Recently back from a ten day buying trip to Piedmont, briefly to Tuscany and a first visit to Umbria.

More precisely I spent two days in and around the village of Serralunga d’Alba, the third largest Barolo commune at 311ha (behind La Morra & Monforte d’Alba), ex 1786ha for all Barolo. As with Burgundy I find it pays to passegiare among the vines, to see for oneself the varying terroirs: from the deep red clays at the base of the village, home to Fontanafredda, to the finer calcareous rich marls of the top sites, at 450 metres elevation heading out towards Roddino. Conterno’s Cascina Francia & Giacosa’s Falletto are to be found among the latter.

Serralunga reminds me of Vosne-Romanée; the suave, subtle elegance of the wines are underpinned by an aristrocratic structure and mineral, rock-like fruit mesh. So different from the velvety Chambolle-esque feel of Castiglione Falletto or meaty, Nuits St. Georges-like full-bodied notes of Monforte. Massolino, Conterno and Giacosa remain the top addresses, blessed with fine vineyards and gentle large oak ageing. Barolo 2005 looks promising if earlier maturing than 2004; 2006 richly structured for the long term; while the 2007 looks cooler and perfumed.

Soldera’s Casse Basse, en-route to Umbria proved a fascinating detour. Gianfranco’s policy of ageing his Brunello wines for up to 6 years in large slavonian oak flies in the face of current tastes (for french oak) yet delivers finely-tuned, harmonious wines; the 1994 Brunello opened over lunch appeared muddled yet blossomed into a rose-scented beauty. The 2001 Riserva, by contrast, gave a brief moment of redcurrant brilliance before closing down; a promising future without doubt.

And finally to Umbria where three days in the field threw up a less-than-convincing view of Orvieto, bar the fine wines of Palazzone, yet witnessed a far more encouraging prognosis for red Sagrantino di Montefalco. Spurred on by being awarded its DOCG in 1992, the region was put on the map among the important American market by Arnaldo Caprai. Since then there has been a rash of plantings, taking the number of wineries from 15 in 2000 to 42 in 2008 (and to 662ha).

More than a few of the new estates have unsurprisingly sought to ape Caprai’s success, producing ‘marmalata’ wines, thickly concentrated with high alcohols and dangerously-low acidities; popular perhaps with journalists but less comfortable at the dinner table. One contributor might be that the best (vineyard) sites have traditionally gone to olive groves, relegating the vine to the less than ideal clayey bottom of the slope; that a tiny percentage of the best fruit is still hived off to produce Passito Sagrantino or that a significant number of growers still farm cereal alongside vines, thereby increasing their reliance upon wine consultants…Anyway, the future’s bright, with the likes of Bocale & Bea showing the way forward.

A trip to the last day of the harvest at Jacquesson

There is something truly magical about being in the vineyards at the end of the harvest. Not only is it the culmination of a years work and with that comes a sense of a job well done but there is allied to this a sense of anticipation about the quality of the wine to be made from the fruit safely gathered in and beyond that a feeling that you are part of an unbroken line of human experience that dates back to when man first farmed. Magical indeed…

The day starts, as any should, in the main kitchen at Jacquesson. The sense of community is immediately obvious. It takes 20 minutes to sit down to have breakfast as you have to shake hands and kiss (men and women respectively) those preparing for a
hard days work in the vineyards and questions about your health and general well being
have to be answered with a courtesy that matches their genuineness. No chance of a
quick espresso and out the door here.

At Jacquesson, unlike any champagne house I have visited, the emphasis is not on the art of blending or the skill of the winemaker but it is on the quality of fruit produced in the vineyard. First stop, Dizy Terres Rouges. Driven by our genial and ever courteous host Jean Hervé, who perhaps only betrays the stress and importance of the time of year by lighting up at regular intervals. It is here that the Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir are grown for Jacquesson’s quite extraordinary rosé and it is here that the first difference between Jacquesson and the rest of champagne begins to become obvious.

