Daily Telegraph wine writer Jonathan Ray has picked his Top Ten supermarket wines, which makes interesting reading. I'm not familiar with all the wines, but will be giving a few a try and reporting back here.

I've been doing a bit of supermarket wine shopping myself of late, and have to say that after years of not buying regularly via High Street wine outlets, there have been some crackers to discover. Supermarkets have clearly done a lot to change the way we buy wine, and massive amounts to help increase its popularity. But I have also been shocked by some of the things I've found... in Sainsbury's you can now buy red and white already poured out into glasses and sealed with shrink wrap. Is this to encourage sipping a glass at the checkout or as you pack your shopping into the car?? Clearly a world gone mad when there is a market for convenience shopping at this level! Or perhaps I'm just getting older/more cynical than I thought?!

Well, they say a week is a long time in politics... and couple of months is a very long time to be away from your blog!

But that's a story for another day/blog post....

I'm back now and have lots of news and views to share, and some cracking deals to tell you about from online retailers and out there in the High Street. So, if you want the latest wine news, to hear the inside scoop on what's going o in the wine trade, and most importantly of all, find out where the best deals are to be had, this is the place to be.

Follow my Twitter posts at www.twitter.com/wineguru), and read my and other general thoughts and musings from the non-wine world here too.

Catch you later...

Part two of the BBC Oxford wine tasting challenge. Andrew is aiming to teach BBC Oxford mid-morning presenters Danny Cox and Louisa Hannan everything about wine in just three days - a lost cause some would say, especially as, until now, Danny doesn't drink!

The general idea, aprt form to have a bit of fun, is to see if some rapid fire wine tasting can teach Danny Lou the basics of wine, and then test which has become the better wine taster.

Today is red wines, and like yesterday, it is set-up in two parts.

BBC Oxford wine challenge, red wines. Part 1

We have out up a list of the red wines tasted today if you would like more information.

BBC Oxford wine challenge, red wines, part 2

Up with the lark today as I wanted to speak to Kelvin our web-designer who lives in the USA. Opened up Thunderbird (free and excellent email browser in case you are wondering! Highly recommend it - but I digress...) and the first thing I saw was the weekly email from Wine Spectator.

It features what sounds like a very tasty pasta dish using bacon, pine nuts, raisins and two cheeses, designed by Shea Gallante, the chef at New York's Cru restaurant and partnered with a Colombia Crest 'Grand Cru' Chardonnay.

And it set me thinking about a wine I drank just before the bank holiday, Vergelegen Reserve Chardonnay 2006.

Beautifully poised, elegant and rich, this buttery/toasty Chardonnay would, I think, do as good a job with this pasta dish as the Columbia Crest that The Spectator are featuring. Plenty of lip-smacking fruit and well-judged oak to work with the richness of the dish, but enough acidity not to make the whole combination too over-powering.

In fact, if I had been tasting the Vergelegen blind I would possibly have put it into Burgundy, perhaps from Meursault. And in that context not only is is a lovely wine, but a bit of a bargain too!

This is the first part of our wine tasting challenge for BBC Oxford mid-morning presenters Danny Cox and Louisa Hannan. Today we are focusing on how to taste wine , and putting that into practice with white wines.

BBC Oxford wine challenge, white wines. Part 1

Each of segments is split into two pieces of audio (yes, Andrew just can't stop talking about wine!) The audio here went live straight after broadcast - thanks Danny for a very easy way to grab the audio. It then got uploaded straight away to our new podcast system here on surf4wine, where it will have a permanent home!

BBC Oxford wine challenge, white wines. Part 2

If you would like to see a list of the wines tasted in today's session, please go here.

We will blog/podacst each of the three days wine tasting training here, and then the taste off on Friday 30th May to see who is the best wine taster - good luck Danny and Lou!

It's a Bank Holiday in the UK, so having a slightly leisurely morning; although thinking I ought to be up and out as I've some errands to run, and even an emergency delivery to make. It's an awful day weather-wise, so not much chance on geting the Bar-B later out either.

Alison is doing a shift at JackFM, so just me and the kids until she gets home - maybe it's the perfect weather for a trip to the cinema? Or just some films on the TV...

