Attended the annual Australia Day Tasting in London last week held at the Saatchi Gallery. You’d think that would be a risky choice for a wine tasting if only because the floors are lovely, stripped, bleached wood…what happens with a spillage of shiraz? Let’s not go there…

But it wasn’t big, bold bruising reds that caught my eye, the wines that got me really excited were the 2009 Rieslings. I know, I know, riesling means sweet German wine to many people, but a sip and slurp of these dry, zingy beauties would soon set you straight.

One of the best things about Australian Rieslings is that they are great food wines and fantastic with Asian or Oriental dishes. Thai curry, sushi, chicken and cashew nuts, perfect with a splash of limey Riesling.

Amongst my favourites were Mount Horrocks Watervale Riesling 2009 – very spicy and perfumed – from the Clare Valley; Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling 2009 – a Trophy and Gold Medal winner which was restrained and limey; and perhaps my favourite of all, Knappstein Hand Picked Riesling 2009 , Clare Valley – elegant, poised, lovely texture.

Which is probably just as well because our Extra Special Clare Valley Riesling comes from Knappstein…

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Quick, get down to Asda this weekend to bag a brilliant bargain – Taittinger Brut Non Vintage Champagne has been reduced for a limited period (until Monday) from £31.98 to only £15 a bottle. Guess what I’ll be shopping for tonight! (Max 6 bottles per customer please, ladies and gentlemen…let’s share the bargains fairly…)

I’ve always loved Taittinger – it’s light, it’s fresh, it’s very elegant and fruity and would be the PERFECT Grande Marque Champagne for breakfast on Christmas morning. Go on, spoil yourselves.

And did you know, allegedly (well, a colleague told me) Taittinger was Ian Fleming’s favourite Champagne and was therefore James Bond’s fizz of choice…but it hasn’t been featured in the films since With Russia With Love in 1963.

Well, don’t say you never learn any random facts on this blog….

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Hot off the press…we’ve just heard that one of the fizzes we sell has won a GOLD MEDAL in a wine tasting competition called Effervescents du Monde. That roughly translates as Sparkling Wines of the World. And the wine isn’t some £35 Champagne, it’s a fruity, friendly fizz from Australia called Yellowtail Bubbles. In fact, it’s beaten to the medal bubblies costing ten times the price. How’s that for a wine that’s on offer at a fiver? And who says quality can’t taste fun?

This would be a brilliant fizz for Christmas, so get a few bottles in early! 75 world wine buffs can’t be wrong – and I think it’s great as well!

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Well, I’ve done some different things in my career. Tasted 70 Liebfraumilches in a day in a very cold tasting room in the Mosel Valley. Watched kangaroos grazing in an Australian vineyard. Appeared in an advert with James Nesbitt (that was fun). But never in a million years did I think I would ever appear in a Japanese TV programme. Well, you wouldn’t would you? A bizarre experience, but lots of fun.

As part of my trip I was asked to talk about the Extra Special wines stocked by Seiyu. I met a lovely announcer called Yoko Koga (she appears in the video with me in the wine aisle holding bottles of the ES South African Chenin Blanc) from the Nippon TV Network Corporation, and had a great time chatting about wine. Well, I say chatting – Yoko would say something in Japanese, then I’d wait for the translation, then I’d reply in English. Lots of smiling.

Following the broadcast, sales of Extra Special wine have rocketed in Japan – especially for the featured wines – so plenty more smiling.

Here is a dvd of the programme. What I do for Asda!

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Now, where is the last country you would expect to find a Master of Wine on a business trip?

Antartica, yes, that would score highly, as would Egypt, I guess, or Mongolia.

But how about Japan? Famous for sake, but not really reknowned for wine. Well, I’ve just got back from my first visit to Tokyo and, to be honest, it wasn’t Japanese wine I went for, but to talk to customers and the press about Extra Special wine.

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Well, after all the hard work getting ready for the tasting it went really well.

Plenty of key journalists came – Jane MacQuitty, Tim Atkin, Charles Metcalfe, Anthony Rose & many more – tasted all or some of the wines (there were over a hundred on show), told us what they like (quite a lot) and what they were less keen on (not that much, but there’s always a few disappointing bottles in any big tasting).

We hold press tastings twice a year to showcase new wines and new vintages.

I welcome honest feedback from journalists and I think it’s very important that consumers get to read writers’ comments – that way there’s a third party endorsement and customers might try something a bit different. And if a journalist doesn’t like a wine, they’re sure to let everyone know…

We’ve already seen recommendations popping up in newspapers and blogs – the signs are promising.

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This week we held our Autumn Press Tasting when we invite influential wine journalists to come and taste our wines.

As a team we have been slaving away for months putting together a range of new and exciting wines which will appear in our stores from next week, so the tasting is a really important way to showcase the results of all that hard work.

We’re really proud of some brilliant new wines from Europe, including some great bottles from Spain, Italy and France – as well as a fantastic selection from Chile.

It’s a nerve-wracking day, takes weeks of planning, days to organise and set up and then you never know who will turn up or what they’ll think of your ‘babies’ (the wines, of course).

I shot the video when all the bottles had been opened and tasted to check they weren’t faulty and everything was ready for the hoards of wine writers to arrive. Felt a bit like Christmas Eve when all the shops have shut, you can’t buy any more, cook any more, do any more, you just have to wait…

In Part Two, you’ll find out what at least one writer thought of the wines.

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OK then, here’s a question – what’s the difference between Chardonnay and a block of wood? Well, in some people’s minds, the answer is … no difference at all. How wrong can they be? Maybe a decade ago many Aussie Chardonnays were as wooden as Pinocchio, but the wines have gone all lovely and subtle now, so give them a try. (Our Extra Special Adelaide Hills Chardonnay from Bridgewater Mill is as subtle as anything, trust me).

But if you’re really anti-oak, then the Chardonnay tipple for you is Chablis, a fabulously crisp and citrussy bone-dry white from Northern France. If you’re feeling poetic then buxom Australian Chardonnays are the Beth Ditto of the wine world, and Chablis could be compared to Kate Moss … maybe…

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Hello. I’m Philippa, and I’m Asda’s Master of Wine. I’m going to be sharing with you my life in wine – the wineries I visit, the wines I taste and the people I meet.

I’ve spent all my working life in the wine business and I’m really passionate about my job.

I’ll be giving you the inside track on how I got into wine, how fiendishly difficult it was to pass the Master of Wine exam, great discoveries, new wines coming to our shelves, and what it’s really like to be selecting wine for a big supermarket.

There’s lots going on in the wine team at the moment – from visiting vineyards and seeing the grapes being picked in France to preparing for our Autumn Press Tasting. There’s boring stuff, too, but you don’t want to know about that, do you? I get really excited about tasting wine and sharing that thrill with other people, so there may be rather a lot of videos of me sniffing and spitting in my tasting room. If you get bored with that, let me know!

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