Month: October, 2009

The final days of the Langhe harvest

We’re into the final week of the 2009 Langhe harvest, with a full two weeks separating the Barbaresco and Barolo (reflecting the difference in style).   As you can see from my chat with Luca Sandrone, of Barolo producer Luciano Sandrone, 2009 has delivered some immaculate fruit and abundantly so too.   While Barolo enjoyed a textbook season […]

“Game on!” – The perfect accompaniment to Autumn

I was invited to the brilliant gastro-pub, The Wellington Arms,  in deepest darkest Basingstoke a couple of nights ago by a bon viveur of a client. Sadly, as I’m not the most well organised person, I’d left it too late in the day to plunder my own cellar (housed here rather than home, as the temptation […]

‘Saturday afternoon in downtown Alba: the Palio degli Asini, or the Donkey Race

Just in case you’re suffering from ‘harvest hangover’ (sorry, too much vineyard footage) and if you’re wondering what the gentle folk of Alba get up to on a Saturday afternoon, in the absence of football, eastenders or the Gold Cup….here’s three minutes of thrilling action:

Nebia, Nebuẽ, Nebbiolo – the 2009 Barbaresco harvest closes at Rivella Serafino…and a gram of advice if you’re heading to the Alba Truffle Fair

Schoolboy trivia perhaps that Nebbiolo the grape (Nebuẽ in Piemontese) takes its name from ‘Nebia’ the fog that cloaks the slopes at this time of year. Less observed or well-known is that, according to Teobaldo Rivella of Barbaresco, the fog has become scarce since the early ’90; coincidently tying in with the run of great […]