Be the wine pro you always wanted to beThe ultimate guide to the world’s wines Rated #1 Wine App Rated #1 by Food & Wine Magazine for learning about wine and hailed by Decanter as the most comprehensive and authoritative wine app available. Simply put, people love us because we make buying wine about discovery again. Discover the diversity of the world’s wines with our detailed profiles on the world’s wine-growing regions, appellations, grape varieties, and vintages. Our app gives you everything you need to make informed wine choices in any situation.  Further, its simple design makes it easy to use and navigate — featuring a substantial collection of regional grape varieties, searchable by suggested wine pairings and wine styles. A sommelier in your pocket With vintage ratings for the world’s wine regions, you’ll never be without the information you need to make informed wine choices. It’s like having your own personal sommelier at your fingertips.

Never forget a favorite wine Easily mark your favorite wines and keep your personal tasting notes all in one place. You can even discover new wines to try based on your favorite grape. Using this app, I have been able to find a very good wine at a very good price in restaurants throughout Europe and the US. I think this app speaks for itself when it has impressed a few (not just one) sommeliers at some great NY restaurants. This is for people who are serious about learning about wines of the world. Best wine app available for wine professionals.For more general advice on booking a holiday in France, see our France summer holidays guide. Our guide features expert recommendations for city, beach, villa, culture, food and drink and activity holidays. 1. Wilde cooking, Normandy Under the enticing name of the Wilde Kitchen, Irish expat Sinéad Allart (née Wilde) offers three-day small-group gourmet breaks in the countryside south-west of Cherbourg.

As well as classes in the succulent art of cooking traditional dishes like poulet Vallée d’Auge and teurgoule – respectively, chicken with cream and apples, and the Norman version of rice pudding – the holidays include outings to local markets and restaurants. You also get to visit an organic cider press and cook a full meal in the centuries-old bread oven of a neighbouring farm. Accommodation is in a beautifully converted barn that has two ensuite b & b rooms plus a self-catering apartment. Three-day courses, including food and lodging, from £1060pp, based on two people sharing, one-day courses £140pp (00 33 6031 78 373; wildekitchen.net).  2. Cream of cuisine in the Pays d’Auge The lush meadows of the Vallée d’Auge, south-east of Caen, are home to all that’s best about Norman cuisine – namely, the dairy cows, and the fruit orchards. Cheese and cream, apple and cider are the essential ingredients on every menu hereabouts. There are two adjoining rural gîtes just west of Livarot in the heart of cheese country – Les Petits Matins Bleus, a charming brick cottage that can sleep five, and Les Pommiers, which has four separate double suites, each with private terrace.

They both offer weekend cooking classes for groups of six to 10 guests, with instruction in English and a focus on local organic produce. A weekend’s b & b in Les Pommiers from £155; 3. Seafood in Finistere If you see seafood as a major reason to visit Brittany, why not head to southern Finistere to find out where all that wonderful fish comes from? France’s largest traditional fishing port, Le Guilvinec, is still home to more than 250 boats. the best wine shop llcAt Haliotika, a fishing-themed tourist attraction on the waterfront, you can learn about the industry and watch the afternoon fish auction on weekdays. best wine bar west endReal enthusiasts can spend a full day at sea on a fishing boat – or just walk down the street and enjoy a fishy feast at the Poisson d’Avril restaurant.star wars wine glasses

4. House party, Languedoc So you want a French cooking holiday without, you know, being overwhelmed by too many super-confident French people? So you fly to Carcassonne or Toulouse, travel on to Pexiora and thence to the Domaine St Raymond. Here cuisine is tackled in a house-party atmosphere - small groups (10 max), with proper application but also ample wine and down-time, and immoderate conviviality in to-sigh-for surroundings. good wine brands 2012The English-run French House Party Experience puts on residential courses of all stripes in a splendidly converted vintage farm. buy wine away canadaThere’s drama, creative writing, art and song writing - but cookery is a cornerstone. what is the best selling wine in the ukTwo top French chefs, one Michelin-starred, lead the cooking sessions which, obviously, feed the group.

