Broadening your vinous horizons isn’t the only part of Wine Club. We firmly believe that talking about (and sharing an opinion over) a glass can enhance your enjoyment and appreciation of wine.

Bringing members together is a great way to get the discussions going so on the evening of Monday 26^th March, 100 Wine Club members and their guests were invited to the Napoleon Cellar for the annual Wine Club Walkaround tasting.

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Yesterday evening we had the pleasure of tasting at Ch. Leoville-Las Cases and thoroughly enjoyed the flight of wines in the Domaines Delon stable. Chapelle de Ch. Potensac was fine and fruity upfront and promises to be great value drinking wine, whereas Ch. Potensac was refreshingly fresh. Le Petit Lion and the Grand Vin (excellent concentration and beautiful quality of fruit,  something for the long-term) have both been notable successes this year.

This morning we spent our last day of Bordeaux 2011 En Primeur week with a 9am start at Ch. la Mission Haut-Brion, tasting both the Grand Vin and La Mission itself. We’d spent the journey from Margaux to Graves preparing ourselves for the final First Growth and discussing that there have been three or four wines that we are really impressed with this week – and that rival some of the Firsts in terms of quality. Ch. Haut-Brion’s viticultural history can be traced back further than its Médoc First Growth counterparts and the wine this year was notably fragrant on the nose and suitably fresh. Interestingly, we also felt La Mission’s deep black cherry and cassis aromas were all nicely balanced and the nose particularly charming. It is certainly one to consider. Haut-Brion found that the Cabernet Sauvignon suffered with the heat and drought in spring which necessitated strict selection in the vineyard and the crop was further reduced by the optical sorting machine which removed an extra 5% of the volume. The properties new wine, Quintus, was well thought of too and as the winemakers start to learn about this different terroir just 20% of the yield was included in the first blend.

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Ending Wednesday evening with a tasting at the most consistent First Growth of recent times, Ch. Latour, was a great experience in their modern tasting facility – a stark contrast to many of the other more traditional rooms we had experienced earlier in the day.  Very much within the context of 2011, the Les Forts De Latour was a joyful wine to taste. A wonderfully perfumed nose, opulent fruit, power and silky interwoven tannins. 2011 Ch. Latour is very precise, elegant and focussed, a result of careful vinification and extraction. The wine also shows layered complexity which has been missing in all but a few wines this week.

The evening tasting set us up nicely for the tasting of two other First Growths and many Super-Seconds on Thursday Morning and we started at Ch. Lafite Rothschild (which is typically very difficult to taste En Primeur – Mr Chevalier often mentions that he would prefer to show his wines in June when they have begun to flourish and this is perhaps even more relevant this year). Ch. Duhart-Millon shone, with an abundance of juice on offer. Ch. Montrose was next up and we were particularly impressed by the second wine, La Dame which showed lovely fruit (72% Merlot and 50% of the crop this year, usually just 38% – much stricter selections having taken place). The Grand Vin yield is 10 hectare liters per hectare down this year, at 35 hectare litres, and it is very well integrated with oak, fruit, silky tannins and overall elegance. It is perhaps one of the most harmonious wines yet.

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The terms Left Bank and Right Bank refer to the two parts of the Bordeaux wine region that lie on either side of the River Garonne and the huge Gironde estuary, into which the Rivers Garonne and Dordogne flow. These waters exert a significant influence on both the climate and the soil structures of each sub-region in the appellation, by virtue of their sedimentary deposits.

Starting at the most northerly point of the Right Bank, Bourg and Blaye lie up river near to the southern tip of the great estuary itself, while you have to travel much further south to the banks of the River Dordogne before you stumble across Fronsac and Canon Fronsac, then Pomerol and Lalande de Pomerol, and finally St Emilion and its satellites.

It is the fleshy Merlot grape which dominates this side of the river, which is sometimes supported by Cabernet Franc in the blend (although at the famous St Emilion property Château Cheval Blanc, Cabernet Franc predominates). The soils are more mixed than on the Left Bank, with clay on top of limestone underpinning the rich, fruity wines of Pomerol. Styles vary more in St Emilion, depending on the predominance of sand in the lower lying slopes, or limestone on the hillsides and plateau.

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It was beautiful, crisp and sunny as we awoke this morning and the early drive to the Right Bank was really stunning passing through many wonderful vineyards and opulent Château. Following a brief taste of one or two 2009 and 2010s last night, our taste buds were certainly whet and raring to go.

