Message in a Bottle

Farewell to 2011, and look at what's coming

2011-12-29T18:19:00.003+11:00

There hasn't been much happening lately: after a tour of duty in Europe in October we had two containers arrive, one from Germany, one from France; moved from NSW to Victoria; and now we're counting down the days until our first child puts in an appearance.

Winewise, Eurocentric now has stock in Melbourne so we can serve our customers better with next-day deliveries and not have to worry about temperature variations from one state to the next on the slow haul with Australia Post.

We've got a new container on the water out of France and the first of the offers will hit mailing list inboxes in the next 24 hours. It's Domaine David Clark 09 red Burgundy, which means it will sell out in a flash (we get just 34 cases). To follow will be a Champagne offer on the cult kings Cedric Bouchard and David Leclapart. You'll have to be fast (and flush) for that one.

The next shipment arriving January 26 will contain wine from: David Clark & Pierre Guillemot (Burgundy); Pattes Loup (Chablis); Gilles Azzoni (zero-sulphur reds from the Rhone); Julien Sunier and Alain Coudert (Beaujolais); Sebastien Riffault (Sancerre, more Akmenine and Quarterons); Emile Balland (Coteaux du Giennois -- well, the 30 cases the freight company didn't smash when they were loading the container anyway); Estezargues (Rhone); Henri Billiot and Rene Geoffroy (Champagne).

Bouchard and Leclapart will headline the container after that. I'm doing a pre-arrival offer now because I had to pay for them early to secure an allocation, and there are other things I need to pay for, such as Georges Laval, Marie Courtin and DeMarne-Frison champagne, Alain Gautheron chablis, Domaine de la Tournelle (Jura), Paul-Henri Thillardon (Beaujolais), and Jean-Philippe Fichet, Benoit Ente and Bruno Clavelier Burgundy.

After that, at last, we'll bring in some Italian and Spanish wine to at least get started with our exciting collection of producers.

By the end of 2012 we should have stock on hand from 100 quality-driven boutique producers. Hopefully you'll come on a vinous discovery with us.

Many thanks for the interest and support in 2011 and here's to an even bigger and better 2012.

Cheers,
Neville

Always start with a summery summary ...

2011-09-24T21:35:00.003+10:00

World's worst blogger here ... maybe I will have time to catch up today and post a few things. I've just arrived in Champagne for three days of meetings and tastings. This would normally be cause for celebration (champagne perhaps?!) but I'm having a shocker.

For some reason I left my carry-on case unzipped in the boot of the car, so when I pulled it out the contents flew everywhere. Somehow the magnum of AJ Adam riesling and the bottle of Van Volxem Sparkling Riesling didn't break, but my laptop now has a very sticky space bar. No problem I though, I'll get my wireless mouse. Um, oops, looks like I left it at one of the past two hotels.

To make matters worse I left my toothbrush with it's sheephead mirror-sticking head protector. Poor old sheepy. Lucky I have the airline toothbrush still, and luckier still it's not one of those clip-together jobs with four bristles on it.

So, this is Saturday, September 24. The weather is fantastic. Was hazy this morning -- I even drove through low-flying clouds as I crested the bridge from Germany into Luxembourg -- but it's clear away now to be a gorgeous 22C and possibly climbing.

In case I don't get back to it, here's what's happened this week:

Monday, 3.30pm: After somehow getting to the airport almost on schedule two hours before the flight, we still managed to be pushed for time trying to do last-minute things, stuff some food down and get on the plane. Watched three movies on Thai Airways to Bangkok, and strangely had Mel Gibson in two of them: The Beaver and Signs. Loved the third film, Midnight in Paris. It's not out in Australia yet and it would work just fine as a DVD rental but I enjoyed it immensely. Funny thing was that I liked old penis nose Owen Wilson even though I often don't, and I didn't like Rachel McAdams even though she's rung my bells since well, blush, The Notebook. Probably goes to show they can act. Anyway, it's an odd Americans in Paris with a message about making the most of what you have. Unless of course what you have sucks.

Bangkok airport was fine if not confusing with its different levels and limited stairways joining them. The Thai lounge seemed to have more people in it than the rest of the airport did, and the internet failed after reading about 20 of my 30 new emails.

Shuffled onto an old SAS plane to Paris via Copenhagen. I had seat 1A for kicks. It was a cheapy business deal combined with the Thai economy, which I needed because of the arthritis in my knees. I was in agony on the first nine-hour sector, and it didn't help that the cabin was about 35C. This time the creaky old seat was fairly uncomfortable, even in lie-flat mode (more like lie in the shape of a question mark), but I slept a fair bit and chatted in between with a lovely gentleman who owns a window-making business in Melbourne.

Hmmm, here we go again with the verbosity. OK, Tuesday I drove from Paris to Rudesheim in the Rheingau; Wednesday I had appointments with Leitz (first wines to come soon, from the 2010 vintage); Knebel (will buy a little 2010 as they keep improving and I am hopeful one day the punters will recognise the quality); and Schloss Lieser (Thomas Haag is becoming a bit of a rockstar in Germany. He's definitely top five in the Mosel, if not top two if you count Egon Muller in the Saar.

Thursday I had appointments with AJ Adam in Neumagen-Dhron (near Piesport) and Roman Niewoniczanski in Wiltingen (Saar), where we ate lots of grapes as Roman barked instructions to the pickers (first day of harvest). Then I went to Trier for the VDP presentation of the 2010 vintage. Tried lots of wines and very happy with my team of Schloss Lieser, Fritz Haag, Willi Schaefer, Zilliken and Van Volxem.

Friday was VDP auction day. I got my times wrong thanks to useless overnight internet and arrived just 10 minutes before the end of the morning tasting session. No problem, I speed-tasted the best wines there and even took some groupie photos of winemakers. Then lunch with Christoph Schaefer and Hanno Zilliken before the auction. I managed to snag three bottles of Willi Schaefer auslese goldcap and six half bottles of Zilliken Auslese Goldcap and got blown away on everything else. Really, 5300 euros for a double magnum of auslese goldcap or a bottle of 1999 TBA? Yeah, OK, I desperately wanted them too, and in hindsight I should have stumped up the 550 euros for a bottle of the Muller AGC.

Saturday is forget-everything day and break what you don't forget. I'm in a two-star motel on the fringe of Epernay. It's called Kyriad and it's actually pretty good. The internet is working anyway.

I have appointments this afternoon with Rene Geoffroy and David Leclapart, and then hopefully not yet another pizza alone in my room.

Tomorrow I'm going to Lancelot Pienne and not sure if I can get anyone else, and on Sunday I'm seeing Laetitia at H. Billiot, Olivier at Ulysse Collin and Bertrand at Vouette et Sorbee, plus Yves at Charles Dufour if I can find him. Then it's on to Alsace!

A pregnant pause

2011-08-12T21:32:00.006+10:00

Our crazy life is about to get more hectic! My wife and I are expecting our first child early next year, so that is adding some urgency for me to get back to Europe while I can and quickly round up some more producers!

Who knows when I or we will be able to travel next year, so I'm off in mid-September for a quick tour of France. Actually I'll start at the VDP auction in Trier when the best rieslings of the 2010 vintage will be shown and sold, and sneak in a few quick visits to my German producers, including new star AJ Adam.

Then I'll whizz through Champagne, Alsace, Jura, the Ardeche, Beaujolais, Burgundy, Chablis, Sancerre and Anjou.

I've got quite a few people to track down and try to get on board, and the tail end of this year was already going to be frantic trying to get everything into the country.

There's a shipment of wine from France on the way (Riffault and Thomas-Labaille from Sancerre, Oudin from Chablis, Croix, Camille Giroud and Arnaud Tessier from Burgundy, Burgaud Beaujolais, Vouette et Sorbee & Thevenin Champagne, Espiers and Cuvee des Copains from the southern Rhone), to be followed by a container of 2009s and 2010s from Germany. That will include wine from Willi Schaefer, Zilliken, AJ Adam, Rebholz, Knipser, Schmitges, Emrich-Schonleber, Fritz Haag and Schloss Lieser. If there's room I'll sneak some more Maximin Grunhaus in.

