Turning Weather

And another...




Having arrived in glorious weather, hardly less himid than Singapore, but clear and sunny with it, the weather has turned in this Special Administrative Region. I wake this Monday morning to find it very Monday-ish i.e. grey, wet and looking not unlike the sort of Monday morning that'll be dawning in somewhere like, oh, Dorking, in eight hours or so.

Perhaps due to the fact that I had allowed myself to sleep in yesterday morning, I had a great deal of difficulty sleeping last night and finally turned off my light (having had several other aborted attempts punctuated by stints of reading) at 02h30.

I have been enjoying outrageously good F&B. My suit is feeling ever tighter. Meals at Cipriani, Va Bene, a new and very good Italian named W52 on Wyndham St, La Terrasse (a real Old Faithful, at least in Hong Kong terms), The Red Room of the Hong Kong Club, Cecconi, Crown Wine Cellars, Kaka (a new and very capable place down in Kennedy Town) and Lucy's in Stanley have served to lower my centre of gravity and make me fear deep water.

I have also been drinking very well, enjoying the Cannonau-based wines of Argiolas at Cipriani and a fabulous line-up at Crown: 1990 Bollinger Grande Annee from magnum, 1996 Chateau Haut-Bailly, 1995 Hermitage Remizieres and the 2001 Chateauneuf Les Galets Blondes of Patrick Lesec (among many others).

Now I am off to The Dark Side - Kowloon - for my first meeting of the day; Kowloon in the rain. Must remember to borrow a brolly from the concierge on the way out.

Au Revoir Singapore; Bonjour Hong Kong

The view from my hotel room







The transition from one country to another creates a doorway that closes when one arrives in a new destination, thus Singapore already feels more than a couple of days away. Travelling on the MTR - Hong Kong's underground system - with its open carriages down which one has a tunnel-like view that rises and falls and sways from side to side with the curves and dips and rises of the track like the slowly twitching tail of a gargantuan chrome lizard, similar journeys by the Singapore version - its MRT - feel to have occurred in some very "other" place.

I like Singapore and it was a very useful trip. I visited a number of friends and clients in their homes, there finding great hospitality and many good wines. One evening was watered with a rain of delicious white burgundy - the 2006 Chassagne-Montrachet from Philippe Colin - and cellar-aged Louis Roederer Brut Premier (the bottles stored for 7 years and absolutely delicious). On another occasion at one of those splendid old black-and-white houses, I hosted a relaxed tasting, showing Old and New World versions of Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Shiraz/Syrah, at least one of the bottles showing that Singapore stigmata, having been cooked at some stage during its lifetime.

Other days included a further excellent lunch at Mag's Kitchen and an evening meal of that fine East Coast chilli crab, followed by a pudding of Eton mess and 2002 Doisy-Vedrines in my hosts' appartment, the wine medium-sweet with a burnt edge and very satisfying. My last night I enjoyed some of the finest Indian food I've ever had in Singapore - very cheap, very delicious - somewhere up the Bukit Timah Road.

Hong Kong has been showing itself off. The air has been wonderfully clear, the views long and the sun bouncing around the harbour like a pinball. I am, of course, eating extremely well and drinking wines that have, thus far, majored on the vineyards of Italy.

Sleeping patterns still not normalised. Enjoying Stieg Larsson. If you haven't read them, do.

Old Tasting News; New News from Singapore

What with the rapid turn-around between our London tasting and my departure for Burgundy, I never got 'round to penning anything about the former, an event which had been causing some small trepidation in the weeks following its announcement due to the fact that we had not only managed to hit half hols on the button, but that it also appeared to be silly season for work travel. Trepidation leached away as numbers climbed and we ended up with a more than satisfactory sixty-five-or-so tasters on the night.

And it was a great success. Out house champagne (Larnaudie-Hirault) - a pallet of which we have just shipped from France - went down a storm, many preferring it to the Philipponnat rose that followed it. Burgundies and Rhones were mulled over and appreciated; the Bandol table was a huge success, and "Bomber" Harris, who was present from the fine Italian wine importer Winetraders and who gamely manned a table all evening , was beset by those wanting to discuss the various delights of the range he was showing. We set off for home tired, but with that satisfied glow one gets from pulling off a really good event.

We intend to host another such wine tasting next spring and follow it with similar events in Hong Kong and Singapore. Keep 'em peeled for news.

So then Burgundy, about which I have scribbled at length and now this - Singapore - where dark weather wetly lies.

