My first visit to Japan was a most agreeable experience; it was, by turns, up-lifting, rewarding and surreal to see how the delightful team who make up BBR Japan are spreading Berrys’ unique message to a new and clearly very sophisticated constituency of wine drinkers.  The BBR offices are, one cannot deny, a little less grand than No 3 St James’s St, although their location, at the heart of the Marunouchi district, is not without sophistication. And when one enters the Dining Room, the spirit of No 3 pervades the atmosphere, fine oil paintings and an impressive collection of 18^th century bottles providing a subtle yet resonant backdrop to instil the BBR message and philosophy. I was there in my capacity as buyer of fortified wines, of our Iberian range and, most importantly, of Champagne and, by extension, English wines. I had been warned that the week would be quite intense and this certainly proved to be the case; the nine hour time difference and non-stop programme of lunches, seminars and dinners was undoubtedly challenging. But a pleasing challenge nonetheless and one that has left me with a far greater understanding of the Japanese appreciation of fine wines and even more importantly, of their stylistic preferences.

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There is something beguiling about Spain, about the way in which this oldest of cultures is able to embrace the new and give it a pleasing twist of tradition. The beauty in that most modern of constructions, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, resides in its affinity to its surroundings; the way in which the shapes and colours are effortlessly outstanding, in every sense of the word, and yet at the same time, in certain lights and at certain times of day, become assimilated with the natural, albeit urban environment. History repays the compliment; it is hard to imagine anything more horrifically modern than some of the late charcoals of Goya, or anything which predates surrealistic elasticity of form as much as the portraits of El Greco… And on a rather more prosaic but equally telling note, the same applies to wine.

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It is now a full two years since your correspondent selflessly embarked on a fortnight’s voyage of discovery of the vineyards of Champagne. Accompanied by the equally selfless Alun Griffiths MW, I set off on the long and frankly sometimes rather uneventful drive through the badlands of the Pas de Calais, taking advantage of the dearth of scenery to hatch a plan. The premise of said plan was simple; to identify and woo the very best of the rather nebulous emerging category of Growers Champagnes, that is to say the category of small vignerons who cultivate their own grapes and make and sell their own wines, increasingly courageous in the face of the hegemony that has built up around the now redundant but still evocative descriptor of the Grandes Marques. The big names still dominate the market place, with LVMH wines alone controlling an astonishing 30% of the entire export market; the time was right, we felt, to stand up for the smaller players, to celebrate the diversity innate in this complex region and, frankly, to identify some wines of real value to slot into a price bracket that had been increasingly forsaken by the more prestigious names…

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For those of you contemplating travelling to Argentina in the near future, may I offer are three very valuable pieces of advice. Firstly you must in fact go first to Chile, so as to benefit from going too far, as it were, and having the excuse of crossing the Andes four times before returning home (as I demonstrate on horseback, below). The view of Aconcagua, the highest peak in all of America is quite breath-taking and the ecstatic contemplation can be enhanced by the knowledge that LAN Airlines are the most efficient in South America , with an extremely good record of  not losing luggage not  to mention their proclivity to follow particularly scenic flight-paths.

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Well, Bordeaux and Burgundy 2009 have both come and gone with appropriate fanfare, a flurry of superlatives and salesmen clamouring for more and more allocations, often unsuccessfully. And now, the third and final Primeur Offer, an increasingly significant part of the BBR calendar…… Rhône 2009. And the news on the vintage is every bit as good as that for these famous neighbours……..we do not engage in hyperbolic excess here, as you know, but we are very happy to pronounce that the wines of the North are the best since 1990 and those from the South in pretty much the same class as the much-lauded 2007.

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The idea was as immediately appealing as it was self-evidently indulgent, namely to conduct an ‘experiment’ to assess the on-going impact of altitude on the taste and flavour of Champagne. And we are not talking 35,000 feet here, and the effects of cabin pressure and recycled air of a dubious nature. On the contrary, we are to be in a hot air balloon, owned, piloted and serviced by Champagne Taittinger. And the Champagne du choix is, of course, to be Taittinger’s deluxe cuvée, Comtes de Champagne, the gloriously expensive Blanc de Blancs which must rank as one of, if not the, finest of all of the Chardonnay-only Champagnes in the world. Or out of this world.

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Located nearly 500 miles west of Casablanca, basking in gentle Atlantic currents (not so gentle during the recent floods) Madeira is a small volcanic island, beloved of the so-called silver tourists and of course of those who appreciate the very finest of fine fortified wines. I, for a few more years at least,  fall only into the latter category, and it was therefore a great pleasure indeed to accept a generous invitation from The Madeira Wine Company to visit the island and taste a few of these rather special wines. We were promised one or two ‘older’ examples, a promise that was honoured with a good deal of interest! Indeed the whole trip was a source of huge interest, fascination even, as one learnt the story of one of the most evocative and distinctive of all wines.

