Archive for 2010
The view from the tasting room at Chateau Pontet-CanetThe storm which everyone had been predicting yesterday finally pulled up overhead as we were finishing up our dinner at La Tupina (a deeply south-west French, goose fat-and-haunch-of-badger-type restaurant in the old docks of Bordeaux) last eveni…
Lamprey huts on the banks of the Gironde near PauillacThe sun has been bounding around the Medoc today. only occasionally interrupted by high and delightfully sculptural cloud formations.I flew into Bergerac last afternoon having cancelled my BA flight to Bordeaux, not knowing whether one of our dom…
Louvre under leaden skiesIt's been a busy few days in a social sense. Last week found me enjoying the hospitality of the Travellers' Club once again, again through the kindness of a friend who has put me up for membership of that esteemed establishment. The occasion was the election committee recept…
The photogenic dead, somewhere in the Côte de NuitsI attended a tasting the other day at a Michelin starred restaurant near Newbury. It was a Bordeaux tasting and present to discuss their wines were Patrick Maroteaux - owner of Chateau Branaire-Ducru in St Julien - and Stefan von Niepperg, tha…
Fallow deer in the snow during a recent shootI do sometimes wonder whether we will go down in some or other annals as the generation that dumbed wine down. In my opinion, the greatest single thing that will lead to us being recorded as such is the practice of scoring the stuff.The problem with scor…
