Wine Blast is a wine podcast with a difference. Susie and Peter are married Masters of Wine and experienced broadcasters who bring wine to life with a smile via interviews with amazing people, provocative chat, food, tips, your questions, gentle bickering and a certain amount of over-sharing. (And yes, they're aware they really need to get out more...) This award-winning, chart-topping pod has been widely featured in international press including The Times, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Sun, Evenin ...
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Is it a white? Is it a red?! Is it a rosé??!! Or is our WINE OF THE YEAR none (or all) of the above...because it is, quite simply, pure gold? Welcome to our Wines of the Year show, an annual favourite where we look back over the past year, not always entirely seriously, and raise many a glass in the process. We recap on key news, play Guess the Mis…
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The Vines of the Future...Are Here
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There's a revolution going on in the vineyards. It's coming to a glass near you soon. And it could change the world of wine forever. We're talking super vines. Bionic vines. PIWIs. Resistant vines. Hybrids. TEA vines - the new generation, 'assisted evolution' kit. Whatever you want to call them - there's a new breed of grape vines spreading fast al…
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Portugal's Great Whites - Bucking Brancos
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This show's got everything. It's got deliciously unexpected wine discoveries. It's got live music. It's even got a donkey. You can't ask for more than that. As for how that all comes together...well, you'll just have to listen, won't you?! This episode's all about Portugal's white wines, the best of which are astonishingly good and different and wo…
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Tainted Love - The Ultimate Guide to Wine Faults
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59:30
Ladybug poo. Cheesy feet. Mould. Boiled eggs. Cabbage. Drains. Vomit. Nail varnish remover. Dead mouse... Yes, you can find all these noxious aromas in a glass of wine. They are very real - and in this episode we put our bodies on the line as we blind taste through all these horrors and more, to answer the big questions and ensure you know your stu…
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Chinese Wine: What's the Deal?
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China has the world's third biggest vineyard and a long history with fermentation and booze. So what's Chinese wine like? Why do we not see more of it outside China? And why are some people predicting big things for Chinese wine in the future? Answers to all this and more flow thick and fast in this intriguing episode, the result of Susie's recent …
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Life or Death? On Wine and Health
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Consider this our call to arms for wine. Where we grapple heroically with the thorny issue of wine and health, calling out misinformation and over-reach, and learn that the truth is always complex, potentially positive - but often mis-represented. This makes us angry and frustrated. And you should feel the same too. You may also feel confused or ja…
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Hunter Valley: History to High Jinks
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A hop, skip and jump away from Sydney, the Hunter Valley is renowned as the birthplace of Australian wine. And yet this is far from ideal wine territory: hot, sticky, often stormy. So how did this tiny wine region come to play such an outsize role in Ozzie wine’s history and evolution? Join us to find out why as we chew the cud with Hunter legend B…
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Chile Wines of the Year 2024
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It's a biggie. Our Chile Wines of the Year 2024 - a celebration and exploration of this slender South American nation's wines. And what's coming up may surprise you. So if you think you know Chilean wine - be prepared to think again. We discuss vineyards planted before the French revolution, sensational value Pinot Noir (the holy grail!), flor-aged…
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Action Stations - Wines to Combat Climate Change
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Climate change is a worry. We get it. But how to do something positive about it, especially as a wine lover? After all, it's not easy knowing which wines to buy to support producers doing the right thing... Which is where the IWCA comes in handy - International Wineries for Climate Action. This is a bunch of conscientious wine producers who have si…
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It's popular, it's pleasurable - and it's much misunderstood. Rosé is having a moment and yet the myths remain pervasive. That's our cue to ride to the rescue, busting a host of rosé myths as we go, shooting down cardinal sins from the hip, and urging a radical re-think of rosé all round. We hear from rosé experts Elizabeth Gabay MW and Ben Berhnei…
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Wine and War: Palestine, Israel and Lebanon
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1:26:40
Wine can seem tremendously unimportant at a time of war. At what is a torrid time in the Middle East, we wanted to check in with three winemakers - from Palestine, Israel and Lebanon - and ask: can wine really be a source of positivity during troubled times? What we hear in this episode may surprise you. It's a departure from our regular format - a…
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Red Wine Headaches: A Eureka Moment?