With some extra time to hand I've been catching up on some of my favourite wine blogs. In fact, I just saw the Vouvray Sec 1995, Gaston Huet that we have on our list mentioned by Jamie Goode over at The Wine Anorak. Vouvray, made from that chameleon grape variety Chenin Blanc, is a lovely wine - produced, as Jamie points out in his blog post, in a variety of styles from bone-dry to lusciously sweet and everything in between. Vouvray can be, perhaps, a bit tricky for the novice wine drinker. Vouvray can be fiercely acidic in it's youth, and the sweeter styles often have their higher sugar content masked by their acidity or alcohol/ripeness, so can be difficult to asses when young. Vouvray's, both dry and swet styles, can age brilliantly with this natural acidity helping to keep hem fresh and lively - for decades in the right year. I have been lucky enough to try some pretty old vintages in a former life while Butler at The Queen's College in Oxford (now that was a job I enjoyed - almost as much as being a wine merchant!), and I have always been a bit of a Vouvray fan ever since (check out Surf4Wine's current Vouvray selection) - so it was nice to see them mentioned on Jamie's Blog.

Actually, having a bit of extra time to take look and delve deeper and think about wine blogging (normally it is a quick zoom through headlines/latest posts while having my first cup of coffee!), it struck me how lucky we are in the UK with the variety of wine blogs we have, blogging on everything from Best Buys to latest tasting notes and news. In fact, it's set me to thinking about an idea mentioned to me recently by Spanish wine blogger Ryan Opaz over at Catavino; a feature on the Best of British Wine Blogs. I think that could be an interesting idea to explore further on our blog here in coming weeks ... so, do you have any favourite UK wine blogs?

Who was it who said there's no rest for the wicked?! Andrew didn't get a bank holiday lie-in today - he was up getting ready for an appearance on Louisa Hannan's Sunday radio show on BBC Radio Oxford.

Lou invited a local chef Graham Ameson of Hackett's in Witney to come up with a summer dish. (Although in typical bank holiday fashion, summer had gone for a lie-down and thunder storms were the order of the day.) Which meant Andrew spent some time wracking his brains trying to figure out which wine to match with "sweet pea risotto". Is that a risotto made with sweet peas? Or a sweetened risotto with peas?? Whatever the answer, the dish called for something subtle. (Don't know why they asked Andrew then - hah.) Andrew finally plumped for Paul Cluver Sauvignon Blanc - a vibrant white wine that should enhance the taste of a creamy risotto. He also took in Berton Estate Reserve Botrytis Semillon.

Click below to listen to Andrew, Graham and Lou talking about Charles Melton's Rose of Virginia, Chocalan Syrah Petit Verdot Rosé and courgette flowers!

Andrew on BBC Radio Oxford

And so to the last of Andrew's interviews with winemakers at the London International Wine Fair. He's someone who's no stranger to Surf4Wine, as we've held a couple of tastings of his stunning wines in Oxford. He got a very warm reception too! He's who makes wines for Jean-Claude Boisset, which is a smaller part of the huge Boisset empire. He's one Frenchman who's wholeheartedly embraced the Stelvin closure, and while Andrew was doing the interview with him at the Boisset stand, he noticed that the firm's branching out into wine in tetrapaks and plastic bottles. Every winemaker Andrew spoke to endorses screw caps (although the great British public is rather less keen), but wines not in glass bottles?? Watch this space, because Boisset's convinced that it's the future for wines.

Click here to listen to Andrew talking to Gregory Patriat.

S4W talks to Gregory Patriat

Andrew's still buzzing about the London International Wine Fair. And one of the most interesting winemakers there was Mark Shannon, who makes A Mano wines in Puglia.

He's a Californian who visited Puglia in Italy and fell in love with their wine, and way of life. He moved over there a few years ago, and now makes A Mano wines ("A Mano" meaning "handmade") with passion and old-fashioned know-how.

We've always loved A Mano here at Surf4Wine, and if you've ever tasted any of Mark's wines you'll know why. Click below to hear Andrew talking to him about everything from cleanliness to George Clooney!

S4W talks to Mark Shannon

Andrew's back hotfoot from the London International Wine Fair with more interviews from some of the world's finest winemakers. He caught up with Matt Thomson, an incredible man who not only manages to produce some just stunning wines for Delta Vineyards, St Clair, Alpha Zeta and Ca del Matt - as well as being involved witb the increasingly pipular Tinpot Hut wines, among others, but is also a keen kayaker, (ironic for a flying winemaker!), and was New Zealand's K2 marathon kayaking champion. Phew!

Andrew managed to get him to stand still for just a couple of minutes! Click below to hear their chat.

S4W talks to Matt Thompson