I landed two night ago just as a storm had passed through and another paid a visit yesterday, with tremendous flashes of lightning, followed by hammer-of-the-gods style thunder, sounding as though the sky had been rent asunder which, I suppose, it had.

Lunch yesterday was a relaxed affair, as meals invariably are at Mag's Kitchen. One can buy good wine in a great many fine restaurants in Singapore, but nowhere offers such a combination of tasty tucker and extensive list at such measly prices. We ate, respectively, pork and lamb, and shared a bottle of 1999 Cote-Rotie, Garon, a wine served much too cold, but one which bloomed into something very delicious and just right for our lunch. The bottle? $110, which I reckon is Bobby Bargain for this wine, the product of a very serious vintage in the appellation.

It transpires that (pretty expectedly really) wine and jetlag don't mix. I had woken at 03h50 my first morning in Singapore (04h40 this morning, dammit) and once back in my hotel room I confess to attaining a position as near horizontal as possible (very) and practicing my breathing exercises for and hour-and-a-half.

A kind invitation from a client took me up the Bukit Timah Road last evening to a large and rather beautiful modern house and hospitality that stretched mightily to include tasty steaks, toothsome salads and - following the application of an initial and cleansing ale - a couple of fine and interesting bottles of wine.

The first red I gussed as a hot vintage Bordeaux. When will I remember that a hot vintage Bordeaux can often be a Tuscan Bordeaux blend? So it was here: 1997 Paleo Rosso, a mix of 85% Cab Sauv, 10% Sangiovese (okay, so not strictly Bordeaux then) and 5% Cab Franc. Warm, rich and very spicy, just lacking fractionally in length; but what a superb mouth filler to accompany the meat.

Second blinder and I was on better form. Barossa Shiraz in the form of the 1998 Ironstone Pressings from Veritas. Okay, it turned out to include a healthy dollop of Mourvedre, but I was more-or-less there. Extraordinary nose of spearmint and ripe berries. Good straight palate, not too jammy and a fine thing to go with the excellent cheeses, all of which were in peak condition (and one of which seemed intent on slipping off the table, perhaps there to play with the various moggies that were strutting about, occasionally cuffing one another).

So in bed, light off, at 00h30; awake again and reading at 04h40. I have the feeling that today might include more of those breathing exercises.

More Than One Frisson

Oppressively lovely weather in the vineyards of Maranges





I had the luxury of being picked up from my hotel at 08h30 yesterday morning. Emma's family have for years represented some of Burgundy's finest domaines in the UK and she was to lead me through a day of tasting. We drove five minutes down the road, at which point I then had the luxury of being driven back to my hotel to fetch my tasting book. Getting towards the end of my tasting week; brain not fully engaged.

In the sort of weather you see in the photograph above, we headed south through the Côte de Beaune to the village of Maranges, to where I had never been before. It's a pretty, working village, not exactly bustling, but having a sense of purpose.

We visisted the Domaine Bachelet-Monnot and here two young Bachelet brothers have started to create a fast spreading frisson of excitement with their wines.

Together, they talk you through the range, sometimes stopping each other with a bit of lighthearted fraternal legpulling and the odd suggestion that what the other had said wasn't strictly accurate. Their wine making efforts, however, create something(s) of extraordinary harmony.

I am not over-familiar with the wines of Maranges, but from the line-up, red and white, that we tasted (and that I am hoping to offer in due course) my interest has been thoroughly piqued. They buy fruit in Puligny and Chassagne, too, as well as Bâtard-Montrachet. Holy smokes! I cannot with great honesty say that I tasted wines much better than this - certainly at these prices - all trip. They are in great demand. Parker's been here and the news has been broken to the world. I will beg an allocation if I can.

Up the road, we stopped for photo opportunities and what opportunities! Aside from the photograph above, I will publish others in due course.

From Maranges, we coasted through golden vines under a ceiling of cobalt sky etched with the white chalk marks of vapour trails. Gerard Boudot, genius of the Domaine Etienne Sauzet, awaited us in Puligny.

I cannot here put into words the exquisite beauty of what we tasted. It was like sitting down at table with seraphim. There are a handful of great names in the Cote de Beaune - Domaines Leflaive, Ramonet, Carillon - and Sauzet is not the least of that illustrious gang by any means. Boudot's kind with his time, intimately knowledgeable about his vineyards and, for those keen to learn, a purveyor of concentrated chunks of rich information. Will not this visit shadow the rest of the day, I ask myself as we drove away from Puligny? Well, no. Variety, as we know, is a tonic.

