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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As I sit back here in shanghai looking out over a drizzly, muggy, polluted skyline I find it hard to believe that only a few weeks ago my girlfriend and I were ciao-ing our way through the outrageously scenic Tuscan and Umbrian countryside. Blue sky, fresh air and even fresher pasta seem like another life away.

My girlfriend being into food in a big way and me, eager to gain a better grasp of Italian wine, Tuscany seemed like the obvious choice for a two week epicurean and oenological fix – a few weeks and kilos later I’m glad to report that we were definitely not disappointed.

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Initial impressions of wine regions can often disappoint: arrival at a non-descript airport followed by a drive across a bleak light industrial landscape until hills loom into view on the horizon and vines are finally spotted. My first visit to Alsace was no exception, the drive from Basel airport across the border towards Colmar memorable only for the torrential rain, rather disappointing given Alsace’s track record for the second lowest rainfall in France after the Languedoc. After an hour on the motorway we were winding our way up into the mist-shrouded foothills of the Vosges, with vines stretching away on all sides: much more like it.

Monday dawned a little clearer and the Vosges loomed large as we set off to meet Olivier Humbrecht MW at his winery in the Heerenweg vineyard just outside Turckheim. Lest we were in any doubt about the weather, Olivier explained that this year’s May was more like an average March, but that the rain was more welcome viticulturally than the dry conditions which have recently strained vines in the region, last year particularly. (more…)

We had a bit of a treat last week when we celebrated the 900th anniversary of the extraordinary vineyard called Clos Blanc de Vougeot. It is well known how the monks of Cîteaux, having established their new monastery in 1098, started to plant up what is now the Clos de Vougeot from 1110. Fewer people are aware that they singled out the vineyard next door, known as La Vigne Blanche or Clos Blanc de Vougeot, as being clearly a white wine site and planted accordingly. There are hardly any white vineyards in the Côte de Nuits, but this one has been in existence for nine centuries.

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Following on from our very successful Bordeaux 2009 tasting in London last Monday, Emmanuel Cruse from Ch. d’Issan (Margaux’s oldest château, no less) came in to give us a taste of some of his vibrant, floral back-vintages and explain to us a little about the history of this beautiful estate.

It’s been the most hectic, frantic and let’s face facts, bonkers three weeks of my 22 years in the wine business. Seventeen hours-a-day of what seemed like stratospheric prices that we shouldn’t buy at one minute, that then sell out in an hour…….I’ve never seen anything like it.
 
So is this insanity that’s all going to go belly up or is this a new world order for top wines and are these prices really here to stay? 
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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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There was a time not so long ago when the sight of large oak botti in a (Piemontese) cantina was synonymous with the past, with dirty, unripe and tough wines. The spangly ‘80s and ‘90s were the decades of the French barrique (2.5 hectare litres); one whiff of which calmed all fears, reassuring the market that this was indeed a ‘modern’ wine, spotlessly clean and worth every one of those 95 Points. I recall, in another life as Burgundy buyer, priding myself on spotting the provenance of a domaine’s oak barrels before that of the wine; not hard  fortunately as they had chosen high toast alliers oak from Francois Freres, cloaking every wine in the cellar!

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I returned to Valpolicella in trepidation as to what I might find, and eat. The promising news is that there appears to be a wave of younger Venetians willing to forsake easy sales of fruit to the local Cantine Sociale (originally set to gather votes as well as fruit!) and give (fine) winemaking a go; that and a key improvement in the cucina! The (wine producing) field remains split, as per the regions* between those emulating the traditional ‘Classico’ Quintarelli model (unirrigated, minimal intervention, long appassimento and invecchiamento, pale coloured mineral wines) and those aping the modern ‘non-Classico’ Dal Forno path (irrigated, max intervention, short this and that, giving dark fruited impact wines). The former requires prime terroir; the latter not.

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I hadn’t long landed back in Serralunga d’Alba after my two weeks in Tuscany when I was off again to Monforte, just across the valley, this time to watch Chiara Boschis of Barolo producer E.Pira plant a new vineyard. (more…)

For the last several weeks I have been much more in Beaujolais mode than Burgundy, prospecting for suppliers to add to the range to take advantage both of the brilliance of 2009 in the region, and also what I perceive to be a renewed interest in the region from trade, press and consumers alike. Thank goodness, it is about time!

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After visiting 41 Chianti Classico cantina over 11 days I now feel a certain grasp on what’s going on among the Tuscan hills. I also got a grip on the twists and turns in the road, aided and abetted by my mate Tom (Tom). True ‘he’ occasionally threatened to lead me up the garden path, requiring a gentle tap on the ‘shoulder’ bringing ‘him’ back in line. It’s a nice metaphor, in my view, for what’s going on ‘down under’ in ‘Chiantishire’ that is…

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Well, it was a whistle-stop week of walking, talking and I can’t lie…  a lot of lunches and dinners! There is no doubt that the show came to town last week and there was buzz in the air. Although I’m not entirely sure on the numbers I do know that there were 750 exhibitors, and the rumour is that more people attended the event on the first morning than the whole of the previous Vinexpo, in fact, apart from the last few hours on Thursday, the HK Exhibition Centre was packed to the rafters. I’ll have to be honest, although there were a healthy amount of exhibitors from around the globe, France (and Bordeaux in particular) was where the main interest and concentration was.

