Flower plates
Lovely earthenware pudding plates in the shape of hollyhocks and daisies. Designed by Maria Flor for Bordallo Pinheiro
Bordallo Pinheiro flower plates, from Euro 13.40 available www.bordallopinheiro.com
DIY Bread
Family-run, Dublin-based Bread Tin Bakery have produced these terrifically handy bread-in-a-box kits. Contains a bag of bread mix to which you add milk (inc dairy-free milk if desired), seal, massage to mix and then squeeze into the tin provided. Forty-five minutes later, you’ve got a homemade loaf. Three flavours: white, soda and gluten-free. Preservative and yeast-free
£3.79 per pack which makes one small loaf, available at Selfridges or visit mccambridge.ie
Frida Kahlo mug
Even if you weren’t saving the planet, this would be a worthwhile acquisition. The Frida Kahlo ceramic traveling mug means you can dispense with paper and plastic take-away cups and transport your morning coffee in style
Frida Kahlo travel mug, £15 from the Tate Shop, shop.tate.org.uk
Five of the best… English vineyards
There are currently over 500 vineyards in the UK, situated all over the country, but predominantly in the South where a band of limestone across Kent and Sussex provides particularly fertile ground for vines. Chardonnay is the most popular grape. In the last year, English wine producers planted one million more vines, meaning that an extra two million bottles of UK wine will be on sale this year. Five of the best vineyards, as chosen by World Wine Week, are listed below.
Denbies
International award-winning maker of sparkling, rose and dessert wines from vines grow on a 627-acre site on the North Downs in Surrey. Produced the UK’s first home grown Sauvignon Blanc
Chapel Down
Twenty-two acre vineyard near Tenterden in Kent, Chapel Down also has a restaurant, The Swan and is the producer of No 10 Downing Street’s official wine
Ryedale
The most northerly commercial vineyard in Britain, set across two locations on the chalk hills of Westow and Howsham in Yorkshire. They harvest by hand and also run two orchards producing cider and apple juice
Camel Valley
Winner of the UK Winemaker of the Year Award and the Wine of the Year Trophy, Camel Valley was launched in 1989 in Cornwall and now supplies sparkling and still wines to Waitrose, Fortnum’s, Tate Modern and Hakkasan in London, and also exports to Japan
Three Choirs
Three Choirs makes 11 award-winning wines (from oak-aged reds to rose) from vines grown on 70 acres across two sites in Hampshire and Gloucestershire. They also host a variety of events including Pop Up Opera and 150-cover dinners – you can even get married there
Photo credit: Camel Valley vineyard by Mark Bridge on Visual hunt / CC BY-NC-ND