We visited Francois Jobard next and if any domaine can serve to follow Sauzet with aplomb, this is it. The style has changed in recent years. This used to be a source of amazing whites wines that were undrinkable for 15 years or more. Now - without losing intensity - the quality is clear to see. Wow!

Next to Michelot. An utterly different style here. Clean, pure; lacking no sort of expression. User-friendly's the wrong way to put it, but they are very, very delicious and offer extraordinary value.

And lastly, to visit Jean-Pierre Charlot at the Domaine Joseph Voillot in Volnay. It was, I think, Allen Meadows who described these as red burgundies for those who love Riesling. Let me explain. Jean-Pierre is a master. His wines etch a) beautiful fruit and b) clearly defined terroir onto one's palate. They are sculptures in Pinot. And they are utterly beautiful. Sort of red Rieslings, then.

We stopped for a glass of wine with Emma's dad at Le Montrachet, that starred restaurant-with-rooms in Puligny and from there headed into town to grab some food at Bisoh, the Japanese eatery in Beaune to which I had been a couple of nights before and to which I was more than happy to be returning.

I rose early this morning and set off for Geneva. Much of the drive was undertaken in mist, with denser patches of fog. Then, as I climbed into the hills of the Haute-Savoie, the air cleared and autumn-coloured vistas opened up. Viaduct-tunnel-viaduct-tunnel and then the nightmare of having to drop the hire car back at the virtually inaccessible French side of the airport.

Home again, with Chardonnay and Pinot aromas haunting my tired mind. Supper calls; supper and bed.

Colour, Mist, Mazzers and Minerals

Meursault in the mist





What a way to start the afternoon! A visit to the cellars of the Domaine Lafarge in Volnay is always a treat. My appointment was at two and I rang the bell as the church clock chimed the hour.

I descended with Frederic Lafarge into the cellar and tasted an utterly faultless range of wines. Any doubt with which I arrived in France that the vintage was a lame duck was now utterly put aside. Okay, it was not a vintage without difficulties. But whatever fruit was left at harvesting well-managed vineyards (and after a thorough selection) was pure and crammed with fresh acids, rich tannins and a big fat blob of terroir. Achingly beautiful wines at Lafarge. This really is one of the finest addresses anywhere where carbon-based life forms breathe air.

From Volnay I headed back to Pommard and the address of Jean-Marc Boillot. Jean-Marc's evidently doing well as there's a Masarati - albeit a second hand one - parked in the drive. Taste the wines and one can see from where the Mazzer came: the hands of one talented wine maker.

The reds here have an extraordinary blue-ish cast, something I have noticed at some other addresses (the vintage is, in general, a very well coloured one). And they are wonderfully pure, intense and highly expressive. A string of gorgeous whites followed and, again, their colours were very pretty: a pronounced lemon with a distinctive lime cast. Intense stuff here.

From a slick operator to a home of highly talented Burgundy farmers! Next stop Meursault and the Domaine Buisson-Charles. This is a place where absolutely classic Meursault is delivered into the world. Honey and nuts paraded themselves across my palate. Some of these are quite disarming. In the mouth they're instantly huge and rich and one wonders for a split second if they're a bit facile. Then the scales fall, the richness takes time off and from within comes the power and the glory. These'll make fine candidates for the cellar.

Last up, a trip to the confusingly named hamlet of Gamay which neighbours - and houses a number of excellent producers of - St Aubin. I am convinced that the wines of St Aubin will have their day sometime soon. The terroir is fascinating and capable of producing extremely age worthy white wines of great intensity and mineral expression (the reds can be superb as well). Marc Colin is one of the finest exponents.

Marc's son Damien took me through the range and when I left I was reeling - my head swirling - with the brilliance of what I had just tasted.

Phew! What a day. Thank goodness I had a good sleep last night. More of the same tomorrow.

The Morning After the Sleep Before

The starlings' share. Clouds of the birds circle over the vineyards at this time of year knowing that a fruity meal is on the cards




I turned off the light shortly after 10pm last evening and did some serious catching up, sleep-wise. I had dined in the hotel. I am glad that I won't have to again. I mean, what Bourguignon chef can screw up oeufs en meurette, that most local of Burgundy dishes that involves poaching eggs in red wine and stock with bacon? Answer: the genius-at-the-stove in the kitchens in the Hotel Mercure, Beaune.