The big challenge will be getting the third in the queue underway, with an expensive mountain of champagne to move: David Leclapart, Georges Laval, Benoit Lahaye, Lancelot-Pienne, Pierre Gerbais, Cedric Bouchard, Ulysse Collin, Rene Geoffroy, Chartogne-Taillet, Hubert Paulet ... it's gotta be done for summer!

I'm also keen to get more Beaujolais here from our team: Jean-Marc Burgaud, Roland Pignard, Paul-Henri Thillardon (who won an international gamay competition with his first vintage) and Alain Coudert. There are some others I'd like to track down. If only they had email addresses!

There's more Chablis too, from Moreau-Naudet and Alain Gautheron, plus new vintages out of Burgundy: Benoit Ente, Jean-Philippe Fichet, David Clark and Pierre Guillemot from Savigny les Beaune. We could also offer some Anne Gros wines from Burgundy and Minervois.

Of course I've also got quite a lot of wine lined up from Spain and Italy. As you can see, it's just as well we are picking up new buyers all the time, and this needs to continue. So long as that dollar holds strong!

For now, I'm chained to the desk working on taxes and other paperwork so I don't feel so guilty when I head north. And I'll try to do a better job of keeping you posted from Europe, with photos and a few videos too.

Cheers,
Neville

Time flies when you're doing tax

2011-06-20T00:16:00.005+10:00

Yeah, right.

Since that amazing European journey (which I'm sure I didn't finish writing about), I've been buried in paperwork mostly. I can see the end now, just another couple of days.

But for now a heads up: I'm on the road in Australia again.

I've just had a week in the trade in Perth, including two public tastings that were very well received. Working with Terra Wines, we scored a number of new listings, including the Espiers Cotes du Rhone 2010 going on by the glass at Rockpool Bar & Grill Perth. We had a great meal there too, so if you haven't been get down there. Just go easy on the food - the servings are huge!

Coming up, here's the schedule for the next few weeks:

July 5, Sydney: Trade tasting. Email for details
July 6, Sydney: Public tasting. 20 wines for $50, specials on the night. At Wine Vault in Artarmon. Email for details. There'll be a booking link on the www.eurocentricwine.com.au website in the next day or so.

July 8: Driving to Melbourne.
July 11-13: Trade tastings in Melbourne. Will try to book a public dinner, perhaps on the Tuesday.
July 14: Tastings for trade in Beechworth and Albury and anywhere along the road to Canberra.
July 15: Trade tastings in Canberra.

July 18-20: Trade tastings in Brisbane/Gold Coast. Will organise a public dinner on the Tuesday.

There are no new shipments on the water at the moment but a fair avalanche planned for the next couple of months. German riesling fans should be warned that our allocations from 09 and 10 have been slashed so much I'll be able to fit the wine from 13 producers and two vintages in one container. Glad I added AJ Adam to the team!

There's a bunch of other great wines I can't wait to land, including more grower champagnes, bargains from the Rhone, more Beaujolais, Chablis, our first Sancerre and Alsace wines, southwest sweeties, Spanish, Italians ...

And with the end of the financial year looming, it looks like time for another clearance sale. We are moving to a new stock control system in two weeks and I don't want to enter product codes for wines down to the last couple of dozen. Watch your email inbox. If you haven't subscribed, do so now (free and easy) at www.eurocentricwine.com.au

Bad to the Beaune

2011-04-26T02:11:00.005+10:00

The rate at which we have been acquiring kilometres in our poor rental car has slowed dramatically in recent days. After a leisurely week through Germany and a week in Champagne we quickly visited some top estates in Chablis and then scurried back to Beaune to recharge our batteries and our stock of clean laundry. Plus of course taste at our existing estates and two or three potential new ones.

Anyway, we've hit 10,000km in the Silver Bullet. So glad we didn't hire that Sixt rental car with its limit of 4900 free kilometres!

Since we visited our larger Champagne producers last Thursday, we've had some interesting stops. Our final night in Champagne was spent at Hotel Jeanson in Ay, which is a lovely boutique hotel about 100m from Rene Geoffroy. It has an indoor pool, double beds (crikey, the number of double rooms we've had with two single beds pushed together!) and a decent shower (room to turn around without getting wrapped in a clammy shower curtain or turning the water off or, worse, up to melting point), but the wifi was pretty poor. They say this is soon to be rectified.

We went out for dinner with Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy and were joined by his wife late in the piece. Lovely dinner at a classy establishment not too far away, and despite the Champenoise addiction to drinking champagne ("Well, we are in Champagne", they say), I ordered a 2009 Lapierre Morgon off the list. I'm even spreading the Beaujolais gospel in France! I've had this wine once or twice before, perhaps a year ago. My first reaction is to think that it's bretty from the nose, but I don't believe it is. It has that kind of cooked-grass aroma that is common in cabernet franc from the Loire, but the palate was plush and satisfying. It's not the best 09 I've had by a fair way, but JB was impressed and it went well with the food.

Next day we drove to the southern region of Champagne, the Aube. I'd forgotten it was more than one and a half hours away from Ay! It turned out to be a day to stretch my limited French, but we got by. First up was Cedric Bouchard. I'm not going to go into tasting notes here, but this guy certainly can make champagne of character. He grabbed four wines, two from the Inflorescence range and two from the Roses de Jeanne lineup that everyone fights over. Interestingly he says the Inflorescence vineyards are improving faster than the RdJ lieux dits, and he believes they will eventually catch up.

Eurocentric's first shipment from CB is a chunk of Val Vilaine Blanc de Noirs from the lovely 2008 vintage, and some Les Parcelles BdB that spent 80 months on lees. We'll find out in less than two weeks how much of our 2011 request has been granted.

In the same village of Celles-sur-Ource is the down-to-earth Pascal Gerbais and his incredibly inexpensive range of Champagne Pierre Gerbais. I hope people don't think these wines aren't that good just because Pascal underprices them! He even has a wine called Originale, made from 107-year-old pinot blanc vines. I hope to have these wines into Australia just after mid-year.

After lunch in the baking sun (Europe has skipped spring and gone straight to summer) we went to one of our faves, Bertrand Gautherot at Vouette et Sorbee. We started on a sad note when discussing the weather as we found out the Blanc d'Argile vineyard had taken a hit from frosts early in the morning on April 13. No one had predicted the overnight low of -4 or -5C, and with the warm weather having promoted bud break about a month earlier than average, the vines were exposed and defenceless.

A second snap on April 18 was countered by a sprinkler system but the damage had been done. Pinot noir can sprout again but chardonnay is a one-shot wonder, and the damage might extend into the 2012 vintage as well. There have been a succession of setbacks for Gautherot in recent years, with a large number of vines dying in the harsh winter of 2009-10 as well.

Demand is far outstripping supply, and a new vineyard couldn't come on stream fast enough. Thankfully there is ample 2009 Fidele, but the Saignee de Sorbee and Blanc d'Argile were made in minuscule quantities.

Having taken so long to collect my 2006 allocation I missed out on 2007, and my 2008 reservation was cut almost in half in response to bigger requests from every market on Bertrand's books, but we pulled one back on this visit by scoring almost half of an unclaimed allocation for Brazil: another 120 bottles of Fidele and 30 Blanc d'Argile.

I better not go into too much detail for the next few visits: two in the village down the road from Bertrand, one of which might be an exclusive for a retailer in Australia and the other a tiny allocation for us from a couple on the cutting edge of champagne production; Marie-Courtin in Polisot, whose first shipment is just weeks away from landing in Australia; and another bargain bubbly from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere.

After this we stayed a night in Troyes for a visit to one of my favourite wine bars-cum-retailer-cum-restaurant for some delicious food and a bottle of Selosse La Cote Faron (the Ay lieux dit formerly known as Contraste). At the end of meal we were treated to a tour of the centuries-old two-level cave beneath the floorboards. Amazing!

Easter Sunday and still will push on, starting with a lovely 10am tasting with the picture-perfect Gautheron family in Fleys (this will be the new backbone of a greatly expanded Chablis range).

