This is my fifteenth Autumn in the Wine Trade, but still I have staggered to the end of September slightly shell shocked from the suddenness of the end of holiday, and the intensity of the return to serious tasting.
Some tastings are extended shopping trips. Or at least, wish-list compilation trips. We are seeking out fine, beguiling, benchmark wines to add to our range of Bordeaux: Italy, Burgundy, the Antipodes, and South America are on our hit list. I was particularly excited by my early peek at 2010 Burgundy: scintillating Chablis is a star of this fresh yet juicy vintage, as are Côte de Beaune whites. There are some irresistible and inexpensive wines from the Mâconnais.
My other tastings this month have been academic, as I join a small group of fellow Masters of Wine to taste, double taste, argue over and finally select the 50 or so wines that will be inflicted on the poor souls about to sign up for the MW education program. This is like tasting boot-camp: we taste blind, answering the questions we’re expecting students to attempt, before revealing all and making sure that each wine is a benchmark of its type. It’s not a shopping trip, but it is very inspiring, sometimes humbling, training, and a reminder of the qualities of character and typicity that make wine such a captivating and rewarding pastime.
The charming and ebullient Michel Chapoutier, the legendary Rhône producer, has just released his 2020 Sélections Parcellaires , his single vineyard wines , and we were very privileged to attend a tasting with him in London this week. At the risk of sounding clichéd, both the reds and whites were amazing! Chapoutier is incredibly enthusiastic, and loves to talk in great depth about a great many things when it comes to his wines and wine making techniques. His opening gambit was that he doesn't try to make the best wine possible, but instead to reflect the best expression of his terroir! He moved on to say that 2020, a dry, warm vintage, had very similar conditions to those of 2003, a vintage which he freely admitted was pretty awful, with short, bitter wines. However, we were regaled with a lengthy and technical discourse on how his vines have adapted to the changing climate in the intervening years, due largely to the enormous efforts made in biodynamics and non-interventioni
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