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Wine brings pleasure. But for some it can also prove painful. Red wine is particularly problematic for a proportion of the population, with just a few mouthfuls bringing on swift and excruciating headaches. Now scientists think they may finally be on to why. In lab experiments, they've identified a compound in red wine that impedes the breakdown of…
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Rías Baixas - Albariño with Attitude
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If Rías Baixas is famous for one thing, it's characterful, invigorating white wine based on the superstar Albariño grape - described in this episode by one winemaker as a variety that can take you, 'from the swimming pool to the Michelin-starred restaurant.' Its blossoming popularity over recent decades has given rise to imitators all around the wi…
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Rías Baixas - Mists, Myths and Mariscos
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What do bagpipes, rain, witches, pilgrimage, lampreys and Albariño all have in common? Not much really - but they are all featured in this episode on Rías Baixas, the intriguing wine region in north-west Spain famous for its seafood, verdant landscapes and refreshing, brine-tinged white wines. Historically, this was always a remote region of hardy …
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News & Views - global wine wobbles, free wine for phones, Merlot in the bath & does cling film remove cork taint?
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How and why is the global wine scene in a bit of a state? Why is wine threatened by weight-loss drugs and smartphones? Does drinking high quality wine make you happier - and does light drinking increase longevity? This is our periodic programme where we catch up on the more intriguing wine news, pondering everything from weighty matters (as above) …
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There's a new wave of English and Welsh wine producers disrupting the neat and tidy order of the classic UK wine scene. Guerrilla producers - cool kids who aren't afraid to go off-piste and craft dangerous, divisive wines packed full of quirks and kinks. Their attitude? It's better to be naughty than nice. As one winemaker says - he wants to make, …
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Sassicaia - The Insider's Guide
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Not many wines ascend to the status of 'icon'. But Sassicaia is one of them. The beauty is that it's not a flashy wine - quite the opposite ('old school' might be a more appropriate description). What's more, its ascent to the wine stratosphere is largely accidental - this scented, elegant Bordeaux blend from Bolgheri in coastal Tuscany was only ev…
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It's called 'The Grenaissance'. This exhilarating revival of the grape variety known as Garnacha in Spain and Grenache in France, once the world's fourth most widely planted wine grape, which has gone from workhorse to show pony in the blink of an eye. How come? What's changed? Who's leading the charge and fuelling the new wave? And what's this we …
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Grower Champagne with Lea & Sandeman
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From big brand to fine wine - it's no exaggeration to say that grower champagne has changed the notion of what champagne can and should be. Pioneers like Francis Egly of iconic grower champagne Egly-Ouriet have invested huge amounts of time and money prioritising their vineyards, relentlessly focusing on quality and terroir expression in their wine…
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Light Strike: Wine's Not-So-Secret Scandal
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Light strike is probably the biggest wine fault you've never heard of. Bigger than cork, bigger than oxidation or anything else. That pretty-looking bottle of rosé perched on the bright supermarket shelf in a clear glass bottle? Probably knackered. If it's been exposed to light for a while, it may end up smelling of boiled cabbage, drains, or wet d…
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Ancient Vines to the Rescue in St Mont
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Deep in the wilds of south-west France there's a vineyard that was planted over 200 years ago with unknown vines that may hold the secret to fighting climate change. Join us as we head (virtually) out to Gascony to peer into the mists of wine history and see what lessons it holds for the future. Olivier Bourdet-Pees of the dynamic Plaimont cooperat…
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ORANGE WINE Part 2: Gimme Some Skin
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So - orange wine. Is it any good? What qualifies a wine to be 'orange'? Does it sell? And who's going to win our argument about one particularly divisive orange wine?! Dive into the controversial, topical and intriguing subject of orange wine with us as we chat with Saša Radikon of iconic orange wine producer Radikon (who gives us an exclusive reve…
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ORANGE WINE Part 1: The Resurrection
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'Please can you do an episode on orange wine?' pleaded listener David. 'It's not just hipster wine! These are some of the finest wines in the world...' How could we resist? Orange wine is topical, misunderstood, controversial... It's also an intriguing story featuring a wine style lost in the mists of time being painstakingly resurrected by a handf…
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Wine. Food. Merriment. And a touch of southern French sun. That just about sums up this episode. We're exploring Occitanie - the sun-kissed southern French region that stretches from the western Rhone through Languedoc and Roussillon into South West France. Taken as a whole, it's the world's largest vineyard and makes around 5% of global wine outpu…