We took to the famous Sunday markets in the centre of Chablis to gather supplies for lunch (roast pork, ham cut from the bone, a wild tomato, cheeses, a kilo or two of Spanish strawberries, an apple tartelet, some gougeres) and went cross-country to the top of Les Clos grand cru vineyard, where we found a spot in the shade to gorge ourselves and kill some time before our second appointment in another cute village. Good solid wines here but I'll wait to see the prices before deciding whether it's worthwhile adding them.

We've used www.booking.com for a lot of our hotel finds on this trip and rather than stay at my regular in the heart of Chablis (the Bergerac, which has had dodgy wifi in the past), I took a punt on a chambre d'hote 25km away. The drive was amazing. At one point I stopped to take a photo of a field of canola (bright yellow against the deep green of the grain fields) only to lower the camera just as a huge crack of lightning split the sky. The thunder immediately followed and we enjoyed a light show and some heavy rain for the next couple of hours.

Fortunately it didn't appear to contain any hail, but the storm knocked out the power at the "hotel" from time to time, and the internet was non-existent. Lucky it was the quietest weekend of the year I guess. Dinner was a strange four-course affair at a table of strangers (with several bottles of the local wine), which combined to knock me out early in the piece.

The next day we had a quick breakfast to make a 9am appointment, only to be told we'd have to wait half an hour till the boss arrived to take our payment! Lucky for me (since I'm always late), it doesn't seem to bother the winemakers, and we enjoyed another cracking tasting in the cellars at Moreau-Naudet. These are brilliant Chablis, as good as I've tasted, but also priced higher than others in our collection. Due early second half of 2011 too (2007s and 2008, after spending two years on lees).

Then it was off back to Beaune, a nice chance to catch up on chores and prepare for the last two legs of our marathon journey.

Crikey, why didn't I stick to the diary entries!

.

Where did that month go?

2011-04-23T07:49:00.003+10:00

Uh-oh, I couldn't even keep up with an abbreviated record of events :-(

So here's a diary for me to come back to and fill in.

Saturday, March 26: Drove from Pau (France) to Santander (Spain). Surprised at the speed limit and number of speed cameras in Spain, plus how they build villages around industrial areas (an oil refinery!) and apartments in the middle of the countryside.

Sunday, March 27: Drove to Vigo on the west coast. Didn't plan on doing 600km a day.

Monday, March 28: Raining heavily. Went to a groovy wine bar in Albarino country and picked the locals' brains about good wines. Bought three glasses for benchmarking. Visited one estate (couldn't get an answer from others) and fortunately it was a goodie.

Tuesday, March 29: Drove to Ribera del Duero for a tasting. Stayed in a hotel opposite a bull-fighting stadium!

Wednesday, March 30: Another Ribera del Duero tasting, then drove to Rioja. Popped in to Artadi, then spent a while with a radical winemaker called Gonzalo Gonzalo. Drove to Calatayud.

Thursday, March 31: Tasting with a foreign local, then drove to Barcelona for a tasting of a range of bargain wines I'll be importing: a grenache-shiraz and cava to start, and a tempranillo to follow.

Friday, April 1: Two tastings in Priorat, one fantastic and one miserable. Great fun driving around the windy roads and up into the hills with Dominik Huber of Terroir al Limit (the fantastic one), but hayfever struck hard!

Saturday, April 2: Drove from south of Barcelona to La Ciotat on the south coast of France.

Sunday, April 3: Drove to Treiso in Piedmont, Italy.

Monday, April 4: Tastings around Piedmont. Some really bad wines ... still find it difficult to get my head around young nebbiolo, but being in the region really accelerated my understanding. Found an excellent producer of Dolcetto, Barbera and Barbaresco. Add one to the list: Giuseppe Cortese.

Tuesday, April 5: Another goal: Francesco Scanavino will supply us with spumante (I couldn't believe how good this vintage methode champenoise was!), moscato d'asti, arneis and barbera. Then drove via Pisa to Montalcino for a Tuscan tasting.

Wednesday, April 6: Several tastings around Tuscany, none satisfying. Then drove north of Verona to a great view, terrible location for our needs!

Thursday, April 7: Day 1 of Vinitaly. Got in thanks to a friend and made several tasting visits. Should do this to start my Italian trips, then follow up those who show well. Found a great source of pinot noir and budget reds from Sicily, plus a couple of quirkly varietals.

Friday, April 8: Another long drive -- to Alsace via Switzerland. Gee, the Swiss make like they don't want visitors. Will try to avoid in future.

Saturday, April 9: Three tasting appointments around Alsace, from one extreme to the other (and over an 80km span). Might take two of them.

Sunday, April 10: Fabulous lunch and then drove to Silz in the Pfalz area of Germany.

Monday, April 11: Tasting at Rebholz in Siebeldingen. Fantastic range of 2010s. Wondered why they told me they didn't deacidify. Was soon to find out -- it is the hot topic (or should be) of the German vintage. Followed this with tastings at Schafer-Frohlich and Emrich-Schonleber. Lots of great wine.

Tuesday, April 12: Quick tasting at Knebel in Winningen (09s mostly sold out, 2010s not finished fermentation), then a leisurely drive along the Mosel to Schmitges in Erden.

Wednesday, April 13: Carl von Schubert in the Ruwer, then Reinhold Haart in Piesport and Willi Schaefer in Graach. Have to be quick with my orders as yields were down by up to 50%!

Thursday, April 14: Fritz Haag and Schloss Lieser, what a double! Brothers with contrasting approaches and results. Queueing up! Had to skip Van Volxem cos they have no 09s left, and 2010s are sold out before they have even finished fermenting!

Friday, April 15: Zilliken looking lovely, and a great opportunity to try some back vintages and see the vines.

Saturday, April 16: Driving back into France and straight to Bouzy for a tasting and chat with Benoit Lahaye. Awesome bio champagne.

Sunday, April 17: A crazy five-hour walk and talk and vertical tasting with Vincent Laval in Cumieres. We drank the last bottles of several vintages, back to 1988. Looking forward to finally landing these in Australia. Then an interesting dinner in Ay, with 18 rare and older champagnes matched to tapas dishes prepared by two three-star chefs. Great night!

Monday, April 18: The Terres et Vins event. I tasted pre-release champagnes and the 2010 vins clairs of my four producers there -- Lahaye, Rene Geoffroy, David Leclapart and Chartogne-Taillet. Then tried those not represented in Australia and was keen on a couple. Mouth almost numb from two days of high acid, I raced off to Sillery for a tasting with an Italian importer friend, then went south to Congy for an incredible afternoon and evening, chatting with the livewire Olivier Collin of Champagne Ulysse Collin. Take the tip, the Wine Advocate is calling his 2008s the Coche Durys of Champagne!

Tuesday, April 19: Another trade tasting, this time Artisans du Champagne, in Reims. I have my eye on a few here, but Pierre Gerbais and Lancelot-Pienne are definites. Then off to the legend, Fallet (or Fallet-Prevostat) in Avize. Two dozen bottles safely in tow, I popped in to see if I could get some Selosse. Sucess there too!

Wednesday, April 20: A day to be sick and do paperwork :-(

Thursday, April 21: Tastings at Ployez-Jacquemart, Henri Billiot and Rene Geoffroy. Wow, the latter collection is screaming hot. So glad to have a restock shipment on the water now.

Almost up to date! That'll do for now. Will add a pic or two when I have better internet signal.

Cheers
.

