This September is both exciting and busy as I make a long awaited trip to Zotter chocolate. I have also been invited to explore other great foods and drinks in the Riegersburg area of Austria. At Zotter we will learn many aspects of how they make their world famous chocolate, then we will create our very own chocolate bar but of course, this will involve an extensive amount of tasting.
Later we get to tour their chocolate theatre where we again are invited to sample up to a 150 of their chocolate products!

On Thursday morning we will be taken to the multi-award winning Vulcano Ham World, who strive to create the best hams and sausages in the world and if you take a look at their website you’ll begin to understand that hamming it up is a serious business.
Next, our sampling adventure will take us to Gölles Schnapps Distillery which also produces fine fruit vinegar and has the largest cellar of vinegar barrels in Austria.
To round out the day we will be taken to the Berghofer-mill where they produce the typical Styrian pumpkin seed oil which is very delicious!

Judging at the World Steak Challenge 2016

I’m very pleased and honoured to be invited for a second year as one of the judges at the World Steak Challenge 2016.  This means serious tasting and scoring steaks from around the world for about 6 hours. Discussing the finer points of beef with other judges is always interesting, we always learn something new. Here is a link to last year’s contest to explain how the contest works.