.

I had one round for dinner the other night, we had fun and reminisced, but things were getting tired and soon we both knew we would be parting for good.

Villa Maria, Sauvignon Blanc at Sainsbury's

Villa Maria is a great winery from New Zealand. They are in the Hatch Mansfield stables, the cream of wine agents. Villa Maria grow a number of grape varieties, producing wonderful single grape variety wines. Therefore it came as a lovely surprise to see that Sainsbury's had an offer at the end of one of their aisles, promoting 1/3 off Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc, 2012.

Sauvignon Blanc is a grape variety, that New Zealand do well. I will go further and say that Villa Maria do it very well and consistently. Their winery is in the Northern part of the South Island.

The Marlborough based winery is still family run, fifty years on. They see themselves as an icon, within the country, but then so do the sheep!