The week that was

2011-03-26T19:53:00.005+11:00

So many great stories to catch up on and share. Here's what's been happening:

Thursday: Visited JF Hillebrand in Beaune to talk about my shipments they handle
Friday: Camille Giroud and David Croix for tastings of 08s and 09s, and Fabienne Bony in Nuits St Georges, which only confirmed my opinion on how difficult it is to sell wines from that appellation. Dinner at Cave Madeleine.
Saturday: Spent a long time at an Orange store to buy a SIM for my phone. Wasn't thrilled when it ran out of the 35e credit in one day. Turns out the assistant had forgotten to turn off the roaming 3G. Caught the tail end of the farmers' market, and went to the Athenaeum. Dinner at Comptoir des TonTons.
Sunday: Visited Stephane Aladame in Montagny les Buxy to taste the 2008s and 2009s. I added some half bottles to my order they had just packed (2008s). Then went to Domaine Dublere in Savigny les Beaune (American Blair Pethel). Finally caught up with David Clark in Morey St Denis. It was meant to be for a coffee, but he didn't have any, so we tried the 2010s out of barrel and a bottle of 08 and 09. Looking fantastic. Dinner at Picq Boeuf.
Monday: Late decision to say in Burgundy for the Trilogie en Cotes de Nuits, a biennial tasting in Vosne, Chambolle and Morey St Denis. Lots of 08s and 09s on taste. Many surprises -- on how insipid and dirty some domaine's wines are -- and a couple of discoveries. I'll be trying to import at least one. Then drove to Roanne for dinner at three-starred Troisgros. Was interviewed on French TV to coincide with the local translation of Aur Revoir and All That, a book by an American on the decline of French cuisine. We protested ... but spent the last part of the evening and the rest of the night in the bathroom. It must have been something I ate at the tastings ... PS, if you go, save some money and stay at the Grand Hotel next door.
Tuesday: No breakfast, no lunch, cramps all day ... Drove to Beaujolais for tastings with JM Burgaud (2010s and some 2009s), tried to confirm my final order of 09s (but I'm still not sure as he doesn't seem to like emailing); tasted with Stephane Aviron of Potel-Aviron, who has bought fruit from several crus; visited Paul-Henri Thillardon and Alain Coudert, who I will import from (Chenas, Fleurie and Brouilly, although the Fleurie is on the border of Moulin a Vent). Worst dinner ever at the Atelier near the town hall in Villie-Morgon. Rude waiter told people we were English and therefore couldn't handle meat being rosé (pink), when in fact the meat was like an old boot and I couldn't even cut it!
Wednesday: Visits to Faury and Barou in northern Rhone, the latter a run-down 200-year-old farmhouse but intense wines made by passionate no-nonsense people. Organic since 1971. The whites were incredible, and there's a St Joseph that goes into new oak for two years. Then on to Espiers near Vacqueyras. Great visit. Checked out a few vineyards and tasted some wines. Ordered a pallet of the 2010 white, and will get even more of the reds (200 cases of the CdR already on the way to Aus). Stayed just up the road, but had to drive about 15km to find a restaurant, and again it was awful.
Thursday: Driving day ... did some work in the morning and then drove 500km to Pau in southwest France. I've been using booking.com to choose hotels. Stayed in Montpensier for two nights. Pretty good, and only 67e a night. Found an amazing bistro and couldn't get in, two nights in a row. Will post the details later. Ate at a pub called Le Bureau (The Office). Nice burger and beer.
Friday: Another great tasting day and two more new producers. Will be buying from two stars of Jurancon. Third visit to Madiran was not so successful. The winemaker, a smoker who said he was an alcoholic, was lovely but I couldn't get my head around his wines, a tannat, a tannat-cab franc, a petit manseng and a special cuvee blended with the sixth barrel from three producers and hence labelled 666. Drove back to Pau (an hour) and ate at a little crepe restaurant facing the chateau.
Saturday: About to drive to San Sebastien in Spain (maybe for lunch) and then to Santander on the coast. On Sunday we will drive on to Vigo to be handy to Pontevedra for Albarino tastings on Monday.

I have some great stories among all that and hope to come back to them at various points. Better I at least recorded some thoughts than let them pile up though! Feel free to ask for more detail about anything.

An "old" favourite

2011-03-20T02:12:00.010+11:00

Second visit of the tour was to Dupont-Tisserandot in Gevrey Chambertin. This was the first estate I approached for export to Australia in 2008, and that was on the basis of a sensational 1964 Mazi Chambertin that I had enjoyed thanks to the generosity of a friend. The wine and the old label inspired me, and I wanted to know more about a producer that could pump out such a wine and remain unknown.

Didier's wife and her sister are actually the co-owners of the estate, having inherited it from their father. Didier is the driving force here and the person I always deal with. We have rugby in common, and I sealed our partnership on my second visit with a Wallaby jumper, although I'm not sure he wears it in his role as chairman of Gevrey Olympic Rugby Club.

Our visit coincided with the local oenologist coming to test the premiers crus and grands crus in preparation for bottling. Having recently been racked and sulphured they weren't showing much fruit or finesse, but having tried them in barrel a year ago I know how sensational they will be. The bunches were so ripe that for the first time Didier decided to use 25-30% whole bunches for the first time, to add complexity.

We also ran through the excellent value range: passetoutgrains (half Morey St Denis old-vine gamay, half Gevrey Chambertin pinot), bourgogne, Marsannay, Fixin, Ladoix, Gevrey Chambertin and Savigny les Beaune. The 2009 is already in Australia alongside the full range of 2008s.

I told Didier the 2008 Marsannay Les Echezeaux and Ladoix, and the crunchy, almost tart passetoutgrains had been well received by restaurants and wine bars. He agreed they were all looking good but said the Fixin had shut down and might stay that way for six more months. The Gevrey was still open, however.

It was a quick but satisfying visit, and I'll probably return to have a look at the vineyards and maybe try a couple more wines in late April. As it was, Didier had to get ready for a business trip to Brussels, so I let him go. Another piece of good news for those who had bought the 2007 Mazis Chambertin and wanted more -- Didier still has 60 bottles in the cellar so I'm going to buy another two dozen.

Birth of a new star

2011-03-20T00:49:00.013+11:00

From Charles de Gaulle Airport north of Paris to Chablis is about two hours' drive down the A6. Having gone the wrong way around the Paris Peripherique (ring road) in the past, I pulled over just outside the airport to let the GPS get its bearings before setting out. The traffic wasn't too bad but I wouldn't like to be trying to read a map to take the various exits and links before hitting the A6. We didn't put a foot wrong (for the first time) and lobbed in the village of Courgis just after midday for a catch-up with Thomas Pico of Domaine Pattes Loup.

I imported 25 cases of Thomas's 2008 AC Chablis last year and they were snapped up by some top restaurants in Sydney and Brisbane. I'd been out of stock of Chablis (stupidly) for quite a while, but on Friday a healthy 112 cases of 2009 Pattes Loup landed at the warehouse in Sydney. Many of the 08 buyers already had reservations in for the new wine.

I tried the 09 from bottle for the first time, and it's a cracker. The best villages wine he's made, Thomas confidently declared. He works his vines organically and handpicks the grapes. They are then fermented in stainless steel and 700-litre concrete biodynamic eggs, which enable lots of lees contact for texture and extra body.

The result is a wine of intrigue. It's chardonnay with palate weight despite the absence of oak in the vinification. We also tried the three premier cru 09s. The Cote du Jouan was bottled in January and was looking sensational: fruit sweet (ripe grapefruit) and minerally, and a persistent finish. The Beauregard and Montmains (from the Butteaux section of the vineyard) might turn out even better but just a week after bottling they were reluctant to show their best.

Australia's allocation of these three wines is a miserly 34 cases in total, and they should be available in mid-May. Thomas's 2010s were in an awkward phase of development, the cold winter delaying malolactic fermentation, so we grabbed two bottles and headed off for lunch. Thomas was feeling worse for wear, his partner and newborn second child having come home just the night before to ensure he didn't get much sleep. It was a big week all round, his 30th birthday due just two days after our visit.

He drove us to the quaint old village Noyers-sur-Sereine, where many of the buildings were constructed with a combination of mud and straw between wooden beams. It's a gorgeous little place of narrow cobblestone streets, crooked houses and an imposing church, plus our destination -- Maison Paillot, a cute two-storey restaurant and store.

We scoffed down one of the local delicacies, gougeres (cheese-puff rolls), then Miriam and I launched into a salad containing rabbit liver and neck. Sensational. Miriam went for the Coq au Vin main while I scarfed the veal. Delicious and we probably didn't eat as much as we were allowed for the E19.60 lunch special.

We had the 09 Chablis and Cote du Jouan with the meal, plus a typically funky cabernet franc from the Loire. I thought the nose was a bit dirty but the palate pleasant, while Thomas thought the palate didn't deliver what the nose promised!

We drove back to Courgis to get our car, then virtually backtracked to get to the A6 and onwards to Gevrey Chambertin for our second appointment, with Didier Chevillon at Dupont-Tisserandot.

