Comings and goings

Happy new year!

There's a lot happening in the first half of this year with Eurocentric Wine Imports and if you love your wine you might like to be involved.

There's an overflow shipment of wine arriving later this month, including the debut of Domaine des Croix and Camille Giroud from Burgundy and Domaine des Chenevieres from Chablis, following by a container of mostly 2008 German rieslings. Actually that shipment includes some quirky obscurity of the kind that top restaurants love.

Take Cuvee X from Schmitges in the Mosel -- it's 10% pinot noir, 90% dornfelder and 100% delicious, like the classic lunchtime claret. Other small parcels include dry and sweet gewurztraminers, pinot blanc (weissburgunder), pinot gris (grauburgunder), pinot noir (spatburgunder), sparkling riesling, methode champenoise, chardonnay and of course rieslings, from dry to TBA goldkapsel!

Three of our winemakers will be in Sydney and/or Melbourne in the next couple of months and are available to meet sommeliers and retailers. The schedule is:

Feb 2-5, Sydney & Melbourne: Unison's Philip Horn, launching the 2007 Syrah (look for a glowing review in Gourmet Traveller Wine in the Feb-March issue).

Feb 6-8, Sydney: Redoubt Hill winemaker Leslie Jackson to promote the 2009 pinot gris and 2009 sauvignon blanc.

Feb 28-Mar 3, Melbourne & Sydney: Schloss Lieser winemaker Thomas Haag, with trade tastings on Feb 28 and March 1 in Melbourne, including a dinner for punters with 15 wines from the 2007 and 08 vintages, and then the same in Sydney, with dinner at Galileo at the Observatory Hotel on March 3.

And the goings?

I'm finally off to Europe to meet potential new producers and to try the 2008 and 2009 vintages in Germany, Alsace, Burgundy, Beaujolais, the Rhone, Chablis and Champagne.

I've had friends come along for all or part of the journey before and I'm open to up to three people coming along this time. It's a fairly hectic schedule at times, but you'd get to taste a huge range of wines at many fantastic domaines. It's a little more relaxed in Germany, where I usually taste at just two houses a day.

Here's the plan:

March 12: Sydney-Paris
March 13: Drive Paris to Wiltingen/Saarburg to taste with Zilliken and Van Volxem.
March 15: Maximin Grunhaus, Schmitges (staying @ Schmitges, in Erden).
March 16: Willi Schaefer, Schloss Lieser
March 17: Reinhold Haart, Knebel (night out in Koblenz)
March 18: Emrich-Schonleber, Schafer-Frohlich
March 19: Rebholz, dinner at a German restaurant with an amazing wine list
March 20: Alsace tastings, dinner at a little restaurant with an amazing wine list (think Faiveley Musigny and Coche Dury Corton Charlemagne)
March 21: Lunch at a cute restaurant with an amazing wine list (it's the toughest three-day stretch!) Then struggle towards Beaune.
March 22: Grands Jours de Bourgogne in and around Beaune. A six-day wine fair at various venues with great regional tastings.
March 27/28: Dinner somewhere fab. Drive south.
March 29: Tastings in the Rhone, inc Domaine des Espiers in Vacqueras.
March 30: Tastings in Beaune, inc JM Burgaud, Roland Pignard, possibly others.
March 31-April 9: Burgundy tastings, including Camille Giroud, Domaine des Croix, David Clark, Drouhin Laroze, Benoit Ente, Jean-Philippe Fichet, Dupont-Tisserandot, Amiot-Servelle, Paul Pernot, Thierry Matrot, Stephane Aladame, Alex Gambal, Aurelien Verdet, Humbert Freres, Auguste et Lucie Lignier, Livera and other rising stars.
April 10: Chablis @ Chenevieres and JC Bessin
April 11: Bertrand Gautherot (Vouette et Sorbee)
April 12-16: Henri Billiot, Rene Geoffroy, Chartogne-Taillet, Ployez-Jacquemart, Ulysse Collin, Georges Laval, David Leclapart and other growers.
April 17: Return to Paris, Eurostar to London for R&R
April 24: Fly to Frankfurt for two-day Weinborse German wine fair in Mainz
April 26: Frankfurt-Sydney
April 28: Arrive home.

If you'd like to join in for part of the trip, drop me a line. I'll try to blog every day or so, otherwise it just doesn't happen!