Champagne goes hand in hand with Christmas, so put the fizz into this year’s festivities with Champagne + Fromage. The Covent Garden shop and bistro has a whole host of Christmassy gift boxes, bottles of beautiful grower Champagne, cheese and foodie favourites.

Stir Up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, kickstarts preparations for Christmas over-indulgence – it’s traditionally the day the Christmas pudding mixture is made and cooked. It’s extraordinarily easy to make, as Joanna Biddolph discovered at a Stir Up Sunday event with Asda and Leiths School of Food and Wine.  

Forza Win(ter) being more of a supper club than pop-up restaurant means that you sit on communal tables of ten and there’s no choice of food. Instead a big pan of fonduta is placed onto a hotplate in the middle of the table, which you then ladle into bowls and eat with the roasted vegetables and meats, as and when they arrive.

Say the name’Rioja’ and an image of the densest red wine comes to mind, barrel aged, intensely fruity and unmistakably Iberian; but this most famous region of Spanish wine production is far from monotone. We took a look at a white, a pink and of course, a couple of contrasting red Riojas to see what’s currently available.

‘Never swirl a spirit’ I’m told, as David pours a ten year old cognac into the glass and rolls it about gently. Apparently swirling the spirit releases the alcohol which blinds the delicate aromas of the drink.

Guzzling bottles of lager in Indian restaurants has hitherto been the most prominent example of’beer and food matching’ but the new, distinctive, diverse range of brews hitting the shelves has got people considering the idea more seriously. To further encourage us to consider beer in this way, beer and food matching nights are regularly held by the Meantime Brewing Company at its Old Brewery restaurant in Greenwich

A lover of foie gras, Nick Harman heads to Gers in France where the wonderful people of Plaimont wines take him under their (duck) wing and treat him to tastings of their fine reds, whites and the ambrosial, legendary Pacherenc. Two stone heavier, here is his report.

The core flavour of The Stack emanates from the juicy inch-thick patty. The beef is aged for 28 days, ground and seasoned: simple, unfussy, delicious .  The sweet cured bacon is of an exceptional quality and nutty notes in the gruyère give a sophisticated complex edge. The onion rings snap and crunch as they should and the bun gift wraps the savoury contents in a semi-sweet parcel.

Ignoring the nasty, cheap stuff of the bottom shelf and sidestepping the highly priced aristocrats, we’ve taken a look at what’s currently available from good quality producers at a reasonable price.

Mark Poynton’s journey to the palms (via poor family cooking and a modestly signed fax…)