Chaotic start to trip

2011-03-18T05:15:00.004+11:00

For once I didn't try to deliver 50 cases of wine the day of an international departure. I did go to the warehouse and the cellar, but I was home on schedule, packed and into a taxi on time so we arrived at the airport 2hrs before the flight. What a miracle.

I then proceeded to spend every spare second on the phone, up until the plane started down the runway! I booked a truck to pick up two new pallets of Clos Marguerite Sauvignon Blanc that had just landed in the country, and I attended to a couple of simple matters. But I wasted ages on the phone (and on hold) trying to get some sense out of Telstra. I am distraught that I switched carriers to someone that appears even worse than 3. Philippine call centres have no idea ... can't get a phone number ported five days after we got two numbers connected instantly. Of course that was going to be the number my mobile would be diverted to ...

Flew Virgin Atlantic to Hong Kong (beware, they weighed our carry-on luggage and have a 6kg limit), which was fine. The seating was a 2-4-2 configuration, and even though the plane was fairly empty we stayed in our window-aisle combo. I think I watched one movie and did a bunch of work on the laptop. Carlsberg was the beer on offer but the wine looked awful.

In Hong Kong we found the very crowded Cathay business lounge and had a snack and recharged laptop batteries. Couldn't get a shower, which was a drag. We had some cheap business class seats on Swiss for the next sector to Zurich, and enjoyed the lay-flat seats and ample food and drink. Had a couple of glasses of lovely 07 Rioja. Slept a bit, clear immigration without a word, then somehow took a wrong turn looking for the business lounge, got processed as leaving the EU, then walked down the corridor and entered again past the same bemused border control cop! Three stamps in the passport in five minutes!

A quick flight to Paris (long enough for breakfast), collected our bags and rental car (Peugeot 3008) and then set off for Chablis.

On the road again

2011-03-13T14:35:00.005+11:00

OK, six months, no posts. I'll use this as my notebook on the next big roadtrip, starting on Tuesday! I'm flying to Paris with Mrs Eurocentric and taking a rental car straight to Beaune. I'll do a few tastings there, then head through Montagny, Beaujolais, the northern and southern Rhone, Jurancon, Spain, across to Italy via the Languedoc, then up to Germany via Alsace, into Champagne for some special treats (I mean really special), then Chablis and back to Burgundy, plus a lightning trip to the Loire. Then we go to New York for a week as Mrs E is presenting at a conference.

It's a massive trip (massively unplanned) and I hope to be able to announce our new Spanish and Italian labels as we go, plus some of the new French producers. There won't be any new German producers! Twelve is more than enough ... Fritz Haag completes the team, although I am going to get some Knipser and Huber for a sommelier friend.

Right, the plan is to post briefly and often. Give feedback if you want to know about anything in particular!

No regrets, no surrender

2010-09-15T01:05:00.005+10:00

I’m in the mood for a bit of niggle, and why not? It might be a combination of barometric pressure (electrical storm in Sydney tonight) and hayfever (I’ve been sneezing my head off for a week). But in the wine world, what irritates me is a lack of experimentation by many people in positions of buying authority – the people who decide what will be stocked in the bottle shops and on the wine lists of your favourite restaurants.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of success and am tremendously grateful for the support I have had over the past 2½ years, with many of Australia’s leading restaurants buying the wines I have chosen and imported.

Marque, Aria, Quay, Tetsuya’s, Rockpool Bar & Grill, Vue de Monde, Ortiga, Fins, Glass, Fino, Bouchard, Must Wine Bar, Bentley Bar & Grill … you can find our wines in all of these fine establishments and many more.

But looking at other wine lists, as I am compulsively and obsessively inclined to do, I note a mundane repetition of certain brands that I believe just don’t cut it any more, if they ever did.

I suspect -- and have been told by more than one sommelier -- that some people buy those wines “because we always have”. Perhaps they don’t explore further to realise there is a greater choice out there these days, often better quality and often less expensive. Perhaps they just can’t be bothered looking at new products. Or dealing with more suppliers. Or risking their bonuses, incentives, overseas trips with the major importers … there must be an explanation for it.

From what I can tell it extends from German Riesling to white Burgundy to red Burgundy to Champagne, and of course these are the regions I love and focus on with my imports portfolio.

Much to my relief there is a wave of young guns out there and they are open-minded, tasting everything they can get their lips on. And then they’re buying those wines for their tiny wine bars, their enotecas, their laneway establishments, even their mainstream restaurants looking for an edge. And it seems to be these people whose businesses are booming, who are the talk of the town. It also seems that Sydney is doing it better than Melbourne, which appears to be a bastion of vinous conservatism.

Rather than denigrating any producers – because I’m sure they’re all doing their best – I would ask you, my very limited mailing list, to keep your mind open when new products come along. Maybe you haven’t heard of the producer, but who’s to say their wines can’t be great if you and I think they are? Why shouldn’t we enjoy the fruits of people who labour away out of the spotlight, away from the beaten track that Robert Parker, Jancis Robinson, David Schildknecht, Stephen Tanzer or John Gilman tread?

The beauty of the vast Eurocentric Wine Imports portfolio is that you are getting the world brought to you: the best wines I have sourced so far, trucked, shipped and stored in temperature-controlled conditions, and available to you in whatever quantities you like. It’s up to you when, where and how. You can buy direct or you can buy through your favourite retailer or restaurant, it doesn’t matter to me, but I hope you – and I – can keep an open mind whenever a wine comes along that we might not know.

Skipping ahead

2010-06-12T01:10:00.002+10:00

Sorry to those two people who keep coming back to the blog looking for updates. I have been snowed under with tax and assorted paperwork, not to mention a mate's wedding in England, but I hope to get back and complete the European journal.

I must write shorter entries!

On the road in Australia now. First day I stopped at Caveau in Wollongong, that city's only one-hat restaurant (that I know of) and they have ordered Aladame Montagny 1er cru Cuvee Selection 06 and Alluviale Anobli 08 sweet wine.

Then to the fine wine store in Berry, where the Dombeya Stellenbosch Boulder Road Shiraz 07 will find a home, alongside Mantra Shiraz Viognier 06 and Alluviale Merlot Cabernet Franc 07.

Unfortunately I didn't hear back from Banisters, which I thought was keen on some grand cru Burgundy. Not too many restaurants these days say they don't need entry level, they want top end!

Stayed in Bateman's Bay with a lovely lass who has been a good friend for 26 years. The friendship is easy, even if we don't see each other for months.

After a typical 2.5 hours' sleep on Wednesday I managed 6.5 in BB, had a fairly lazy morning and then set off for a couple of appointments in Canberra. As it turns out they were next door to each other and my last-minute hotel is across the road! I even got free parking. To make up for it, Rydges charges a ripoff $29 a day for internet access, although I have tapped into another hotel's service for $15 a day.

Flint's restaurant wine buyer was very keen on the wine and has promised to order, and also gave me a good lead for a keen French wine lover in the Blue Mountains. Next door, Peter Bell at Parlour Wine Bar ordered the Dombeya Merlot to run by the glass, and is going to look further at the portfolio. Then he filled me to overflowing with good food and lovely wine from his own list.

On Saturday I have an appointment at Onred and will try to make one or two other calls, then I'm meeting with a winery to discuss distribution across NSW.

Another exciting bit of breaking news: I have a fantastic cult Spanish wine on the way. I've also had a look at a solid quirky cheapie, and have leads on some good Italians. All the gaps I want to fill should be taken care of by the end of the year. Or maybe next year if I get to visit those places.

In the meantime I am still shaking trees trying to raise the money necessary to pay my bills and get a couple of containers on the water. The wines to come really are fantastic and should sell quickly.

The business is two years old, sales more than doubled in year two, and momentum seems to be building. People are starting to talk. Or maybe they are just listening to the wines.

Day 14: Taxing the tastebuds

2010-04-15T07:18:00.002+10:00

Made a bit of a late and lazy start to the day. Eventually drove south of Beaune looking for the Mercurey venue for a regional Grands Jours tasting. I figured if the GPS could get me to the town then surely there would be signs out to the venue, as there was no street listed in the program. Nope, no signs from the main road into town, so I drove around and around until I happened upon a sagging arrow, and eventually parked almost outside the front door of the hall.