The Jacquesson vineyards are immediately distinguishable (far left), they almost radiate health. Grass between the rows produces healthy competition with the vine and a nifty bit of mowing means grass is removed from directly below the vine to prevent excessive humidity and the onset of the dreaded rot. Dig below the grass and the soil is healthy and alive. The comparison with the vines next door is stark. Here the soils is compacted and baked and the vines look bedraggled and sick as a result.

An angels view of the vineyards (left) reveals too the lengths that Jacquesson go to produce the highest quality. 15 rows in the second parcel of Dizy Terre Rouge show slightly more vigour and therefore less concentrated fruit and don’t make the cut for the single vineyard rose.

Then to Corne Bautray a vineyard right on the edge of the champagne delimited area and one planted by Jean Herve’s father in 1960. Here Jean Hervé confides that the villagers thought his father slightly mad when he planted the vineyard but it was here that individual lots and the idea of single vineyard champagnes was really born. The vineyard looks remarkably healthy with the trademark grass between the rows. The vines are in marked contrast to the adjoining vineyard, planted at the same time, which had to be replanted in the 1980’s so hard had they been worked by their owner.

Here the pickers are in full swing, using small baskets to prevent damage to the skins of the grapes. They are an experienced crew who regularly return to harvest at Jacquesson: lured by better pay than the average; good food and a couple of glasses of the finest champagne once their job is done. Corne Bautray is completely harvested in a morning, under clear skies and bathed in warm sunshine. The celebrations begin!

With all safely gathered in Jean Hervé lights up again and looks content for perhaps 30 seconds…he rates the vintage highly somewhere between 1988 and 1995 in his opinion.

We will have to wait and see…

Meanwhile in the winery the work is just beginning. Jacquesson use three traditional basket presses ideal for gentle handling and by the time we get back from the vineyards
they are in full swing.

The juice is intense and sweet as it runs into concrete collecting tanks below the presses.

The majority is then moved to large oak foudres for fermentation (with a small parcel fermented in stainless steel).

It has been a remarkable day and a visit that illustrates perfectly why Jacquesson under the guidance of Jean Hervé and his brother Laurent has established itself as one of the very finest houses in Champagne.

Highly acclaimed Speyside Malt producer, The Glenrothes, has launched a new website which enables fans to discover their news, story, people and, of course, detailed information about their whisky.

Customers can also sign up to the Kindred Spirits Newsletter to have all the latest news, features and event information from The Glenrothes direct to their inbox.

From 1879 until the mid 1990s The Glenrothes from Speyside was known as a ‘Top Class’ malt only by Scotch Whisky makers. Happily it is now available as a Single Malt to a growing band of like-minded connoisseurs, with a range of award winning expressions including Vintages, Single Casks and Reserves.

The lastest release, The Glenrothes 1978, was voted “Best Speyside Single Malt” this year at the World Whiskies Awards.

View The Glenrothes new website

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.

Frightening tales of the financial markets have filled the papers for the past week or so, and I’m sure I’m not the only visitor to wikipedia looking up “volatility”, “margin call”, “naked short selling” and the like. It has been educating.

The wine market is thankfully much more simple, and much more stable. Essentially, I think, because merchants and customers buy and sell something that is tangible, something real. Much as the Americans refer to buying “en-primeur” as “futures”, there are no “fine wine derivatives” for the moment, something for which we can be grateful.

Compared with the financial markets, the fine wine market appears to be in excellent health. Our recent offer of 2006 Ch. Lynch-Bages was overwhelmingly successful, with more than 1,000 cases sold in 24 hours - our buyers are still making calls to Bordeaux to try and source more. And up the road at Christie’s, a private collection of 2000 Bordeaux realised a total of £1,654,775 with 2000 Ch. Lafite-Rothschild, a wine that is a good barometer of the market, fetching an impressive £10,925 per case from a trade buyer. That the first half of this collection was sold on “Meltdown Monday” and the second part, including the Lafite, sold the following Thursday is surely a good indicator of the wine market’s current good health.

