Here are the bare bones – 656 pages, commentary on 1,000 or so different vineyards from generic to grand cru, and from Chablis to Pouilly Fuissé. Thumbnails of 450 producers, vintage reports, and plenty of background to what makes Burgundy what it is. I am starting to get very excited indeed!

We shall be promoting the book from early September, with physical delivery expected in the second half of October. Watch this space!

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.

A detailed summary of Alsace’s unique and variegated terroirs followed, with Olivier keen to dispel the generalisation that the fertile vineyards on the Alsatian river plain necessarily produce the region’s least interesting wines. The varied topography here means that gravel and loess outcrops can produce compelling wines, even if the lack of the rich mineral deposits found elsewhere (and above all in Alsace’s Grand Cru vineyards) means that grapes do not reach their zenith at these lower altitudes.

Zind-Humbrecht’s wines (from a fluctuating body of 40 to 50 ha of vineyards) undergo gentle pressing over 18 to 24 hours, and natural sedimentation of the must followed by fermentation after about 10-15 days. This can last anything up to a year. The wines are kept on gross lees to build character until the April following the vintage. Tasting-wise, we found ourselves spoilt for choice but most memorable were a captivating 1990 Gewürztraminer Grand Cru Rangen with a nose of beeswax and saffron followed by crème brûlée on the palate and a 1988 Pinot Gris from magnum, with hay giving way to notes apricot and truffle. That most of the wines we tasted had been open for a few days was testament to their concentration and staying power. Fantastic.

Next on the itinerary was Hugel et Fils, where we met export manager David King. One of the region’s most highly-regarded family businesses, Hugel is keenly positioned to build on its export heritage in Asia and the Middle East where its wines were known before the Second World War.  Alsatian white wines have a distinct advantage over some in this regard: they are varietal wines easily spotted on wine lists and seem to complement Asian cuisines particularly well.

China and Japan are prime markets for the 100,000 cases or so produced by Hugel each year, from a typically-parcellated 180ha of vineyards split between some 350 growers. Vinification of Hugel’s three ranges ‘Classic’, ‘Tradition’ and ‘Jubilee’ (the latter being produced from hand-picked grapes from vineyards owned exclusively by the family) still takes place on-site at the company’s ancient premises in the centre of Riquewihr, with élevage split 50:50 between tartrate-encrusted oak and stainless steel. This despite constraints of space and increasingly onerous health and safety regulations which now classify wine production as an industrial rather than agricultural enterprise… no mean feat. Tasting highlights included a fine 2003 Pinot Noir Les Neveux – one of the more creditable reds we sampled during our stay – rich with soft ripe tannins (very of its vintage) and vibrant raspberry pip fruit.

After an excellent lunch at Restaurant Taverne Alsacienne in Ingersheim (cabillaud sauvage with new season asperges blanches), we made our way to Domaine Josmeyer in Wintzheim. Founded in 1854, this estate produces some 200,000 bottles from 26ha of vines, 5ha of which are classified as Grand Cru. 70% of their production is exported with just 25% retailed in France. These were without doubt some of the most impressive wines we tasted, with intense varietal expression across the range. The highlight was a 2000 Riesling Grand Cru Hengst with archetypal minerality, concentration and poise. True to the house style, their 2000 Gewürztraminer Archenets was particularly noteworthy for its emphasis on spice, with notes of clove and mace framing the pungent rose and lychee fruit character with aplomb.

Our visit to Domaine Rieffel the following day saw our first trip out to the vineyards and a chance to put the familiar names of Zotzenberg, Brandluft, Gesetz and Wiebelsburg into context. After the chocolate-box frippery of Kaysersberg and Riquewihr, Mittelbergheim and its spectacular setting in the lee of the Vosges was a taste of the real Alsace, an impression no doubt bolstered by the first sunshine of our stay. The gently sloping, south-east facing Zotzenburg vineyard was a lesson in the importance of aspect in this part of the world, with Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Sylvaner all doing well here on mixed soils of calcaire jaune and clay. Madame Rieffel encouraged us to engage in some ébourgeonnage – stripping growth away from the trunks of the vines – before taking us to see Wiebelsberg where the characteristic pink sandy soils on a steeply-pitched slope give leaner Rieslings.  Their 2007 Riesling Zotzenberg Vendage Tardive was a memorable example of the late-harvest style with tarte tatin fruit balanced by liminal acidity.