When I mentioned to the hosts that it might have been an idea to list the road in the program they replied "but this road has no name". Hard to argue with that. I would find more of those sort of roads in many other villages in the days to come!

Stand No.1 happened to be occupied by Stéphane and Cecile Aladame, a young couple who make the gorgeous 1er cru chardonnays I import from Montagny-les-Buxy.

I tried their range of 08s, with a couple of new names appearing on the labels, which have been tarted up with different colours for each cuvee. Smart. My favourites were the Vignes Derrieres and the Cuvee Selection. I hope people finally cotton onto the 06 and 07 so I can buy the 08s. Matthew Jukes went nuts for the 08 Selection at a British trade tasting, buying some and giving them a rave review.

Cecile is a sweetheart who can speak a bit of English, whereas Stéphane had always avoided any attempts. Now he is doing classes, and proudly told me: "The cat is in the kitchen." I think he's got a way to go ;-)

Cecile gave me a couple of tips on producers to check out, and I did the rounds of others I knew or had heard positive whispers. Not available but worth tasting were the Aubert de Villaine wines, two of which were lovely. Others I tried were dry, reductive, oaky or too extracted. Another had abandoned his post -- possibly for lunch, but I'm sure no one would have been surprised if he didn't return.

No point in flogging a dead horse, so I drove back to Beaune for a couple of semi-private tastings. The first was at Maison Alex Gambal, where I ran through the 08 whites and reds that hadn't been shown on Tuesday. Then I tried a bunch of 09 samples from barrel, and they were mighty impressive. They will even have a Genevrieres 1er cru after doing a swap with someone.

Back upstairs and bumped into the delightful and gorgeous Geraldine Godot, the new winemaker at Gambal. I proceeded to make up any excuse for conversation, including a cork/screwcap debate. She looked ready to thump me, which I would have accepted as some form of affection, and then Alex made it worse byremembering some 03 Bourgogne Blanc that they had bottled under screwcap. He raced off to find a bottle and to everyone's surprise the wine -- from a hot, low-acid year -- was bright, fresh and in perfect condition.

On that evidence alone Alex was convinced he should convert, but Geraldine is a tough nut, and while she conceded the nose was impressive she wasn't so fussed on the palate. I offered to debate the matter further over dinner but she saw right through me and, suitably humbled, I left with my tail between my legs.

It's only two blocks from the Gambal winery on the peripherique to the Camille Giroud offices and winery, where a full range of 08s was open for tasting, as well as two verticals and a smattering of ancient vintages.

I had some definite favourites among the 08s, keeping an eye on price, and the verticals of Vosne Romanee (02-07) and Corton Le Rognet (03-07) panned out pretty much as expected, the Vosnes looking good (an the 02 starring for me), whereas the Cortons seemed to improve from year to year, the 07 fine and subtle and showing real finesses and class.

The older wines were: St Romain blanc 99, which had a bit of an odd goat's cheese nose but was pale and quite complex, showing some baked quiche, honey and caramel notes; 1995 Volnay 1er cru Carelles smelled a bit like a Bordeaux, with sweet leather and ample but fine tannins; 1990 Nuits St Georges 1er cru Perrieres was full bodied and rich, showing some iron filings and lots of tannins still; 1978 Volnay Champans was a little tired in the fruit department, smelling of smoke, leather and blood, but still with tannin to burn; and the 1976 Lavaux St Jacques was quite appealing, with a little framboise and leather combo going on.

The evening's activities promised to be quite grand: 40 grands crus fro 2002 and 2008 at the Chateau Clos Vougeot. It wasn't until later that I realised the wines were all supplied by negociants.

I could list all 40 but that would be a yawn, wouldn't it? They were all masked, so it was interesting seeing what I liked and didn't like among the many Chablis GCs, Batards, Chevaliers, Corton Charlemagnes, etc, and for the reds the Clos Vougeots, the Charmes, the Clos de Bezes and so on. The surprises for me were how bad the two Laroche chablis were: the 08 under screwcap was flat and lifeless and the 02 was a bit oxidised. Another wine was served corked and no one complained.

I bumped into wine writers John Gilman and Bill Nanson and had a bit of a chat, and then it was off to an upstairs dining room for some speeches and a bit of food. My table included a German magazine publisher, a Czech TV producer, a couple of winemakers and one or two others, and later the winemakers were told to rotate tables and the viticulturist from Laroche joined us. There was an awkward moment when I shared my enthusiasm for the other winemaker's wine but had to play dumb with the Laroche guy!

The dinner wines were: 2001 Jadot Criots-Batard Montrachet (bit fat and flabby for my liking); 1990 Joseph Drouhin Grands Echezeaux (some loved this but I found it a bit leathery and simple); 1988 Bouchard Le Corton (not memorable but better than the others). I suspect it was a good opportunity to write off a bunch of disappointing old wines.

OK, for my own records, the 40 pre-dinner wines were:

2008 Drouhin Chablis Bougros: Rich and vibrant, with a hint of botrytis. So much fruit density and length. Great.

2008 Simmonet-Febvre Chablis Les Preuses: More refined and minerally. Still heaps of body but more focused.

2008 Henri de Villamont Chablis Vaudesir: A little toast, oats, grapefruit. Lots of body, power, a lick of honey.

2008 Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis Valmur: Much tighter. Some honey, sesame seeds. Not lacking intensity, but not exactly open.

2008 Simonnet-Febvre Chablis Les Clos: A little mealy, iodine, minerality, finesse, less intensity.

2008 Laroche Chablis Les Blanchots (s): Soft, even developed. Smells buttery and lacks intensity. Tried a second bottle: mercaptans aromas, pretty bad.

2008 Lupe-Cholet Chablis Les Blanchots: Creamy, lacks acid, almost cloying. Growing suspicion of cork taint. Second bottle shows more intensity and focus.

2008 Jean-Marc Brocard Chablis Les Blanchots: Rich, almost resiny, lots of grapefruit, quite intense mid-palate but finishes quickly.

2002 Laroche Chablis Les Blanchots: A little oxidised: fat, rich and quite awful.

2008 Louis Latour Corton Charlemagne: A little soapy, vanilla essence, boring.

2008 Roux Pere et Fils Corton Charlemagne: More intensity, honey snaps, vanilla wafers. Length. Could be great.

2008 Seguin Manuel Corton Charlemagne: Rich, intense, full bodied, with a hint of honey on the finish. Broad but not long.

2008 Corton Andre Corton Charlemagne: Paint resin -- my least favourite aroma on CC -- intense grapefruit. Lacks a bit of acid.

2008 Patriarche Pere et Fils Corton Charlemagne: Broader, rich fruit, very ripe, heading towards orange and mandarin. Presume botrytis.

2008 Albert Bichot Corton Charlemagne: Unyielding nose but an intense palate with lots of extract, but lemony, less oak. Oh, love this one.

2008 Olivier Leflaive Corton Charlemagne: Ripe, rich but good. Not too much oak. Heaps of power.

2008 Bouchard P&F Chevalier Montrachet: Power and minerality, silky, finesse, restraint. This is a class above the Cortons.

2008 Olivier Leflaive Batard-Montrachet: Quite intense on the front palate, and the flavour lingers. Bit of vanilla, green olive and grapefruit.

2008 Jean-Marc Boillot Batard-Montrachet: A little toastier on the nose, with grapefruit and honeycomb. Nice length and balance.

2008 Michel Picard Batard-Montrachet: Paint resin, sesame seeds, toasty. Meh.

2008 Louis Jadot Batard-Montrachet: Honeyed oats, creme fraiche, bit of vanilla oak. These Batards are huge!

2002 Jean-Marc Boillot Batard-Montrachet: Not tasted.

2008 Corton Andre Corton Bressandes: A little meaty, good mouthfeel. Nice intensity, some florals, silky fruit, bit of grip. Love this.

2008 Stephane Brocard Corton Bressandes: Meaty, earthy, iron filings, strawberries, pretty fine but shows a bit of wood on the finish.