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Thanks to mother nature I took a rather scenic route to Bordeaux this year; and after a rather romantic overnight ferry from Portsmouth St Malo and a six-hour drive down to Bordeaux (thanks to THAT volcano) with my colleague from the UK, Philip, it was my turn to taste the much hyped 2009s. Alas, I was the only HK representative in Bordeaux, with my colleagues being stuck back at home. Incredibly my colleague from Japan, Julian Stevens did turn up (two days late), after a marathon trip involving planes, trains (one of which caught fire!) and I think a carthorse as well!  After all the effort it did, however, turn out to be a glorious week and the wines were easy to taste so young, with freshness and sweetness of tannin.  Unfortunately the lowlight of the week was getting stuck in a public toilet… when the lights went out, the door locked. I tried to remain calm but suddenly water started gushing from the floor…  it was like a scene out of Nightmare on Elm Street! Three minutes later I staggered my way out, and this once dapper young home-counties boy was soaked, stunned and will never be the same again. NEVER use the public toilet at L’Elerc in Le Pian in Médoc.

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It may be May but it feels distinctly like April here in Piemonte, as the extended winter looks to have shunted the seasons back; so a chilly and damp reception for all my feathered friends that have now dropped in to say hello (nightingale, hoopoe, bee-eater, turtle dove, white-bellied alpine swift, hobby…)

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The mighty Parker has released his scores for Bordeaux’s 2009s – possibly the most important document in wine history since the 1855 classification – and guess what? He actually seems to agree with us! Many have been the years where we have read through Parker’s proclamations with a sense of bewildered wonderment – 2003/2005/2008 for example.
 
Well, this year he seems to have seen the light and hasn’t, like many, declared 2009 the best vintage in living history, but has sensibly informed the wine world that, although many chateaux have made the best wines in memory, it is not a blanket vintage and many wines are too alcoholic and lack definition.

However, as we have always maintained, Parker, although a great critic and undoubtedly one of the most influential men of our times, is simply one man.  One man who’s opinion affects an entire industry, so when he gives the brilliant 09 Ch. Latour 98-100 points but, in the next breath, awards the same status to certain Right Bank wines which were, in our (team’s!) opinion, over-extracted, over-alcoholic and stand-your-spoon-up-in-them thick, we can’t help but wonder whether being all things to all men is simply not a sensible tactic (the wines we are talking about shall remain nameless). The sad fact is that most people don’t read Parker’s notes, they just care about the score, so if they enjoy the classy, subtle elegance of Ch. Latour and then decide to try another of his more “exotic” 100-pointers, they are bound to be disappointed, and vice versa of course. To me it would seem very helpful to the reader that he identifies the “pea soupers” (PS?) as Modern Style (MS) perhaps. Anyway, enough rambling on, the report will only add fuel to the 2009 fire. Message to Chateaux….Come on ….let’s get on with it!

I have just been down to Beaujolais and up to Chablis to check out the 2009s from these regions. The visit to Chablis was particularly reassuring because I had some worries that the sunny conditions of the 2009 vintage might have led to atypical Chablis, fat and sassy chardonnay without the underlying austerity which is the hallmark of the appellation. Not so, there is a lovely freshness alongside the weight of the wines.

The real revelation this year, though, is Beaujolais. It comes at a moment when the world seems keen to see a revival of this once iconic region. There is a renaissance in particular among the ‘crus’, with single vineyard sites coming to the fore. In 2009 almost all the wines seem absolutely lovely, from straight Beaujolais upwards, as long as the producer has not gone over to the dark side of artificial yeasts and thermovinification. There will be some gorgeous wines to drink this summer, and then a wave of more serious bottlings later in the year which could be fascinating if laid away for the medium to long term. I am clearing space for various Morgons and Moulin a Vents to put away in my own cellar.

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Marooned I may have been, but Noël Pinguet’s (left) tutored tasting for 31 fortunate few (me included), in Berrys’ cellar on Monday night, more than compensated for this inconvenience. And just as the Icelandic volcano has reminded us of man’s meekness in the face of nature, so Noël’s wines clearly substantiated the pull of biodynamics: harnessing nature’s (free) power to brilliant effect and not a plume of ash in sight either.

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Ferdinando’s been a friend ever since I first arrived in the region, along with his Spanish wife Belen, her daughter Laura and their son Leonardo (a sparring partner for my Patrick!). Indeed it was he who insisted, over a dinner at La Coccinella in Serravalle Langhe a year ago, that I should seek out (not his wines) but those of the Timorasso grape; incidentally a grape he’ll be planting nearby this autumn.

 
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After a glorious weekend recovering from what I have to say was a completely exhausting week in Bordeaux (and several bottles of reviving Burgundy to aid the process), I can sit down now and actually format in my mind what we experienced and after assimilating that, what’s going to happen next.

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