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El Bulli was awarded its third Michelin star in 1997, and has ever since been fêted as the most original, most adventurous and most fabulous restaurant in the world, its owner Ferran Adrià (in us in the picture, further down) seen as the father of a style of cooking that has been imitated throughout the world, most famously in England at The Fat Duck, but with few, if any achieving its brilliance. And now, what a disaster, it’s to close for two years; that is to say for the 2012 and 2013 seasons (a season is June to December only), some fear it may be for even longer.. ……….why? Most clearly not for want of inspiration, if our 35 courses were anything to go by, and certainly not for lack of popularity, judging by the legendary length of the waiting list which makes the Ivy appear under-booked by comparison.

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Rhône 2008 is just about to hit the market so while we were out there recently we had lunch with Mark Perrin from Ch. de Beaucastel and talked about the characteristics of the vintage. In this video he tells us about the climatic conditions, which at times proved challenging, as well as the need for a very selective harvest which helped keep the quality and excellent balance that is now becoming apparent in these bottlings. The 2008s have had to overcome a lot already, but the result are wines which are very approachable, charming and will be good buys.

Champagne is a delightful enigma; seen by some as a stand-alone category which bears scant resemblance to the rest of the wine trade, and by others as a bell-weather, providing early warning when choppy seas lie ahead but when the waters are calm, luxuriating in the hazy trappings of  indulgence and success. Whichever interpretation is more plausible, any article on Champagne today, economically speaking, will differ greatly from one written eighteen months ago. There was a newspaper photograph recently of Conservative party leader, David Cameron, glass of  Champers in hand, with the caption ‘Fizzy Rascal’ cheekily appended ; the implication clearly being that such manifestations of success, are hard to swallow by an electorate that is stuck in the middle of a deep and rather brutal recession. So, how is Champagne perceived today? Is this perception justified and how is it actually faring in terms of production and sales?

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For Channel Four to devote a whole hour to the Wine Trade, at peak time, is a rare enough event – good news one might think. But wait, do I not recognise the Dispatches correspondent? Is it not The Sun’s fragrant trouble-maker at large, Jane Moore? A putative ignorance of wine is of course essential, so that the questions and observations, seemingly innocent, are able to expose some seemingly rather dubious practices, things such as inconsistencies in ingredient labelling and, in terrifying counterpoint, an exposition of some of these ingredients. Shocking things like tannins, yeasts and, horror of horrors…sugar.

Champagne was a suitably easy target; the sanguine Françoise Peretti from The Champagne Information Bureau did, it has to be said, struggle to justify ‘sur lattes’ trading, trying to defend the indefensible perhaps. Then there were the shots of carefully manicured Champagne vineyards…manicured with what purported to be Parisian rubbish, to expose the rather unusual practice that persisted until fairly recently, whereby the vignerons covered their land with the contents of domestic rubbish bins in a dubious attempt to extract goodness from their residue.

Left: No rubbish at Jacquesson!

And of course endless discussion of the fact that the Champenois use far more pesticides than other French vignerons…ignoring the reality that this is as a result of its relatively northerly location and that it is, as a practice, currently diminishing. As a pièce de resistance, came the revelation that there is sugar…yes sugar…in Champagne. All most astonishing.

For the Champagne producers, wrestling still with the enviable dilemma of not having enough wine to satisfy growing demand, this will all have caused wry amusement more than anything. The only shard of displeasure may have been fired by Jancis Robinson MW, the most respected UK wine critic of them all. Jancis affirmed that only 30% of all Champagne is worth its elevated price…by inference there were 27.3 million bottles of over-priced poor value fizz shipped to the UK last year, and 27 million consumers whose sparkling experience was, is, or is to be not quite as good as it ought to be.

Pol Roger have already issued a statement to the effect that there is no residue, let alone Parisian domestic rubbish, in their vineyards, that they never buy ‘sur lattes’ and that their practices in the vineyard use a minimum of fungicides and pesticides. All very re-assuring but interesting that they feel the need to make this defence.

Right: Benoit Marguet; closer to the soil with an organic approach

This will be especially annoying to an industry, if that’s the correct word, which has done a lot to put its qualitative house in order, and so it should, some may argue, given the large profits generated over the years. There has been, for example, work in the vineyards to improve both the location and the mechanics of the press houses, a more rigorous adoption of ‘viticulture raisonnée’ and even a move, in the name of a carbon foot-print, to reduce the weight of the famously heavy bottles. And those 40 new villages identified to ease the demand problems have only been selected at the end of a rigorous process, and in any event will not be producing viable fruit until 2019.