Our first stop of the day was Moueix where Christian Moueix suggested that 2011 was a difficult vintage for growers, with seasons not being reflective of their usual characteristics, spring- like conditions in summer and vice versa, followed by drought and a warm autumn. If he had to compare 2011 to another vintage, 2004 and 2007 would be his choice. We tasted many wines but focussed on  Lafleur-Gazin and La fleur-Petrus. Oak dominates both at the moment, but the wines show early promise where fruit is in concentration.

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Berrys’ Head Chef, Stewart Turner, writes recipes to accompany the wines selected for the Wine Club Dinner Party Case. Recently, he’s given lamb the restaurant treatment- why not try out his recipe over the long Easter weekend? And we’d love to hear how you get on.

Stewart says: ‘This is one of my favourite lamb dishes; it’s really simple to prepare but packs a flavourful punch. Lamb shoulders are hugely underrated and cooking them on the bone locks in all that flavour. Carving can be a bit tricky but this recipe takes that hassle away as the meat just falls from the bone. Served with a caper sauce that cuts through any fattiness and some young vegetables, it’s a real spring time treat and a winner over the Easter period.’

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Following a remarkably pleasant flight (and a particularly enjoyable glass of wine at the airport) we have landed in Bordeaux and can’t wait to start tasting the wines of 2011.

Our schedule is remarkably similar to previous years (if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it), so all of the eager anticipation that’s been building during the course of the last few months will finally be released on the Right Bank tomorrow morning. We have a busy diary as usual in St Emillion, starting at Ch. Figeac and Ch. Angélus before moving onto Ch. Ausone and Ch. Cheval Blanc among others in the afternoon.

Everyone is excited, of course, at the prospect of a fantastic week tasting some of the most famous wines in the world, but the most appropriate words to describe the mood of the team as we make our way from the airport to our base in Margaux are intrigued, interested and fascinated. Very little has been written about this vintage so far and the main reason is that it is very hard to generalise about it. Bordeaux is a very large area and just about everything has been thrown at it during the growing season. It has not been the hottest, driest or coldest vintage on record and the wines are likely to be a mixed bag as a result. We haven’t had the chance to taste any 2011s as yet, but early indications suggest that those who have produced gems will be similar to 1996 in terms of style, but even those who haven’t made wines of blockbuster appeal will not be bad – considering the advances made in winemaking technology during recent years. The good news is that this 2011 vintage is likely to have produced lovely drinking Bordeaux to fill up your cellars, with those that bought 2002, 2004 and 2008 aware of what great value these wines are and of course how delicious they are.

2011 does not look like being a winemakers’ vintage, rather a wine merchants’ vintage, where consumers will have to rely heavily on their merchants to secure the right advice and the right wines. We hope to answer many questions, create best buy lists and start to offer the best advice where we can throughout the course of this week where we visit the likes of Ch. Palmer and Ch. Margaux on Tuesday, Ch. Lynch Bages and Ch. Latour in Pauillac on Wednesday, Ch. Lafite Rothschild, Ch. Mouton Rothschild in Pauillac and Ch. Léoville-Poyferré in St Julien on Thursday and draws to a close tasting the wines of Ch. Haut-Brion, Ch. Haut-Bailly and Domaine de Chevalier on the Left Bank in Péssac-Leognan on Friday.

Look out for our daily blogs and for up-to-the-minute tasting snippets and thoughts from the team, follow us and Simon Staples, our Fine Wine Director, on Twitter @BerryBrosRudd @BigSiTheWineGuy.

We’re approaching the busiest time of the year here at Berrys: Bordeaux en primeur. If you’re new to the wine world you might not have heard of this concept, so here’s our guide to en primeur…

En primeur is the French wine trade term for wines that are sold before they are bottled. Buying wines in this way is a fairly recent phenomenon, and whilst Bordeaux is perhaps most commonly known for selling its wines this way, it is not exclusive to this region. For example, we also offer Burgundy, Rhône and Italian wines en primeur. Wines sold en primeur are amongst the most sought after in the world, so buying them before they’re bottled offers a chance to secure them at what is often the lowest price available – a key factor when buying wines for investment.