2002 Louis Latour Corton Grancey: Soapy, mousy, lot of tanin. Will get more leathery. Pretty bad.

2002 Prosper Maufoux Corton: Blood, oven-roasted tomatoes, lot of tannins. Needs heaps more time.

2002 Louis Jadot Corton Pougets: Meaty, earthy, tannin overload. Leave another 10+ years.

2008 Bouchard Aine & Fils Charmes Chambertin: Fresh and pretty. Blood and juicy strawberries, bit of grip but heaps of bright red fruit, even though the colour is quite pale.

2008 Jean-Claude Boisset Clos de la Roche: Luscious red fruits, strawberries, red cherries, bit of tannin. Needs a fair bit of time.

2008 Louis Max Clos de Vougeot: Really heady florals. Love it. Pretty, intense red fruit and spice and a bit of underlying earthiness. Grip is OK.

2008 Seguin Manuel Clos de Vougeot: Really dark crimson. Very plush and sweet in the mouth. Heaps of power. So dense. Lot of acid too. Holy crap. Tannins are there but not too dry.

2008 Albert Bichot Echezeaux: Big boy. Plush, refined and long in the mouth. Linear. Lots of power. Fair bit of tannin at the finish. For the long haul.

2008 Bouchard Aine & Fils Echezeaux: Pretty nose, florals on the palate, red fruit, sappy, very fine, bit of grip, lasting tannin.

2008 Henri de Villamont Grands Echezeaux: Pretty, very fresh nose. Framboise, a little cream, smoky, hint of spice. Lovely already.

2002 Joseph Drouhin Grands Echezeaux: A little meaty, not complex, quite fine, masculine style. Not my type of wine.

2002 Bouree et Fils Charmes Chambertin: Quite pale, browning on the rim. More gamey, raw meat, iron filings, getting tired.

2002 Prosper Maufoux Charmes Chambertin: Rich, crammed with red cherries and strawberries, fine tannins and a little acid on the finish. Nice.

2002 Jean-Claude Boisset Mazis Chambertin: Very fine. Some high-toned fruit, little bit of iron filings, tough of game. Nice oak. Excellent.

2002 Michel Picard Mazis Chambertin: Meaty, animale on the nose. Quite fresh, with nice fruit on the palate. Very fine tannins.

2002 Bouchard P&F Chambertin Clos de Beze: Soft, round, roast tomato, good persistence, fine tannins, oak a little murky. Becoming meaty, more animale.

Make of all that what you will!

Day 13: Easy does it, Tiger

2010-04-07T07:23:00.004+10:00

No, this isn't a story about Tiger Woods, although you do know that I watched him win his first US Masters at Augusta National in 1997 and got him to autograph the program, don't you?

I can name drop with the best of them, but the Tiger in question was a stuffed toy in a window in a store on the Rue d'Alsace, just a couple of doors up from where I've been staying in Beaune. My friend Helena has a fetish for collecting a stuffed toy from each place she visits (I'm not sure how long she has to be there for the place to qualify ... perhaps it's one souvenir per trip) and she spied this particularly dashing Tiger and gave me instructions for its capture. Luckily for David, it easily exceeded her limit of 40 euros. The miserable cat was a whopping 53 euros!

Strange that this stands out as the event of the day, but that's what happens when you leave blogging till days after the fact. Well, I did eventually haul my sore head and tired body down to the Palais de Congrès in Beaune for a triple-header of tasting.

I had high hopes of finding a decent producer from the Macon region, but anything decent was well overpriced, in my opinion. I mean, I have a great producer from Montagny, with 1er cru chardonnays selling for less than $50, and people resist, even though they are listed in many three-star restaurants in France. It's like the current fascination with Chablis -- which is cool, I love the stuff -- while people reject the whites from the Cote de Beaune. OK, guys, you know it's all chardonnay, right? Is it the absence of oak that makes Chablis so appealing, or the price, or do people think it is another grape variety altogether? And is white Burgundy confusing? Do people think it is decoloured pinot noir? Or are they worried about premature oxidation (seems strange, given that most wine is drunk almost immediately). Are they took oaky or too expensive?

Anyway, there was nothing to move me from 131 Macon winemakers ... right, I didn't try them all, but I used the scientific method of sampling every bottle that stood out on the trial bench, whether by label appearance or the "je ne sais quoi" of the domaine name. Then I worked my way around the hall to those that had appealed from the run-through, and to those I already knew and had earmarked for investigation.

From this I decided there was nothing that would woo the unadventurous drinkers out there in the big brown land. I moved on to scour the 64 producers from Aloxe-Corton, Chore-les-Beaune, Ladoix-Serrigny, Pernand-Vergelesses and Savigny-les-Beaune (are you starting to get the idea of what a momentous task this event presents?) and checked out the two stands of interest in the Beaune lineup of 25, Domaine des Croix and Camille Giroud.

It was a good opportunity to catch up with the charming David Croix, winemaker at both domaines, and have a look at some of their 08s. He never obfuscates, but then again that's the first time I've used that word in a sentence, so I can't be too sure ;-) No, there is no deceit about the man: if you call reduction and it's there, he'll concede it. If you tell him his 05 and 06 Corton Charlemagne were fat and heavy, he will tell you why (the vineyard ripens so quickly it caught him off guard the first two years, and, just like that, the 07 and 08 are light, fresh and mesmerising!)

Right, enough of this. I hadn't eaten anything all day and was feeling light-headed. I beat a hasty retreat and prepared for one of the dullest nights of my life, the Saveurs du Monde, an event when the organisers try to showcase just how adaptable Burgundy is by offering the wines of several producers with some odd dishes from some of the best local chefs.

The food, although served in tiny portions to people who had to queue for ages to get it, was nice enough, and the wines satisfactory, but the event started late and then groaned into gear with a couple of boring speeches, the worst by a woman from the sponsor company, who went into excrutiating detail about how and why her decanters and glasses were so wonderful. I hate that company now and will never buy their products. I hope she's happy ;-)

I couldn't stand this for long ... I left after an hour or so and went back to my friends' place for a proper dinner. Sigh. It's tough getting beyond the superficial sometimes!

Day 12: Packing down in the Grand scrum

2010-04-07T06:53:00.003+10:00

I've got a lot of posts to catch up on ... some great stories to tell. Will try to catch up a few days at a time. Day two of the Grands Jours is a bit of a nightmare. It's the busiest day, the most producers and the most important regions spread over four venues. It's insane, really.

Two years ago I started at Nuits St Georges and was pulling splinters within an hour. The palate was soon shot and the rest of the day was tough work. This time I figured I'd start in Marsannay-la-Cote for the "Jewels of Cote de Nuits" session, the venue for 69 producers from Gevrey, Marsannay and Fixin.

It was a good chance to look at the 2008s of Dupont-Tisserandot and Humbert Freres against some of the other producers I had been thinking of, and also to look at several vintages of Camille Girouds, including 06 and 07 Chambertin and Latricieres. There was also a table containing a bottle from each producer, which gave the opportunity to try one wine and decide whether it was worth exploring more and enduring the inevitable awkwardness of a wary importer meeting an eager producer.

Overall it was pretty hard work, the recent bottling of most wines reflected in their dry finish and protruding structure. I'm not sure I learnt a lot, except a couple of producers to avoid.

From there it was off to the Gilly les Citeaux for the Chambolle Musigny/Morey St Denis tasting, and what a relief it was. So much sweet fruit, soft tannins and finesse from some of the 46 exhibitors here. I made a beeline for the Mugnier table as I'd tasted twice previously at this domaine and like to badger them regularly. Freddie is affable and his assistant Audrey is gorgeous -- although now a married mum of one, I'm a sucker for her dark Audrey Tautou eyes and hair and, strangely, her English accent! She spent a couple of years in Kent, it seems.

Mugnier was smart enough not to bottle before the show, so the 08 Chambolle Musigny, NSG Clos de la Marechale and Musigny all looked fine, fruity and friendly. He's too cagey on where to place the vintage, let alone the 09s that the Americans have been going gaga about, but he admitted he wasn't about to rain on their parade if they wanted to start another buying frenzy. Mugnier has no need to pour wines at such a show but to support his community and try to attract more punters for his peers.

Other highlights were Camille Giroud (they showed each wine in the relevant appellation venue), Lucie & Auguste Lignier (great to compare 07s, 08s and 09s for various cuvees) and Faiveley, whose new softer approach has made the world of improvement to their wines.