After another helping of new season asperges blanches (paired with Muscat of course) our final trip of the stay was to Domaine Ostertag in Epfig. André Ostertag’s 14.5 ha split between over 100 parcels produce some of the most sought after wines in Alsace and a trip to his 2.3ha holding in Muenchberg (‘monks’ mountain’) certainly endorsed his philosophy that behind great wines are great places.  The Ungelsberg summit casts a long rain shadow over this south-facing, natural amphitheatre where mixed soils of red sandstone and volcanic sediment produce richly-textured wines from 75 year-old vines. Just as in the Haut-Rhin, the cold winter and spring has retarded growth by up to a fortnight this year and André explained that the heavy rain of the last few days was welcome given the lack of moisture-retaining clay in these parts.

André’s aim is to go beyond the relatively simple exercise of balancing acidity and sweetness which can preoccupy Alsatian winemakers and make wines of real character. For his Pinot Gris, this translates into barrel fermentation in 228 litre barriques coopered, in Burgundy, from 100% Vosges oak. His 2007 Zellberg Pinot Gris was a case in point, with perfectly balanced fruit and sinew. The focus on terroir at Domain Ostertag extends beyond Riesling (a variety much lauded for its ability to express minerality) to inform all that they do, with André’s Gewürztraminer vinified ‘through Riesling eyes’ to produce a taut, concentrated style quite distinct from the heady and sometimes overblown wines produced from this grape. Excellent.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity to taste some German wine, we topped off our stay with a quick hop over the border, where lunch was accompanied by a fantastic local Grauburgunder from the volcanic soils east of Freiburg. A fitting end to four superb days in France which left us with an enhanced understanding of the importance of terroir and a lasting impression of Alsace’s unique ability to produce such a diverse range of wines in so many different styles.

For what with global warming and wild fire, Rick’s Giaconda vineyards, planted in the early 1980s with the Chardonnay first bottled in 1986, have been feeling the heat of late. So six years back he grafted Nebbiolo onto half a hectare of wilting Pinot Noir. He’s happy with the result, as are the hacks at the Wine Advocate apparently, rating his Nebbiolo as the best tasted outside Italy. I sense though that his new business partner Michel Chapoutier is not so keen, preferring Syrah instead. Rick stresses he’s not out to make a me-too Barbaresco or Barolo style wine, but one that reflects the lower pH  granite and schistous soils that lie on the Victorian Alp foothills at between 500-700 metres above sea-level, made with the same painstaking care that characterises all his wines; wines that are truly hand-made, without recourse to yeast, pump or filter.

He lost no time in getting amongst a small selection of Piemontese friends/producers I’d lined up for him – Mario Fontana, Davide Rosso, Maria Teresa Mascarello, Teobaldo Rivella and Luca Roagna – quizzing them about everything from the amount of leaves left when thinning to the levels and timings of sulphur additions.  And to return the compliment, he shared out a bottle of his exquisitely poised 2008 Chardonnay and compact blue-blooded 2006 Warner Vineyard Shiraz both no doubt benefiting from Rick’s dabbling in the occult:

evangelical biodynamicist and friend Alex Podolinsky visits Rick from time to time…

And who better to visit during this particularly hot and humid spell than this former air-conditioning engineer from Queensland – although I’m not sure if he ever did get around to mending Cascina delle Rose’s dehumidifier that packed up recently, much to owner Giovanna Rizzolio’s despair.

Today it belongs in its 2.29 hectare entirety to Domaine de la Vougeraie, whose winemaker Pierre Vincent came to London to present all 10 vintages that Vougeraie have bottled of this wine – 1999 to 2008 – since purchasing the vineyard from l’Héritier Guyot. Pierre took over from Pascal Marchand shortly after the 2005 vintage, so we could see the hands of two different winemakers at work. The main technical differences between the two regimes are slightly earlier picking and a little less new wood since Pierre took over.