Moreover, I guarantee that drinking a glass of Lafite is infinitely more pleasurable than eating a share certificate

The description of wine is a very personal matter. Some think in terms of cherries, gooseberries and the like (which can be difficult for those of us brought up in cities), others more simply in terms of structure, class, balance. I am in the latter camp: ask me what aroma jumps out at me from Ch. Lynch-Bages, for instance, and I’ll invariably say “Pauillac” as opposed to cassis and cedar.

One way to make the expression of a wine’s quality easier is of course to award it a mark. Robert Parker scores out of 100, Jancis Robinson out of 20 and BBR out of 20 too. This does make sense, particularly when one is marking within a consistent context such as the wines of one vintage from a specific region.

Parker’s scoring system has more structure than many think. A wine gets 50 points for turning up, up to 5 points for colour and appearance, 15 points for aroma and bouquet, up to 20 points for flavour and finish, and finally, up to 10 points for overall quality and potential for further ageing.

Our scores aren’t quite so structured and, unless I’m wrong, nor are Jancis Robinson’s. Where they do excel, though, is that they are almost always the product of collective opinion - what we all think about a wine rather than one person’s opinion. This is vital I think, particularly when tasting young wines and cask samples as there are frequently wines that one simply doesn’t “get”: I almost always leave Ch. Palmer scratching my head whilst my colleagues are raving, for instance.

Ultimately, though, I don’t really like scores. If pushed I’ll give my scores (out of 100, just to confuse things) but the rare 100-pointers aside (1927 Taylor being one of a few Fowler 100s - this wine is sheer perfection) it does seem rather odd that the sheer beauty of something like, say, 2005 Margaux, can be summarised by a number. Parker’s note for this wine is summed up by “98+”. My note finishes “love”: I had ran out of words and a number just wouldn’t do the job.

India’s domestic wine market looks set to double in the next two years, according to the latest research from the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, Assocham.

Current consumption of 5m litres is expected to grow 25% in the next two years, to reach 9m by 2010, with major cities like Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad producing a good deal of wine consumers.

Rising disposable incomes and reduced duties with eased restrictions on the distribution of wine to deter consumption of stronger alcoholic drinks, has helped the industry’s significant growth.

This new research further solidifies the trends Berrys’ Masters of Wine Team recently predicted in Berrys’ Future of Wine Report - a glimpse of what the world of wine might look like in 2058.

In the report Berrys’ experts note that the technology exchange in winemaking and viticulture from Europe and Australasia means India is likely to challenge the supremacy of traditional winemaking countries. What’s more if the increasing number of vineyards planted in parts of western and southern India are any indication, India will soon be taken seriously as a fine wine-growing nation.

Alun Griffiths MW predicts: “India has the potential to embrace wine in a big way and the economic muscle to dictate to producers what style of wine they should be making.”

Dr Bailey Carrodus, much-loved founder of the highly acclaimed Yarra Yering vineyard in Australia’s Victoria wine region, passed away peacefully yet unexpectedly this morning at the Yarra Yering vineyard surrounded by his dedicated team.

In 1969 Bailey founded Yarra Yering after a lengthy search for the perfect vineyard site and chose a deserted but promising territory near Coldstream in the Yarra Valley, Victoria - a wise choice which has resulted in one of Australia’s best made wines.

Bailey was one of the wine industries true individuals, famous for the winemaking philosophy “If it doesn’t work I’ll just tip it out”.  Indeed today his wines command such high demand that the cellar door only opens for two days each year and most of the annual production is sold within the first hour - a great testament to the work of a great man. Dr Bailey Carrodus will be sadly missed by all who were lucky enough to know him.

Best Speyside Single Malt (at the World Whiskies Awards 2008), The Glenrothes, is to add a new expression to its award-winning range, exclusively for global travel retail. The Glenrothes Robur Reserve will be available from specialist premium retailers at travel hubs serving The Glenrothes core markets as well as major international airports.

Robur Reserve will be launched at the Tax Free World Exhibition (Cannes) and is the latest highlight in a remarkable year for The Glenrothes, the fastest growing single malt in the world.