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Our Wines of the Year format has grown into this riotous, rollicking rollercoaster of a show which we humbly offer up for your amusement and delectation. This is no shopping list. Nor is it a chest-beating exercise in showing off how #wineblessed we are. This episode is the story of a year in wine: a celebration of special bottles and special times…
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Odessa Black. It's the name of a (Ukranian) grape variety. But it could almost be code for the desperate times the people of Ukraine are living through. In this episode, we explore the history and current context of Ukraine, hearing first-hand insights from Tania Olevska of the Ukrainian Wine Company and Svitlana Tsybak of the Beykush winery. Despi…
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Languedoc is a wine region on the move. Sure, it's a huge region with plenty of history, some of it troubled. But there are things happening in Languedoc wine now that are innovative, surprising, intriguing and...well, delicious. In short, it's well worthy of our attention. In this episode, sponsored by AOP Languedoc, we chat to writers Rupert Mill…
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The Ten Wines Never to be Without
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We're going full-on Moses mode in this episode, nailing down the ten wines you should always have at home. Of course, personal taste plays a part. You want to have wines to hand you're going to reach for - which means your favourite styles. But beyond that, it helps to have some expert insight into the bigger picture in order to always have delicio…
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Ageing English Fizz - How, Why and What
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English sparkling wine. We all know it's good. But how well does it age? And could this be the secret to unlocking even greater quality from what are already exciting wines? We do our best to answer these questions and more with the help of several large glasses of very fine mature English fizz - and top winemakers Cherie Spriggs and Brad Greatrix …
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It's a wine region variously described as, 'dynamic', whose wines are undergoing a quality 'revolution', and memorably compared to South Africa's uber-cool Swartland. It's also got a big old mountain on its picture postcard. Not to mention truffles galore. This is Ventoux. And we want to take you on a journey of discovery, to meet the people, explo…
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What are the wine books every wine lover should own? We thought about it. We argued. We drank some wine. Argued some more... And then we decided: let's go for it. No messing around: choose just the six BEST books every wine lover needs, whether enthusiastic newbie or jaded expert. It wasn't easy. But this is the DEFINITIVE listing. A lot of thought…
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Marlborough at 50: A wine story worthy of Hollywood
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This is a tale of deception, daring, disaster...and deliverance. It also features skinny sheep and wine robots. It's the story of Marlborough, the iconic New Zealand wine region which is celebrating its 50th wine birthday, after vines were planted by Frank Yukich in August 1973. Yukich had risked personal financial ruin getting to this point. 'Wine…
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'My wife suggested we make wine. I think in the hope of cutting down our wine bill...' It's classic John Malkovich. The wit as dry as his aged Provençal Pinot Noir rosé (yes, you read that right). In this epic episode, we get to know John Malkovich the famous actor of stage and screen - but also John Malkovich the fashion designer, the theatre dire…
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LIVE Q&A - sulfites, party wines, climate change, top wine tourism tips and being pretentious
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This bonus episode may be the last in the current season (4) but it's also a first - the first time we've ever recorded the pod in front of a live audience! A lovely bunch of people came together in our home town of Winchester to drink a glass or two of fine Hampshire fizz and bombard us with searching questions, from which wines we'd recommend for…
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This episode opens by linking Oppenheimer, Covid-19 and wine - and proceeds to go big by focusing on the small stuff. Microbes. The invisible world of yeasts, bacteria and beyond. We're just starting to understand how important microbes are in terms of defining wine style and quality. Sure, yeasts ferment grape sugars into alcohol. But they also do…
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Did you know that Germany is the third largest producer of Pinot Noir in the world? Or that one in three Riesling vines in the world grow in German vineyards - and much of these are making dry, increasingly terroir-driven wines these days? There's much that's surprising, or perhaps unexpected about German wine right now. For long the sector under-p…
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It's a wine word almost everyone uses - but no one really knows what it means, what causes it, or where it's come from. It makes some people angry, it leaves others mystified - but some adore the term and can't get enough of it. Is this yet another example in wine of (as one listener calls it), 'superstition, witchcraft and myth' that is nothing mo…
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Portugal's Fine Wines: Here Be Treasures
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50:37
