Matt Skinner’s 2011 Wine Guide  has the lowdown on 250 wines you should either drink right here and now or put away (for a while). Fizz, pink, rose, red, white, sweet, crisp, delicate, full-bodied …wine educator Matt Skinner has clear advice on which wine to drink with what, and when.  He also discusses the recent trends towards low alcohol/low calorie wines (like McWilliam’s Balance, the first ever wine to be ‘points’ endorsed by Weight Watchers), and eco and natural wines which look like becoming the next biggest thing.

 Buy online from Myer for just $16.20.

When I first heard we had a new retailer on Lasoo selling adventure experiences online called Adrenalin, I didn’t think there would be anything in it for me.

Sky-diving and V8 race car experiences are all well and good, but personally I am about as adventurous as a cold cup of tea and much prefer my home comforts.

Then I came across these cocktail making classes, which you can book online for $66.50 (it’s usually $70, but when you click through to the site enter the code LASOO to get 5% off everything). Now that I could do.

Cocktail making classes aside, there are some great gift ideas here for dad for Father’s Day. Personally, my old man’s idea of a top day out was heading down to the local RSL to do his dough on the horses (but wearing a special suit on Father’s Day to make the occasion more special). But if your dad is into swimming with sharks and army tank rides, these gifts will be right up your alley.

By Caroline Warnes

The rest of Australia may be going mental over the toy sales (apologies for any site delays but we are experiencing very heavy traffic), but being a spinster, I am more impressed by the fact that Dan Murphy’s has made an appearance on Lasoo.

Yes, Mr Murphy and I have had some fine times together over the past few years, so I was suitably thrilled to find the Dan Murphy’s Fine Wine Buyer’s Guide online when I logged onto the site this morning.

I could buy wine until the cows come home, but what caught my eye in the catalogue was Chambord, which is on sale for $29.90 per bottle.

This gorgeous liquor is made from berries, vanilla, citrus peel, honey and cognac and makes a fantastic cocktail when combined with sparkling wine or champagne. You simply put a little Chambord into the bottom of the glass, top with fizz then enjoy (responsibly).

By Caroline Warnes

I’ve mentioned my love of the Grays Online online wine auctions before, but thought the current white wine sale was worth mentioning again.

The bidding on these items closes at 4pm today, and as of 10am, many items were still at the opening price of $9 - and yes, that’s for a dozen bottles.

This isn’t Passion Pop you’re bidding on here, either. I’ve tried three of these wines in my drinking lifetime - Poole’s Rock Firestick Verdelho, CJ Pask Omahu Road Sauvignon Blanc and the Riverside Sauvignon Blanc - and they were all quite nice. The best was definitely the CJ Pask, a classic Marlborough wine.

Don’t forget to also factor in the buyers’ premium (usually 15% of the winning bid for wine) and small delivery charge (around $10).

By Caroline Warnes

While I do firmly believe that Passion Pop is the appropriate sparkling alcoholic drink for MOST social occasions, sometimes it is necessary to shell out more than $5 for a bottle of wine.

For example, turning up to a wedding with a chilled bottle of Passion would probably make you look like the world’s biggest bogan, though I would have to seriously question the social credentials of any wedding that was BYO liquor anyway.

Yes, sometimes only champagne will do, and let’s face it, it tastes damn good and makes life so much more worthwhile. (Champagne is, of course, sparkling wine that is produced exclusively in the Champagne region in France. Anything produced outside this region is sparkling wine, not champagne.)

Most non-vintage champagnes will cost you less than $100, but here are my five best anyway. And yes, you’ll notice there is no Moet & Chandon. This is because Moet & Chandon is for heathens. Or, as my friend so charmingly once put it, it’s “the McDonalds of the champagne world”.

1. Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Brut NV: This is my trusty old faithful when it comes to champagne. Everyone loves Veuve. It will set you back between $80 and $90 at most bottle shops. As a bonus, the Veuve Clicquot Rose NV is gorgeous too, but it’s slightly over $100 - usually around $110. I was given a bottle for my birthday last year and I don’t think it made it to the next day.

2. Billecart Salmon Brut Reserve: This one is a relatively new addition to the Australian market and is great value for what it is - you will usually pick it up for somewhere between $75 and $85. It apparently has lemon and ripe apple aromas.

3. Pol Roger Brut NV: A fairly versatile champagne and famously Winston Churchill’s favourite drink. You can usually buy it for around $80.

4. Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV: Another champagne that is generally a crowd-pleaser and once again is one of the better-value champagnes as you can often find it for less than $80.

5. Bollinger Special Cuvee NV: Shockingly, this one I haven’t tried, however I am assured it should be on any list of the best non-vintage champagnes. It’s one of the more expensive NVs, but you should be able to pick it up for just under $100 from the likes of Dan Murphys etc.

As a bonus, if you don’t quite have the budget for champagne but still want something special, check out the Croser Sparkling. This Australian sparkling from the Adelaide Hills costs under $40 but is just as good - if not better - than some of the champagnes that sell for twice the price.