I peeled back the curtains upon waking hoping to find the same blue skies and bright sunshine that have been present since I arrived, but my view was, instead, of fog.

Having breakfasted, I jumped in my hire car and headed off to Pernand, a village nestled in the valley behind the hill of Corton. There, the fog was reduced to a light mist and the sun, whilst not entirely having his hat on, had at least knotted a handkerchief and placed it on his cranium.

First visit: Remi Rollin. I had never been here before. M Rollin is very friendly and we tasted a fine range of wines, including a bevy of Pernands red and white. 2008 is a great success here, as at my next destination: Camus-Bruchon in Savigny.

It's always informative to taste through different vineyards of the same commune and here I had the opportunity to sample village Savigny, as well as that from the lieu dit of Aux Grands Liards and the 1er Crus of Gravains, Serpentieres and Narbantons. M Camus made some extremely profound wines last vintage.

From Savigny I rushed to Pommard for a meeting with Daniel Rebourgeon. We are the only merchant bringing these wines into the UK and I love them. We showed the 2006 Beaune 1er Cru Les Vignes Franches at our London tasting the other evening and its intensity and compaxity were plain to see: amazing in a wine well under £200 a case in bond.

Daniel's 2008s are, if anything, even paler than previous vintages. Seeing the liquid in one's glass one cannot believe that anything of substance will meet one's nose or palate. How wrong can one be?! The '08s here suit the style of the house very much and I found intense and truly beautiful wines. Daniel knows exactly what he thinks burgundy should be and I find myself concurring with his pronouncements. This is a very good source of wine from - in many cases - extremely old vines (70 years plus). I will stick with these for the foreseeable future.

A Lucky Meeting and Another Glittering Day

Chassagne and yet more sunshine





Last night I wandered into town - mercifully close - to seek out a venue for dinner. I was hungry, having had a roll and a yoghurt for breakfast and a meagre filling station sandwich for lunch. The closest opportunity was presented by Bisoh, one of Beaune's two Japanese eateries.

Seated at the bar, I was about to whip out a paperback and start reading (knowing this would only serve to emphasise the Norman No-Mates effect, but caring not one jot) when a pair of friendly faces appeared - both belonging to ex work colleagues - and invited me to join them. What luck!

We drank some interesting wine, too. The first was a white 1er Cru St Aubin from the Montceau vineyard and made by Marc Colin. I tasted this from cask last year; had found it to be excellent. Alas, it was like sucking lemons sprinkled with talcum powder. It will be very good in another year or so, but we didn't finish it.

I chose the red and having just been to visit Benoit at the Chateau de Chorey, I was interested to see how his 2001 Beaune 1er Cru Les Cras was drinking. The answer? Fabulously well; a light-bodied and delicious burgundy in full maturity.

We continued to chat and decided that champagne was in order and what an extraordinary bottle we picked out: Clos des Caudalies from De Souza. This is a super-dry Blanc de Blancs that spent nearly three years on its lees. Packed with flavour, this is a wine to drink as the French do i.e. with food.

I rose this morning to a Beaune again bathed in bright sunshine. Driving around the Cote today has been a real pleasure. The trees are fabulously bright in their autumn plumage, the vineyards coloured yellow and shades of olive green as the vines start thinking about bedding down for winter.

Drouhin-Laroze, Jean Grivot and Maison Champy this morning, Morey-Coffinet and Digioia-Royer this afternoon.

The Drouhin-Laroze wines are lovely, pure and full of profound terroir. Etienne Grivot's are nothing short of spectacular. He compares the vintage to 1993 which sounds like mad salespeak until one actually tries what he's made. As ever, they have an extra bit of everything.

At Champy I tasted a small range of their lesser wines and save for a slightly awkward Bourgogne Blanc everything was really impressive. This vineyard-owning negociant (if that makes sense!) is going from strength to strength. I will look forward to tasting their more senior wines in due course.

At Morey-Coffinet young Thibault Morey took me through a range of white wines that glittered like the afternoon sun, or the light of a hundred bulbs twinkling in a lime and chalk chandelier. I must say that I find the soils of Chassagne fascinating, perhaps more so that those of Puligny next door.

Finally, an ill-planned blast north back up to Chambolle to visit M Digioia. A visit here gives one the opportunity to taste various wines several times each, each sample drawn from a different barrel, each barrel made by a different cooper from different oak. Beautiful, beautiful Chambolle here.

Now back in the hotel and very much looking forward to my dinner. I wonder if I've any chance of finding more friends with whom to eat.