The vineyard is farmed biodynamically, with ECOCERT organic certification. The grapes go directly to the pneumatic press for a long, slow pressing, a minimal settling of the solids from the juice, then fermentation in barrel usually without lees stirring. The wines are aged in barrel for 15 to 18 months, with a maximum of 30% new wood, which since 2006 has been sourced from the local forest of Cîteaux via tonneliers Damy, Rousseau, Chassin and Gauthier.

Recent vintages of Clos Blanc have had a natural sense of balance, as well as an impressive level of detail and notable persistence of flavour, all indicators that the monks chose well when deciding that this should be a white wine vineyard.

After tasting all ten vintages from 2008 back to 1999 we finished with a treat summoned from the BBR private family a reserve – the 1919 Clos Blanc de Vougeot bottled by Jules Regnier of Dijon. Read Jasper’s tasting notes.

In the second photograph the soil on the left is from Clos Blanc de Vougeot and the soil on the right from Clos de Vougeot.

His reward for this great honour? A case of wine so fantastic that it inspired thousands of people (including our Chairman, Simon Berry, who came 590th)  to fight it out in a battle for the top fantasy football team made up entirely of players from wine producing nations.  This legendary case includes gems from Ch. Latour, Vega Sicilia, Penfolds Grange and Taylor’s Port – well done Richard and enjoy the wines, we’ll all be thinking of you!

The history of the wine was in point of fact born out of an accident, as it was found that the casks of fortified wine that passed through the port of Funchal, thence stowed on the ships en route for the The Indes or The Americas, actually improved from their apparently ruinous voyage through the humid tropics. Modern Madeira is made in a way to imitate this exposure to heat, either artificially (in heated tanks called estufas) or ‘naturally’ by leaving casks under the eves of the upper rooms of the lodges ( the canteiro method). A temperate climate and extreme humidity in high summer does the rest. Depending on the time of fortification the wine is either sweet (Malvasia/Malmsey and Boal varieties) or dry ( Sercial and Verdehlo varieties). This seeming simplicity is slightly undermined by the fact that 90% of the island’s plantations are in fact the red grape Tinta Negra Mole, which is used primarily for the 3 year old blends, so beloved of our friends on the continent.

In England, however, we have a nose for the finest things and few wines are as fine, complex and intellectually rewarding as old Madeira. High natural acidity and the legacy of an essentially oxidative maturation mean that the bottled wine is virtually indestructible, even when opened. And after a precipitous visit to some of the decorous pergola-trained vineyards, it was down to the serious business of the day…the tasting. Our delightful hosts Ana Soares, Ricardo Tavares and Francisco Alburquerque (above) had, several hours beforehand, opened and poured from 27 bottles, imbuing the tasting room with heady aromas of figs, molasses and decadence.

After a fascinating  initial flight comparing generic 10 year old blends with Colheitas (single casks) of similar age,  we were straight into the vintage wines,  armed with    the advice that of the two main companies with in the group the Cossart wines would be more elegant and feminine and the Blandy  examples more  masculine and more powerful. Sometimes this was discernible, sometimes less so; what was clear however, was the incredible difference in the styles over the course of their development. The oldest and most venerable wine was from 1870, although such was its freshness and purity of flavour that had one been asked to guess its age, one may well have been a whole century out! Thankfully the bottles were all on display, lined up in their distinctive white stencilled livery, each one older and more fascinating than the last!

All of the wines scored highly …… it is sometimes frowned upon to score wines, and yet it is probably the most effective aide memoire to tease out the truth of appreciation from behind the hyperbole of the tasting note……… but some scored more highly than others, and if one had been of a mathematical persuasion, I am sure that the average score would have been higher than for any other tasting I have ever been lucky enough to attend. To mention just  a few;  Blandy Bual 1977 for its amber foxy colour, and amazing almost tea-like complexity; Blandy  Verdehlo 1968, high-toned, firm, stentorian; Leocock  Sercial 1966, classic rancio nose, and tangy finish;  Blandy Bastardo 1954,  tasted like Christmas pudding!; Cossart Verdehlo 1934, mahogany colour, incredible aromas almost like seaweed or Islay whisky; Blandy Sercial 1910, flinty, figgy, astonishingly fresh, Blandy Bual  1920, almost impossibly youthful…had there been a mistake…no..no mistake!; Cossart Bual 1908 , toffee apple, Demerara sugar; and of course Blandy Verdehlo ex Solera 1870 ; peaty , white chocolate, coffee and figs, playful , yet focused, sweet yet dry, of symphonic scope yet with the purity of the sonata…………this an other apparent contradictions capture the enigma that is Madeira. An enigma with plenty of variation and magic and one which I would recommend time and time again as one of the most under-valued and astonishing wines of the world.