Champagne, in short, is well regulated and environmentally aware, despite the famously high yields of the vines and a sometimes rather unceremonious rush to the market place, post disgorgement. Programs such as Dispatches, however, tend to inspire in me an almost Pavlovian defence of Champagne’s finer points, of its cultural integrity and of the fundamental quality of its product. But such programs are not without value, in warning, albeit in rather simplistic terms, against commercial cupidity and hubris, both seen by some as inevitable by-products of the privilege and success of the region.

I have just returned from a brief visit to a rain-drenched Rioja, tasting and assessing the new releases. The wines in general are elegant, fresh and focused but even in youth seem to  lack  something of the concentration and tannic grip of more illustrious forebears such as 2001 and 2004. Overall, I would say, of the major Bodegas visited La Rioja Alta, Artadi and Allende are very much on form, but that CVNE have lost a little focus. Easy enough to say, perhaps, when their new corporate structure involves part ownership by the Coca Cola dynasty.

The Artardi wines from outside of Rioja maintain their outstanding quality/price ratio, their 2007 Artazuri Granacha Rosé the best so far, its ‘serious’ sibling Santa Cruz truly outstanding. In Rioja itself, Juan Carlos (pictured with  son Carlos above) is focusing more and more on specific parcels, which he likes to vinify separately, with assemblage tending to take place as late as possible. One of his new vineyards Ribaltyo (right) looks like Beaucastel, with its large glacial pudding-stoned carpet; others rely more on Alavesa limestone and others again have more clay in the soil.

A tasting by plot revealed very significant differences. Another El Pison maybe around the corner? A propos, the range was looking excellent in 2007, with Vinas De Gain, Pagos Viejos and El Pison all appropriately brilliant, far outperforming what one may have expected from the year. Elsewhere, at La Rioja Alta it is still the traditional styles which are the most convincing. Both the Alberdi 2002 and the Ardanza 2000 are showing great promise and the 1995 904 La Rioja Alta continues to grow in complexity. We are lucky enough to have secured one of the last parcels of this wine, which is currently being shipped.

The best CVNE wines for me were from Jesus Madrazo’s single vineyard estate, Contino. Overall I generally prefer Imperial to Real, although the latter, its putative Burgundian influence often somewhat unclear, can sometimes work, as with the Vina Real Reserva 2001.

And so, inevitably, to the inimitable Miguel Angel de Gregorio (left pictured in the 1945 Calvario vineyard) at Finca Allende. Those of hubristic temperament may have questioned the scale of his grandiose building projects, yet the winery has at last been completed and very impressive it is too, its fine 17th century sandstone facade and elegant cupola making it by some distance the finest Bodega in Briones!

His wines are uniformly excellent, even the Coronado from La Mancha, which, with the 2004, has shed several layers of torpor and a degree or two of alcohol. The white 2006 is more aromatic than the 2005 but attractive nonetheless. Aurus is getting better, wearing its 25 month oak ageing with Guigal-like dexterity…………yet the best  of all is undoubtedly Calvario. The 2005 is better even than the 2004; its texture silky, its tannins very fine and its fruit character exemplary. The 2006 will probably be nearly as good when the oak has softened a little.

It has been clear for while that the growing imbalance between supply and demand in Champagne, fuelled by burgeoning international demand, is set to lead to shortages in certain markets, with concomitant higher prices and hopefully a more carefully selected distribution chain.

Pretty much every corner of the 33,500 hectares where vines are permitted to be planted has now been planted. A victim of its own success perhaps? A licence to print money for the lucky few? Stark economic reality weighs in favour of the cherished concept of terroir. On one side of the fence a hectare will be worth a modest €5,000 , on the other a rather more impressive € 1 million. There is clearly an argument to extend the area for the vines, modestly, but to do so in such a mannered and punctilious fashion, the process gives off a semblance of propriety rather than profiteering.

So the INAO have done the research, have employed the geologists, the climatologists, in short all possible experts and have identified 40 new communes where, apparently, the quality of the land, soil, aspect and so forth is deemed suitable for Champagne vines. Just for good measure 2 communes have been expelled; their ‘terroir’ deemed no longer, to coin a phrase, ‘fit for purpose’. A slight imbalance, at first blush.

Vines, of course, take rather a long time to produce good fruit; this addition of the number of communes from 319 to 357 will only engender suitable fruit from 2021, and logically, will  thereafter increase production by somewhere in the region of 12-15%.  If global demand continues to grow at its current rate, this will only have a minor effect in the grand scheme of things. The majority of the new communes are in the Marne Valley and in the ‘satellite’ enclaves of Aube and Aisne; none especially near to the famous Grand Crus such as Avize and Le Mesnil-Sur -Oger.