Ronnie Cox, Whisky Ambassador of the Year 2008, stated: “Following the success of our 25 year old and 30 year old whiskies, travel retail is an increasingly important channel for The Glenrothes. Robur Reserve is a deliciously spicy single malt, competitively priced, which I am confident will find favour with whisky enthusiasts everywhere.”

As all Scotch whisky is aged in oak casks, usually American Oak (Quercus Alba) or
European/Spanish Oak (Quercus Robur), the cask is a key influence on the final
flavour of the whisky. The rarest and most expensive of the casks are those of Spanish
Oak, grown in Spain then seasoned with Oloroso sherry. The Glenrothes Robur
Reserve (named for the extra influence of Quercus Robur casks) benefits from the
influence of Spanish Oak first fill sherry cask, making it spicy, fruity, sweet and
delicious.

The Glenrothes is instantly recognisable from its distinctive bottles. This is the first expression in a litre size, and a new style, robust frame has been developed for this exclusive.

John Ramsay, the Malt Master’s tasting notes, as always on the front of the bottle, state: “Dried fruits, mellow, sweet and spicy”

The Glenrothes Robur Reserve will be available in global travel retail at €49.99 for a 1 litre bottle.

In Burgundy we continue to develop brand new suppliers - the newest generation of up-and-coming winemakers such as David Clark (Morey), David Croix (Beaune), Sebastien Magnien (Meursault) and Sylvain Loichet (Comblanchien/Chorey) - rather than just campaigning for allocations from already established names. This makes our annual Grand Burgundy Offer the most dynamic in the country, as well as one of the deepest ranges on offer anywhere, which is perhaps why Berrys won the IWC Burgundy Specialist Award this year.

To discover how this year’s vintage is coming along, how the 2007’s are tasting in barrel and just how wonderful the legendary 2005s are, take a look at my notes below.

2008 Vintage
It looks like it’s going to be a late harvest this year, starting around 20th September for some, 27th for the majority and maybe even 4th October for those who like to pick their Pinots late. It has been a cool summer affected by few major weather incidents with the exception of one nasty hailstorm in the Côte de Beaune on 26th July and another in the Mâconnais on 7th August. These apart, the vines look healthy and there is all to play and pray for through September.

2007 Vintage
The 2007s I have tasted at a number of domains have been coming along nicely in barrel during the year - don’t forget to check back for my detailed tasting notes in October and November, which I will write up prior to January’s Grand Burgundy Offer.

2005 Vintage
I have just had the opportunity to taste a huge range of premier and grand cru wines from this vintage which is clearly the greatest of modern times. We were thrilled with the quality which absolutely lived up to our expectations. Every wine (almost) was suffused with a heady volume of vivid fruit – red fruit notes especially, rather than the blacker overtly ripe notes, while the structural elements of acidity and tannin seemed perfectly integrated into the fruit of the wine.

Three of the top seven wines in the Côte de Beaune came from Dominique Lafon (Volnay Santenots, Clos des Chênes, Champans) while David Croix was the outstanding vigneron from Beaune itself. In the Côte de Nuits every appellation sang in its own style. Among the premier crus, Gevrey Chambertin Clos St Jacques (Rousseau) and Vosne Romanee les Brulées (Méo Camuzet) led the way, followed by three wines from Chambolle Musigny – Les Cras from Roumier, Les Amoureuses from Mugnier and Les Charmes from Rion, all in the top 20 wines overall.

If Chambolle was our favourite village among the premier crus, it was the grand crus from Vosne Romanée that thrilled us the most, with three Richebourgs (Gros Frère & Soeur, Grivot and Liger Belair) in the top 10 along with Lamarche’s Grande Rue and Comte Liger Belair’s La Romanée. Sandwiched between the Clos de Bèze and Chambertin of Rousseau, came Rossignol Trapet’s Chambertin – a terrific result for this ever improving grower.

The tasting was done in flights of up to 12 wines, grouped by appellation, served blind to a panel of 10 UK Burgundy specialists. The rankings reflect the average scores of the group, although I have added my own personal scores too. View full list