Dear Catie,Thank you so much for a wonderful dinner at Bistro Four. It was so good to see you. As usual, the conversation was great, the food was delish, and the wine interesting. Better to be at a simple bistro, than a pretentious wannabe like 26 Brix. You seemed to love your Croque Madame and alth…

Incredible day’s tasting and visiting today. We began in Meursault, with Jean-Philippe Fichet - really impressive wines, tasting back to 1992. Now I remember why I love white Burgundy. Below is a view by Meursault Tesson towards the village.

Staying in Meursault, we visited Domaine Pierre Morey, w…

Took the Eurostar to Paris, next headed to Dijon, and now I’m in Beaune. There’s something thrilling about Burgundy.

Just one visit today - Joseph Drouhin. We met with Jean-Francois Curie and Philippe Drouhin and tasted through a large range of wines, including a wonderful 2007 Clos des Mouches Bla…

The king of pop may be dead, but the king of the stones lives. In fact, Christophe Baron rules both in his domain at Cayuse and in the surrounding cailloux ( French for stones). I must confess to a convinced amount of skepticism about all the obvious hype and spin around Cayuse. Commenters on the Se…

Excited to be off to Burgundy for a short trip tomorrow dawn. Some nice visits planned:

Drouhin, Fichet, Coche Dury, Cathiard, Louis Latour and Clos de Tart.

And the weather forecast is brilliant.

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A quick blog post before I retire to bed, tired from a busy day.

Fiona and I were off to Wimbledon, courtesy of Beaujolais. It’s the first duration I’ve been, and it was exciting - since my childhood, it has been the one tennis tournament that we’ve watched avidly every June/July. It’s wonderful th…

No work today at all. Spent the day playing cricket for the wine trade XI versus the Hampshire Hogs down in Warnford.

It was a great day. We batted first under gray skies with high humidity, and were quickly reduced to 10-2 as their quick bowlers moved it around a bit. But next a mega-partnership a…

Nose: Peppery Cedar spice (classic Zin!) and a dark berry cream on the nose.Palate: Good structure, unassuming and uncomplex but sticking to what it knows well and doing it well!Finish: soft and dark berries come back for a small but fine finish.Overall: a nice 2006 california (sonoma) zin. I am e…

Pale straw hue with bubbles rising in the bottle. “Symphony” is actually the grape created in the 60’s in Calif. from the Muscat and Grenache Gris.It has a wonderfully, powerfully floral and tropical fruit filled bouquet that is sweet and wowing!In the mouth, that wine is intense with balance and s…

Tonight’s drinking: two red wines, both from the same remarkable patch of land. That’ll be New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region, and more specifically the Gimblett Gravels - a relatively recently discovered terroir that makes lovely red wines, both from Syrah and additionally Bordeaux varieties. These wi…