It is easy enough to snort at Tartuffian double standards and the rather belated discovery of the intrinsic merit of this new land, yet one has to remember that Champagne has built its astonishingly strong market position through the labours of caution and a disinclination to favour short term gain. One may, contrary to atavistic inclinations, perhaps, give the Champenois the benefit of the doubt  and see this expansion as both necessary and well-planned. After all, at one point, a century ago, the delimited area was almost double its current size. In that light the expansion seems modest and, dare one say it, sensible….

Early in 2007 the celebrated Rhône writer, John Livingstone Learmonth sent me (along with the rest of his address book) a petition to try and prevent what was described as ‘Le Cornas menacé par l’urbanisation’ .

Unbelievably the powers that be (or were) planned to build a 5 storey building slap bang in the middle of this tiny (100 hectares) and wonderful vineyard; for a long time it appeared that the scheme would go ahead. Finally, mercifully, the mayor has bowed to the power of the people and the project has finally been abandoned.

Thank the lord! The only cause for regret is that Robert Michel (left), who has been supplying Berrys for many years, has announced his retirement.

The good news is that along with securing his last vintage (the 2006) which will be available for those who are interested in spring, his famous ‘Geynale’ Vineyard, perched magnificently over the village, has been sold to a syndicate, the members of which include his gifted nephew Vincent Paris, and none other than John Livingstone Learmonth himself.

Their work will be cut out, of course, to scale the heights achieved by Robert; his wines have all the brooding power for which the appellation is famed, with a wonderful concentration and elegance of fruit, perhaps a result of the fact that the vines date from 1911. Few wines are better suited to game or rich wintery dishes…

Every year, about the same time, an unceremonious and initially somewhat unexpected ritual takes place. It is known as the stacking of the LBV (Late Bottled Vintage) Port in the supermarket aisle; unceremonious given the fabled pedigree of this fortified wine and unexpected given the fact that its global production is relatively small; 10 million cases in total.

And yet the two major players, both with blue-blooded English pro-genitors, choose, for whatever reason,  to fight it out year in year out in this somewhat incongruous arena. Their loss is our gain; what they perceive to be their gain can only result in lost reputation in a category irrevocably linked to image and perceived status.

But beyond the duels between the Taylors and the extended Symington family one should not loose sight of the sheer magnificence of the product, its episcopal colouring and rich heady aromas presaging marvellous and infinitely complex flavours. Only in very special years are vintages declared and even then vintage makes up only 5 % of production; here we see the real port producers at work; their integrity has mitigated against a Vintage Declaration over the last three years, this in spite of real  and burgeoning  global demand.

When a vintage is declared, it is a cause for celebration indeed; older wines age with labyrinthine charm and infinite nuance; at the moment the 77s are dumb, but the 85s are singing; yet  this may be reversed again at least once over their long lives.

The 94s and 97s are promising great things, as is the legendary 2000; and  as for the older, rarer vintages, theirs is all grace and elegance. A far cry from the supermarket gondolas and their half-price ignominy. Let’s not forget what the real fuss should be about.

Well, as the Champenois put up their feet, preparing for some late summer sun on the Riviera after an extraordinarily early harvest, there must, for all those rugby and football woes, be a few smiles on their faces. Why? Because once more the stories of demand exceeding supply and global supply shortages are doing the rounds, grist to the mill of publicity at which the marketing professionals at the big companies such as LVHH and Vranken excel, nonchalantly of course.

But is there any truth in them? The Comité Interprofessionel Des Vins De Champagne ( CIVC) are now authorising absurdly high yields (15,500 kg/ha including bloquage – enough to make a Bordelais blush and a Burgundian faint) and yet if they are to maintain the quality imperative which has been the bed-rock of their success they will be unwise to try and extend the vineyard area (currently at pretty much full capacity at 34,000 hectares) or to reduce the ageing requirement of the wines.

Production, 25 million bottles in 1950, is set to be a record 328 million bottles this year, pretty much exactly mirroring the current sales. But the current sales look set to rise by up to 5% a year. There is no slack any more, and emerging markets, carefully nurtured, now need to be quenched.

So yes, there will inevitably be a supply problem. What I think we will see is that the great Grandes Marques will gradually cease the extraordinary St Vitas Dance of deep discounting that has been a bizarre feature of our high streets for so long, and will eventually pull out of the high street altogether, being far more selective about their distribution, primarily in the independent sector and leading hotels and restaurants.

Greater polarity will ensue with the big brands from the Boizel Group, The Vrankens and Pernod Ricard all still being widely available, but the Pols, Bols and Roederers of this world will be much harder to find, with, inevitably, concomitant pressure on prices. Every which way the Champenois can not fail to come out on top, if they can continue to manage the grape supply and pricing with their habitual aplomb.

Is it all over for Grandes Marques on the high street?