We all know port. But there’s a whole universe of fine Portuguese table wine out just waiting to be explored. It’s far less known but certainly no less exciting…so we dive in. Peter’s fired up after a recent trip to host a masterclass in Porto, where he tasted wines back to 1978 and recorded with a selection of Portugal’s top wine talent, from Dirk…
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No Schist Sherlock: How Wine Gets Rocks Wrong
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‘From virtually any soil a high-quality wine can be made. The use of geology to promote the quality of a wine is thus merely a marketing tool.’ This is an episode that may ruffle a few feathers. We speak to two wine-loving geologists, Professor Alex Maltman and Dr Geert-Jan Vis (the latter responsible for the quote above). Both of them raise seriou…
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Santorini - Wines to Save an Island
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Santorini's future is in jeopardy. This ancient, famous island vineyard risks being lost beneath the tourism industry's bulldozers. So how can its wine community fight back? By making exceptional, characterful, inimitable wines and selling them to the world, that's how. In this episode (our 100th Wine Blast programme, appropriately enough!) we dive…
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Santorini - Wine's Jurassic Park
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Let's go on an adventure to a place variously described as, 'Like being shot to the moon with a glass of fine wine in your hand' and where, 'you basically have the personality of an active volcano in your glass.' Santorini is arguably the ultimate wine destination - a windswept, arid, infertile outcrop of an island in the glittering Aegean Sea. Stu…
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News & Views – Re-Writing Wine’s Ancient History, Silly Money Wine, Drops of God & More
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What wine news is worthy of your attention? How should you warm up your (fine) wines in an emergency? What wines are really worth paying silly money for? And which wines should we have loved...but didn't? These are just some of the questions we dive into in this Listener Q&A episode, where we respond to your brilliant comments, feedback and questio…
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Ahead of the Curve with New Zealand Chardonnay
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Chardonnay polarises people. But times change and this is a grape that's moved on - arguably nowhere more so than in New Zealand, which in recent years has started to deliver quality, diversity and great value in spades. It's timely, too, given the supply shortages and booming prices of the wines from Chardonnay's motherland in Burgundy. We're Char…
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Could it be true?! No more hangovers is a tantalising notion, a Holy Grail for many drinkers. But how could this happen, and what would it mean for the world of booze and wine? Join us as we dive headlong into the enthralling world of hangover hacks (including at least one credible ‘remedy’) and explore the new breed of so-called functional drinks,…
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Australian Pinot Noir Comes of Age
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Every wine lover craves great Pinot Noir. Burgundy is ever pricier and scarcer. So where to look? Australia might not seem the obvious destination for Pinot Noir. It’s better known for hefty reds (think: Shiraz, Cabernet), historic styles like Hunter Semillon or its heroic ‘stickies’ (sweet and fortified like Rutherglen). And if there’s a Burgundia…
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Wine and Your Microbiome - with Dr Tim Spector
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This podcast is GOOD FOR YOU! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise... In this mind-blowing episode we have an exclusive interview with the world-famous Professor Tim Spector, expert in the human microbiome - this population of friendly microbes that lives inside all of us and which acts almost like an extra organ, boosting our immune system, fightin…
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Stuff is going down in Beaujolais. Natural wine is a hot trend. Beaujolais Nouveau is re-inventing itself. The top sites have never made better wine. A new generation is revitalising the scene. Geological research has revealed eye-opening results. And growers aren't afraid to throw caution to the wind (Côte Rôtie barrels and Sciacarello anyone?!) P…
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Has Burgundy gone bonkers?! Off the back of a nightmare 2021 season, wines are in shorter supply than ever - so prices have gone through the roof. Again. The wines are unquestionably good. That's what Burgundy does. But as the region's wines gradually become ever-more scarce and atypical - and ever-less affordable - how long will wine lovers stick …
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Self-improvement - via a wine glass. With a side helping of 'vinous Kama Sutra'. But we're getting ahead of ourselves... In our last episode we explored what we wine lovers want from the year ahead. In this programme we flip the camera round and take a look how we can be better wine lovers. Suggestions like 'drink better' inevitably crop up. But so…
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The Year Ahead: A Wine Lover's Wish List
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So what do we all want from wine in the year ahead? What's top of our wish list for wine in 2023? For some it's drinking better (or simply more) wine. If possible, for less money. Others are hoping Pinot Noir proves to be a miracle cure and will be prescribed by doctors... More realistically, combating climate change, responsible political engageme…
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