Newsletter No. 24: 6^th September 2006

The expression "four seasons in one day" was, I believe, created to describe the vagaries of the weather in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and not Seend, Wiltshire, England. And I wouldn't want to invoke that expression for the sort of meteorological hotchpotch of sun, wind and showers that we've been experiencing of late. It would be overstating things and, anyway, such a comment would no doubt prompt a repost from some foreign national - be they Aussie, Icelandic and whatever - who would point out that the UK, weather-wise, is a doddle when compared with South Gippsland/Reykjavik or wherever and that I should stop complaining; at which juncture I would point out that I am not complaining, merely making the sort of small-talk for which we Brits are famous…

We're heading into the eye of the tasting season in London now and invitations are coming thick and fast. The past week has given me my first opportunity to have a look at some of the lesser 2005 burgundies and has confirmed the rumours that we are in for something very special indeed. Fans of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay should take a moment to whoop with joy, possibly adding a few steps of a short celebratory dance. I cannot wait to head down to the region in the opening weeks of '07 and wage an extended campaign with a sympathetic tasting glass.

Planning our next offering has caused some furrowed brows here in Wilts, not because we're having trouble deciding which wines to include, rather the problem is one of timing. I sense purchasing exhaustion through swathes of our client-base due to the extended melee that was the 2005 Bordeaux offer. When will this abate? When will Bowes Wine supporters be ready for exposure to a further tranche of top-notch labels? A part of the dilemma is that there are so many superb wines around, there having been so many superb vintages of late. Watch out for our next mailing. It will be a compound mixture of all the greatest bottles we've tasted over the last few months. Australia, Italy (Barolo), Champagne will all be represented. I am hoping to winkle out a Euro Riesling to include as well, along with one or two others. The occasion calls for a concise list of glittering, diamond-bright beauties, so this is what it'll be.  

WOTW (Wine of the Week)

It's always an interesting exercise to go back to a wine that one hasn't tasted for some years, especially when that wine is a benchmark of its kind. An extremely kind friend presented this as a gift on the birth of the Boy and we recently got 'round to drinking it. Phew! Would that life were more punctuated by bottles like this one:

1991 Hermitage Blanc, Jean-Louis Chave

Good positive, healthy colour: mid gold/lemon

This is a rich and fascinating, mature nose of candied citrus peel, glue and nuts; marzipan, perhaps. There is a wealth of yellow fruits: starfruit and cherries, plus hints of white pepper. In the mouth there's a very nice weight of fruit. The flavours are nutty, and the palate has a fabulous profile and great length. This is nutty and mature; fresh, with a warmth of alcohol. Concentrated and very long, with a very juicy finish. Great wine. Delicious peach, crystalline fruit.

It'll be one that we remember for a very long time.

ROTW (Rant of the Week)

More of an elegy, really, at the passing of "the deal". By that, I mean those wonderful occasions - none recent for me, sad to say - when one lands the bargain of a lifetime, thereby securing an opportunity to drink rare hooch at silly money.

It used to be the case that anyone with a little time on their hands and prepared to do some legwork was in with a shout. Sometimes it was down to luck. I well remember, on two separate occasions, walking the streets of London and bumping into temporary outlets in which beleaguered merchants were dumping stock. These were Aladdin's caves of shiny glass, the labels proclaiming their precious contents: well-cellared, mature Barolo; Hermitage in full flight. To you, sir? £8 a bottle. Alas, I found the last of these playgrounds at least a decade ago and none since.

And what's happened to our auctions? Once they offered the wine hound a trail of possibilities; the chance of a lot overlooked. Here are two examples, both at Sotheby's in London:

A warm, bright spring day, making the sale room seem cavernous and underlit. I had spotted a small lot in the middle of a very grand sale and thought I would, in a casual sort of a way, while away a few hours, with the vague thought that I would take a punt should the opportunity arise. The room was full of very fat men with crew cuts and their Chanel-wrapped wives. Tranches of '86 Mouton and '83 Yquem were snapped up for top dollar. My lot approached. That wonderful, insuppressible twitchy feeling mounted in my paddle hand. The lot was next up, but with an estimate of £300 - £400 that I considered derisory. Surely BigCrewCutSkinnyWife was on the launch pad ready to blast into a frenzy of bidding. Bidding opened at £150 and the room stayed silent. The auctioneer dropped to £120, looking for an opener and my surprise almost had me overlooking the necessary. I waved my paddle and the lot was knocked down to me for £120 plus commission. Its contents? Single bottles of 1921 Château Margaux, 1929 Latour, 1959 Margaux; pairs of 1952 Château Margaux, 1966 Haut-Brion, plus 4 bottles of First Growths from dodgy early '70s vintages: four dodgy bottles about which I cared not one whit, as you might imagine. (The empty bottles of '21 Margaux and '29 Latour now sit on the window will, overlooking me as I work. I live in small hope that I will see their like again.)

Evidence of fine drinking at rock bottom prices: empties of ’21 Margaux, ’29 Latour, ’66 Calon-Ségur and 1947 Vouvray

Another occasion, same place, a lot of 10 bottles of burgundy, knocked down for £200. Ten bottles, all pretty antique, including a bottle of Corton from my birth year - 1966 - that I swear was entirely syrah. On delivery, I bunged the wine in the cellar of Bowes Senior and semi-forgot about it; forgot about it, that is, until I stumbled upon a passage in the introduction to Robert Parker's book, Burgundy: "The greatest examples of mature red burgundy I have ever tasted...the 1969 Chambertin from Armand Rousseau". Hang on, says my grey matter, possibly prompted by that most useful of organs, the liver. Surely there's a bottle of that wine resting in peace in the old man's undercroft. I have recently been offered a case for £24,000 a dozen duty paid. And if any wine were worth this amount, this baby was it. It reeked of savoury bonfires in a winter garden and was utterly sublime.

There have been other successes, too: 1966 Calon-Ségur for £30 a bottle; 1962 (a much overlooked vintage, due to its famous predecessor) Cheval-Blanc for the same outlay; 1947 Vouvrays for piddly change.

And then the disasters. The 1976 Haut-Brion that had evidently been stored in summer '76 temperatures for the duration of its life and the three cases of 1989 Beaucastel, bought at auction when I had a streaming cold, thinking I was buying a single case lot. In the same sale, I overlooked cases of 1990 Hermitage La Chapelle and 1990 Château Beauséjour-Duffau-Lagarosse which both sold for £400 and are now both worth multiples of that (£2,450 and £4,200 respectively at present time), so my error was compounded.  

It is sad to say that I don't think these opportunities will arise again. Wine consumers are just too thick on the ground and too canny. Nooks are explored. Crannies are delved into. The value of each and every bottle is well understood. In some ways, the wine market is not the toy box that it once was, but there are recompenses, of course. There's more good wine around. Bargains are to be found in up-and-coming producers and under-exploited regions. Burgundy and the Rhône look like tremendous value when compared to Bordeaux and Bowes Wine will be visiting both these regions in the next few months. The tornado 2005 vintage may have blown itself out in Bordeaux, but elsewhere the winds of excitement are mounting.