Europe, here I come

In about 48 hours I will make my way to Sydney Airport to start another adventure in the world of wine. That means I should be there three hours before takeoff, because I doubt my heart could take a repeat of last year's two big trips. In September I arrived at the check-in counter half an hour before the flight was due to leave because of a variety of circumstances, capped by a taxi not showing up, Friday peak-hour traffic on a drizzly Sydney evening, and an accident on the route I chose to drive to the airport. On the February trip I arrived early enough, but I was heading to Paris via LA and New York, and NY was under snow so the connecting flight was cancelled. Rather than leave my fellow travellers stranded, a negotiated a rerouting through Dallas and arrived in Paris earlier than originally scheduled.

I'm no more prepared this time than I was for 2008's month-long trips; probably much less so. I've been flat out trying to spend more time on the sales side of the wine importing business, for obvious reasons! All buying and no selling makes Eurocentric a very stretched business!

However, I now have a very capable sales ally in Sydney and a popular and well-connected sales rep in Melbourne, and with the number of contacts I have made I am more confident of the business ticking over while I'm away.

Adelaide and Perth are still a concern, and I would jump on anyone who put their hand up as a passionate wine enthusiast with a love for European style wine and an ability to get the message across to a conservative trade.

Right, so the plan is to fly Virgin to London, with a brief window to make my connecting flight to Frankfurt on Lufthansa. I looked at the cheap flight alternatives to little airports such as Hahn, but they give you such a small luggage allowance (typically 15kg) and then charge exorbitant penalties for excess. EasyJet got me for 200 euros this way out of Paris once. The car rental deals are also much worse at the little airports.

So, it's in to Frankfurt, grab my rental car hopefully equipped with GPS (thus saving me hours of printing Google maps -- often to the wrong destination -- and getting lost, or trying to figure out which way my phone wants me to go) and head straight down to the Saar region.

I've got appointments with Roman Niewodniczanski at Van Volxem and with Hanno and Dorothee Zilliken at Forstmeister Geltz-Zilliken. Roman (pictured above) is the heir to a Czech beer empire and has shaken up the Mosel wine world with his slightly left-field take on riesling, while the Zillikens have been famous for a long time but have had an injection of energy and focus since Dorothee returned from her studies and winemaking internships in the Pfalz, Nahe, Rheingau and Alsace. I haven't yet decided whether I will import Van Volxem but the first shipment of Zillikens -- 93s and 07s -- are on the way.

Lunch with Roman, dinner with the Zillikens ... I better sleep on the plane!

The next day includes tasting the 08 rieslings with Dr Carl von Schubert at Maximin Grunhaus in Mertesdorf near Trier, Andreas Schmitges at Erden, and Thomas Haag at Schloss Lieser in the middle Mosel. I have a large order of Grunhaus packed and ready to come (just waiting for me to pay for it!) and a small but stunning collection of Schmitges that will land in Australia in May. The 07 Schloss Liesers have been wowing buyers, and I will get an even better crack at the 08s since I am trying them all before they are sold out!

I'm going to stay at a cute lodge in a village called Zell an der Mosel, just because I liked the look of it on the net and because I haven't been down that end of the riesling strip before.

Friday's schedule includes tastings at Willi Schaefer and Reinhold Haart, then on Saturday I head up near Koblenz to taste Beate Knebel's latest nectar (including an 07 TBA I hope!) Then I will drive to Dusseldorf to settle in for three days of chaos at the Prowein trade fair.

Hopefully by then I will have a chance to update you on my progress. Otherwise, keep an eye on www.twitter.com/eurocentric or the Eurocentric Wine Imports group on Facebook.

Cheers!