So I see the prices of the 2009s as very high but sustainable and likely to rise in the short-term, as supply is minuscule and demand at fever pitch. There are several major reasons why I don’t see them subsiding: Firstly, the technology advantages are helping make far better wines than in the past; Secondly, the châteaux are holding far more stock back and dripping cases on the market rather than a deluge and, of course, why would they crash their own wines’ value? But probably the most significant factor is that in 2005 we did not have China as a massive player in the fine wine world, as we do now. What is slightly scary to me, as a wine-lover as well as a merchant, is that we have not even seen the tip of the iceberg of demand from this incredibly exciting market yet. If you think that the top 100 “brands” of Bordeaux only produce a tiddly one million cases and are actually making less year-on-year as they try and improve their already exceptionally high quality……..we ain’t seen nothing yet!!!

Wine and technology geeks can tap into our vinous knowledge and the shiny iPad’s magical multi-touch screen makes reading easier and browsing and navigation far simpler, and much more intuitive.

Whatever time it is, wherever you are, take a look at the brand new Vintage Charts, producer Profiles and Wine Ratings. We have listened to your feedback on our iPhone App launched last year and we have enhanced the search functionality and you can now filter by price and vintage rather than just the previous keyword search of wine name, region, producer and grape. We have also improved the transactional function which means it’s now even easier to purchase through the free App.

But don’t fear – you can still enjoy original favourites like tasting notes from our Masters of Wine and the Virtual Wine School video tutorials.

This is the must-have upgrade for all Fine Wine aficionados, whatever the size of your cellar – or portable communication device!! Download the free App at: www.bbr.com/app.

Understanding Barbecue Cooking

Barbecuing is a fast-cooking method that seals in food’s natural juices and flavours.  The high temperatures quickly sear the outside of the food and carmelise its sugars and fats, which further intensifies the natural flavours and also adds sweetness to the finished dishes. Sweetness is often accentuated by the use of marinades and sauces, such as barbecue or sweet and sour sauce.  Sometimes there’s a chilli and spice element to be considered too, as well as the smokiness that’s imparted from the charcoal, so you need to serve wines that will balance any spiciness in the dish as well as complement the intensified natural flavours of the food.

Matching Wines to Barbecue Food

Grapes grown in hot climates ripen easily and the wines made from them are full-flavoured and taste sweeter/riper. Often there is more residual sugar in a hot climate wine than a cool climate wine, hence they seemingly taste ‘sweeter’. These characteristics match those found in barbecued food. The ripeness or sweetness in some wines also will balance the flavour of any smoke and any heat and spice. So hot climate wines like those from California, the Med, Australia and Chile are often the best choice.

For more delicious alfresco dining ideas, why not come along to our Wines & Beef Barbecue Day this Saturday 3rd July at Berrys’ Factory Outlet in Basingstoke?!

If you can make it along to the event then you can…

…SAVE 15% or more on everything in Berrys’ Own Selection, including spirits, wines and fortifieds – plus there’s at least 25% off all our other bin end wines

…TASTE a vast array of wines, specially selected with barbecues in mind

…TRY Sarah Purdon’s fabulous Belted Galloway beef which will also be available for you to buy (in limited supply so arrive early)

…GET A FREE Berrys’ apron worth £15 when you spend £100 or more in store and become the smartest barbecue chef in town this summer!

…TAKEAWAY a free copy of Berrys’ Wine & Barbecue leaflet, which is full of great wine matching tips and tasty recipes from our Head Chef

Plus Sarah Purdon, who produces the best beef we’ve ever tasted, will be on hand to talk about and offer you tasters of her sublime beef. Sarah will also have beef available to buy on the day, but supply is very limited, so, once again, you’ll arrive early if you don’t miss out…