But there are outings, wine and market visits, restaurant meals, laughter and much else besides. Cooking, say, guinea fowl with Sechuan pepper probably never was so stress-free. The five-night, six-day Gourmet Explorer is £1,290pp (01299 896819; frenchhouseparty.co.uk).  5. Michelin stars in Provence There may be more picturesque spots than La Cadière-d’Azur wherein to brush up one’s Mediterranean cooking, but I doubt it. The hill-capping village is a conspiracy of winding streetlets, into which the Hostellerie Bérard has woven itself over the decades. It’s a simply terrific hotel with a Mich-starred restaurant. The veteran chef René Bérard established its reputation as one of the finest tables in Provence. He now dispenses wisdom and experience on five-night, four-day residential cooking courses. They cover everything, from Sisteron lamb to seafood from the ports just down the hill on the Med coast. You’ll visit markets, cook lunch, then eat it on the terrace.

Afternoons include outings to vineyards and other key Provençal destinations. 6. Ventoux vintages, Provence The days when Provençal wines were the preserve of the picnicking classes - guaranteeing headaches by 5pm - are long gone, not least around the Mont Ventoux. While ill-advised saps knock themselves out cycling up the damned mountain, cleverer folk now confine themselves to the vineyards lower down: there are some fine crus, good food, excellent people and stirring landscapes to be experienced. The wine-tour specialists Grape Escapes will sort out a three-night trip - with b & b, one lunch, one dinner and winery trips (by taxi or bike – you choose) in both the Ventoux and nearby Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Accommodation is at the Château de Mazan at Mazan - once home to the Marquis de Sade but now among the most welcoming four-star hotels in Provence. It’s quite free of whips, handcuffs or the screams of serving girls. I can vouch for that. From £356-£845 per person (08456 430 860; grapeescapes.net). 

7. Chateaux and cellars of Cahors, Dordogne The upper Dordogne Valley lurches through fields and fruit orchards into the Lot, leaving a riot of magnificent limestone cliffs in its watery wake. Southwards lie AOC Cahors vineyards, pea-green source of some powerful and robust reds. The medieval wine-making town of Cahors is not far away, and pedalling or motoring between châteaux and wine cellars in the rolling hills is a highly pleasurable pastime. Five miles north-west of Cahors, 13th-century Château de Mercuès, a Relais & Châteaux property, fits the gourmet bill, with a turreted feudal castle overlooking the Lot Valley, vineyards and a vaulted, subterranean tasting cellar. It offers various wine packages, including weekend breaks for two with breakfast, guided cellar tour with tasting, and a gastronomic dinner in its Michelin-starred restaurant. 8. Gourmet explorer Provence Provence is famed for its abundant locally-grown produce, wonderful cheese, world-class wines and traditional artisanal recipes.

Peregrine Adventures’ eight-day Courmet Explorer Provence Experience takes in the medieval festivities at Chateauneuf du Pape, a visit to the bustling markets of Avignon, local dining in the ancestral home of a villager in Robion, and a chance to sample goat's cheese from the thyme-laden hills of Le Rove. From £2,810pp, including tour guide, accommodation and most meals; 9. Wine, beef and cheese, Burgundy Burgundy is renowned for its rich and hearty gastronomy: not for nothing is this the land of boeuf bourguignon. You’ll see the distinctive, cream-coloured Charolais cows in fields across the region. Burgundy is also famous for its distinctive cheeses. One of the finest is Epoisses, a soft cow’s cheese with a flavour of nuts, lime and old churches. There are fine restaurants across the region, but a perennial favourite is the Relais Bernard Loiseau, a Michelin three-starred restaurant established by one of France’s great celebrity chefs. His culinary legacy is now in the capable hands of Patrick Bertrand, his appointed successor.