When I visited Champagne a few years ago on a big buyers trip, I remember Christian Holthausen with particular clarity, then working as export director for Charles Heidesick. I don’t know if the whole thing was set up to provide the greatest contrast between the unbelievably boring clichés of the other houses and his fresh outsider perspective, but it certainly seemed so at the time. He has written brilliantly on the rules of the ‘new luxury’ on jancisrobinson.com. “Signs of consumption have now become so coded, it’s no longer about the nouveau riche trying to appear wealthy as it was during the …
Time to Kill, Burgundy 2017
Burgundy in September can seem a weary place. The vignerons are tired from the harvest and tired from showing the vintage to endless visitors to the cellar, probably endlessly asking the same questions. The clouds are low, grey and everything seems to be drawing in to prepare for winter. After a gruelling set of appointments, a beer is about all one can muster before dragging away for a night dreaming of cold cellars and wines that all taste identical. In June, the sun streams down, the days are long, and everyone seems to bound around with an extra few inches …
Laurent Cazottes introduces his still
On a recent trip to France to check out the cellar of a restaurant whose contents the owner is looking to sell, I had the chance to spend a few hours with Laurent Cazottes, whose liquors and eaux de vies are some of the finest in the world. If I could distill his core message into one sentence, it would be that making the best spirits means having the best fruit. No alchemy in the distillery will change that. The still is a concentrator, nothing more, nothing less. That being said, I greatly enjoyed him explaining the working of his …
Let’s talk Roulot
I used to go to dinner at a friend’s house and before the meal we would do a blind tasting. Every time, It would either be a bottle of Macon or Guy Roulot’s Bourgogne Blanc. Whichever it was, it was always delicious, and my friend who was working for John Armit clearly knew what he was doing, the Bourgogne Blanc cost scarcely more than the Macon Village. Unfortunately, those days are gone now and Jean-Marc Roulot is now very much a member of the ‘in-crowd’. When I mentioned to Jean-Marc that his Bourgogne Blanc was now circa £60 with all …
2015 Beaujolais from A-L (and N-Z)
The kind people at Westury Communication, who have over the years, done such a fine job promoting the wines of Beaujolais in the UK, smartly arranged to scoop up the remains the samples from a comprehensive World of Fine Wine tasting and taxi them out of central London to a tasting of thirsty gamayphiles. 2015 has always been such an extreme vintage, this was a great chance to try all of the wines together. Well, all except for Morgon. I was about to move onto that flight, when I realised I was 30 mins late for a meeting so I …