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It was a celebration of structure, style, shape, shades, silhouette, scent, subtlety with a semblance of sweetness, spiciness and seasoning!  The Pickering Cellar was transformed from the home of Berrys’ Wine School, to an elegant catwalk last Saturday. Think whimsical, enthralling, stylish, inspiring and magical…

To celebrate Mothers’ Day, we invited two great St James’s neighbours to join us in our cellars: Lock & Co. Hatters and Floris (also Royal Warrant holders and old established family companies). The day was an extravaganza for the senses!

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Celebrating Berry Bros. & Rudd’s significant investment in one of San Francisco’s most exciting businesses, three Berrys (Simon Berry, David Berry Green and Geordie d’Anyers Willis) and three Rudds (Edward, Richard and Lizzy) visited the historic brewery to meet the Anchor Brewers and Distillers (ABD) team, led by the dynamic ex-Skyy entrepreneurs Tony Foglio and Keith Greggor.

At the heart of Anchor Brewers lies ‘Anchor Steam’ craft beer, whose history dates back to 1896 (an anagram of 1698!) to the period of the Gold Rush. The craft beer brand was established as a national icon, distributed to 50 of the United States, during the ownership by Fritz Maytag from 1965 onwards. In fact it could be said that Fritz established the ‘craft beer’ (micro-brewery) category; one that is now exploding at the expense of the more mainstream beer brands. San Francisco being at the heart of this national thirst for artisanal products; a movement epitomised by Anchor Steam beer along with eight other Anchor beers, such the bitter hops flavoured ‘Liberty Ale’.

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Having won the UK final of the Champagne Ambassador in September last year (a competition run by the Champagne Information Bureau, who are the London base for the the CIVC, Champagne’s regulatory body), I followed up with the European final in Champagne itself. This took place at the end of three days touring the region visiting Champagne houses large and small with the seven other finalists (France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland) taking part. We came from a variety of backgrounds (full-time educators, journalists, restaurant, importing) but all had a love of Champagne in common!

Highlights for me from the tour? Far too many to mention, but here a few…

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It’s Valentine’s Day, and rather than bombard you with pink Champagne choices, I asked Berrys’ staff to get in touch with their softer side and write a poem confessing their love… for wine! 

When I was asked to pen on my favourite wine,
I thought, ‘this is mad! All are favourites of mine!”

Whether Chablis or Claret, dry Riesling or Sherry,
Any nectar from grapes will make me quite merry,

When it comes to tradition, they say I’m quite deft,
Decanting with grace; passing Port to the left,

But actually readers, now I come to think,
I daresay there’s one that’s my favourite drink,

A supreme, sublime indication of class,
You’ll never find me without this in my glass,

Blue Nun is its name! It’ll never get tired,
It’s… hang about readers, I’ve just been fired.
-Steffan Griffiths, Berrys’ Marketing

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I spent a fascinating week in Hong Kong leading up to Chinese New Year. The Year of the Dragon is now in full swing and so, it would appear, is a new found appreciation for Burgundy.

Among the high spots were the ‘Long Lunch’, a sort of mini Paulée held at the Hong Kong Cricket Club, who supplied a match to watch to boot. However we spent more time concentrating on the wines than on the cricket, generous guests bringing bottles from Lafon, Blain-Gagnard, Vougeraie, Roumier, Grivot, de Montille, Rossignol-Trapet, Perrot-Minot, Cathiard, Rémy, Fourrier, Dugat-Py and more.

The key will be to encourage appreciation right across the range and this should be possible. Wines such as Sylvain Loichet’s Ladoix Bois de Gréchon have found favour already, and good quality Bourgogne Rouge is being snapped up. As we expected, the learning curve develops frighteningly quickly.

We did many more wine events this year with Cantonese food which is a stimulating development. I like the idea of having lots of bottles open on the table so you can grab a sip of whichever one might please you with whichever nibble of dim sum or peking duck catches your fancy. Dishes which I really enjoyed this week included braised pomelo skins and some baby roast pigeon. Apparently I was just too late for seasonal snake soup.

In life, many a Thursday evening can pass with a glass of something whilst cooking, a moan at the lack of decent television and an early night in preparation for the weekend ahead. Last night was no such evening. I sashayed along to Cocktail Hour & Champagne at No. 3 St James’s Street for Berrys’ only Champagne and Cocktail specific event of the year, where special guest ‘bacchanologist’ Mark Jenner of the Connaught was shaking up an exciting range of drinks. The development of Spirits within Berry Bros. & Rudd is further acknowledgment that Cocktails are more exciting than ever and not just for the stereotypical demographic but more about a genre of drinks that can integrate with our everyday lives.

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