Don’t forget to enjoy alcohol responsibly and in moderation. Otherwise you can end up looking very, very stupid.

By Caroline Warnes

Matching your wine with your food is all well and good in theory, but what happens when you have no idea about what goes with what?

I myself have been caught many times in this trap, buying whatever is on special at the bottle shop then discovering it really doesn’t “go” with my Domino’s pizza. Then forcing it down under sufferance. It’s tough.

Enter Aja wine: an Australian white specifically blended to taste match Asian cuisine. Asian food can be somewhat tricky to buy the right wine for. According to the website, Aja is “luscious and fruity up front, to enhance the delicately fragrant flavours of, for example, a chicken and lemon grass stir-fry and to counteract the heat of spicier dishes such as lamb madras, chilli pepper prawns or wasabi beef. And then we wanted a crisp finish, to cleanse the palate between mouthfuls of often wildly varying dishes.”

Ok, and now I’m hungry. Plus, there is also Aja blush, which is a lightly sparkling Moscato if you prefer that sort of thing.

P.S. Don’t forget to do as I do, and enjoy your liquor responsibly.

By Caroline Warnes

Good food and wine: are there four sweeter words in the English language?

If there are, I haven’t found them yet, so it will come as no surprise to hear I highly recommend heading to the Sydney Good Food & Wine Show this weekend (if you are in town, of course).

The Good Food & Wine Show is on at Darling Harbour until Sunday, offering you the chance to try the latest and greatest in produce as well as wine, not to mention the other attractions.

Celebrity loudmouth chef Gordon Ramsay is putting on cooking demonstrations and signing books throughout the show, and you can also taste sample dishes from other chefs, including Tobie Puttock, in the Lindeman Late Harvest restaurant.

If you’re a cheese fan (and seriously, who isn’t), the Cheese Matters Masterclass is a must-do - taste your way through a variety of cheeses over 45 minutes. Then there is the Gourmet Garden cooking school and, of course, the Riedel Decanter Bar. Wine tasting sessions of 45 minutes are being held in the bar, giving you the chance to try a variety of wines, including some boutique drops.

You can find out more about Sydney Good Food & Wine Show ticket information and the show schedule at the website.

By Caroline Warnes

I have the unfortunate habit of breaking pretty much any wine glass or tumbler I can get my hands on so am currently in the market for some new glasses.

Since Christmas I have managed to break a total of four champagne flutes and two wine glasses, which doesn’t sound too bad unless you consider that this is probably the best six months I’ve had in terms of glass breakages - ever. It’s usually a lot worse.

Really, it would probably be more practical for me to get myself a sippy cup than actual glassware, but at the very least I tend to buy all my glassware when it’s on sale so I don’t feel too bad when breakages occur.

Myer is currently selling the Luigi Bormioli Canaletto stemware pictured here for 40% off, bringing it down to $29.95 for a set of four red wine, white wine or champagne glasses.

For something even cheaper, Target is selling Modern Living sets of four for more than 50% off at $9, and BIG W has Royal Leederdam tumblers or wine glasses marked down to $7.98 for a six-pack.

I’ve been hankering after the Perrier-Jouet hand-painted champagne glasses for some time now, but given the price and my track record with glassware, I should probably reconsider.

By Caroline Warnes

Once you discover the online auctions (and more specifically, the wine online auctions) at Grays Online you may never need to visit your local bottleshop again to buy the best red, white and sparkling wine.

Well, perhaps that might be a bit of an extreme statement, but in any case GraysOnline has some fine wine auctions, and anyone who likes to enjoy the occasional snifter of port after work will get a kick out of it.

Red wine, white wine, sparkling wine; in fact all colours of the boozer spectrum are covered at Grays Online and the best news is that you can bag them for a bargain. (I challenge anyone to find two sweeter words in the English language than “cheap wine”.)

I put my sister onto the Grays Online auctions and she basically spends entire Saturdays sitting in front of the computer bidding on alcohol in quantities a 50kg woman could never possibly consume by herself, leaving the way for me to swoop in and “take some off her hands”.

There’s an online auction ending today of CJ Pask Omahu Road, which is one of New Zealand’s famed Sauvignon Blancs. Bidding on the dozen is currently at $99, which works out at $8.25 per bottle - a bargain when you consider it’s worth well over $20 a bottle.

By Caroline Warnes

I recently discovered edible wild hibiscus flowers in my local IGA and am now hooked.

Made by a small local company, Wild Hibiscus Flowers in Syrup are an easy way to make a champagne cocktail - sit them down the bottom of a champagne glass, pour bubbly over the top and then watch as the leaves of the flower open.

Best of all, the flowers can be eaten at the end, and have a light rhubarab and raspberry flavour.

As well as being useful for a range of cocktails, these flowers can also be used for dessert garnishes and a range of sweet and savour dishes, though I haven’t tried any of these myself.

The website has a number of recipes for you to try, including Australian beef with red wine hibiscus glaze and wild hibiscus champagne jellies.

The flowers are available from selected delis, gourmet food shops and supermarkets, as well as several online stores, listed on the site.

By Caroline Warnes