A few more quick swirls and spits and it was off to the Chateau du Clos Vougeot for 60 Vosne Romanee exhibitors. This was apparently a scrum for most of the day and hence why I wanted to save it for late in the piece when the crowds had dispersed. The tactics worked perfectly -- it wasn't so much of a drama to get a pour and then to get to a barrel spittoon.

The acids showed quite prominently here, but I enjoyed tastings at Anne Gros, Meo-Camuzet, Comte Liger Belair and Alex Gambal. Was tempted by Lamarche but the wines looks a bit dry and stern, while Jean-Marc Millot has great holdings but I am still concerned about hygiene and reduction in some of the wines.

Actually I've learned a fair bit about the olfactory signs of reduction and the role different vineyard soils can play in creating this character: clay is a big contributor.

I skipped the NSG venue altogether and just as well. By the time I had circuited three venues I had major palate fatigue and it was getting harder and harder to avoid tannin overload. I don't know how some people taste and rate hundreds of wines in a day. As I was to find out, liking or disliking something in the middle of a tasting didn't necessarily mean anything when it came to sitting down with a bottle at the end of the day.

Hmmm, as if the first two days weren't busy enough, my evening entertainment involved having dinner with my wonderful friends David and Helena, who are soon to be Mr & Mrs Jenkins.

David has just bought into a wine business in the UK and was over to scout for good value producers from just out of the mainstream. I might have been better off tagging along with him! Anyway, we had an acceptable meal and three decent bottles of wine while we solved the problems of the world. Not such a good idea was a 1964 Armagnac as a nightcap. At 40 or 45% alcohol, it was tough work for me, a non-spirits drinker. David seemed to be getting his second wind and at 6.30am I could only hold my throbbing head as I pictured the two of them having to get up for the three-hour-plus drive to Champagne for their next appointment!

Day 11: Not such a Grand start

2010-03-30T08:26:00.004+11:00

Day one of the Grands Jours de Bourgogne, a biennial wine trade fair in multiple venues in Burgundy. There were apparently a lot of complaints about the stacking of events on two days after the previous edition in 2008, the first time I attended, but nothing seems to have changed.

Not only are the most appealing events crammed into two days, but the first two days of the Grands Jours clash with the last two days of Prowein in Germany.

Oh well, there is no lack of people focused on Burgundy, as I found out when I turned up in Chablis on day one at a respectable hour -- after midday -- to find most people's snouts already in the trough of free grub (and getting their photo taken with a pig on a spit, appropriately enough).

That seemed like good timing to get around some of the more intriguing of the 90-odd producers on hand, but my mood was soured when I found their were no guidebooks available. These have all the producers' contact information, what they are exhibiting, and more importantly where they are located in the three tasting rooms.

How could you not have one book for every person who registered, I asked. We did, they responded. Well, clearly not, I said. But more people turned up than we expected, they said. Stuff them, you should have kept a guide for those who registered in advance, I replied. Well, finally came the admission, we didn't think everyone who registered would turn up, but they have, and that's why we don't have enough books.

I borrowed one from an acquaintance who was off to have a rice cracker for lunch, and proceeded to tick off my major targets. I was looking for a new producer to replace the cad Jean-Claude Bessin, who sold to another importer after agreeing to work exclusively with me in Australia. That importer subsequently told JC that I was selling his wines too cheaply and he refused to sell any more to me. So there you go: not only was the other importer happy to make 20% more per bottle at wholesale, but the producer actively encouraged such extravagance. He didn't seem to care that I was using refrigeration for transport and storage, or that I had his wines listed in several top Sydney and Melbourne restaurants.

Sadly for me the two standout producers of the day already seemed to be tied up. I don't want to cut anyone else's grass, and after checking with a respected colleague that he was going ahead with an order, I confirmed to the winemaker that I wasn't interested. The wines were fantastic, and cheap, and he made it more difficult by offering to sell me the same wine under different labels! I would hate that if he did that behind my back, so I was happy to walk away.

I eventually made a shortlist of four or five other lovely producers to revisit in a couple of weeks, and after wearing myself out with 200 or so samples, I pulled up stumps and dashed back the hour and a bit to Beaune for refreshing bottles of champagne and riesling with Gav & Gen.

Day 10: One for the road

2010-03-28T02:13:00.003+11:00

Nice little hotel last night but it could have been better if I had known the internet modem was in a cupboard down the hall and I could have reset it myself every hour that it seemed to lock up.

Finally got connected and caught up with a ton of emails before skipping breakfast and driving north to a quaint restaurant for lunch -- along with about 20 families wheeling their grandmothers out for the day!

We had pre-selected two very interesting wines, and decided to have two courses to go with them. I had a lovely fish and scallop dish with truffled potato and rice for entree, along with a wine I'd never had before -- a 2004 Faiveley Corton Charlemagne. Quite rich -- you'd be tempted to call it an oxidative style, although it's one of those ones that seems to get leaner and tighter with air. A bit of the 04 celery/pistacchio character that I don't mind. An interesting wine at the very least, if not particularly long, focused and intense. We saved almost half a bottle for later.

Main course was young duck with foie gras, and the accompaniment was a 2004 DRC Vosne Romanee 1er cru Duvalt Blochet, which I believe comes from the young vines of DRC's various grand crus. Not at all green, with interesting spicy notes, quite a supple, easy-drinking style, rather than a wow wine.

Full and ready for a nap, but it's not to be. We buy an 06 Duvalt and an 06 Coche Dury Volnay 1er cru for later inspection and hit the road to Beaune. Well, a little detour to Domaine David Clark to pick up some wine I had stashed there and to share some wine and tales with David and his father (who was busy at the time building Vine Buggy Mark VI).

We polished off the two lunch wines, which both looked better rather than worse for the three-hour drive, then enjoyed an 08 Bourgogne from David -- such a juicy, clean, fresh, pure, fine-tannined drink, and I will be getting only 10 cases for all of Australia! -- plus two German reds from Schafer-Frohlich. These were both interesting and quite impressive, but I don't want to give away what they were just yet. Oh ok, an 06 Nahe Spatburgunder (pinot noir) and an 05 cabernet sauvignon from the Pfalz. Really well done! I might import a bit of these as an oddity.

We tore ourselves away for dinner at Gav and Gen's pad in Beaune, and forced down a bottle of Vouette et Sorbee Fidele champagne to celebrate my first night back in Burgundy. It's a big, rich, oaky pinot-dominant champagne with low fizz that really needs food. A lot more delicate than the 04 disgorgement, but a style that will divide the punters, I reckon. Love it or leave it.

Day 9: More eating

2010-03-23T09:51:00.004+11:00

A pretty relaxed schedule today -- my first day off in a week. With Gav & Gen over for the weekend, we drove to one of our favourite restaurants in Alsace for lunch. One course each and a bottle of Coche Dury 2005 Meursault which unfortunately wasn't a touch on a bottle I had a year previously. Thankfully it was only a quarter of the price it goes for in Australia.

We then drove to a little village to check out a special wine shop but it was closed, so we shuffled on to Munster to pick up some stinky cheese. It was a bargain at 11 euros for probably a 500g wheel. Vacuum sealed, too, to spare our noses.

Then we drove south to our hotel for the night, enjoyed a free wildlife show from the local stork population (pictured) and then went out for dinner at our third favourite restaurant in the general area. Yes, I'm being vague on purpose. I can take you to these places, but I'm not telling anyone where they are for obvious reasons!

Alas, this was a disappointment too. The food was good enough, but that's not why we go there. We ordered a 2000 Coche Dury Perrieres, which I'd had 18 months earlier and loved at Trois Gros, but this was painfully shy. To make matters worse, the local water was way over-chlorinated and the glasses smelled terrible.

Our second wine choice was a Rousseau Chambertin Clos de Beze 96, and we didn't say a thing as the waitress produced a Chambertin 96 and proceeded to open it. Again, a bit disappointing, not least because of the glassware. We were wondering about the fruit days/root days bio calendar about this time.

Full but far from satisfied, we retired for another decent night's sleep ahead of our fourth and final shot at wine nirvana ...

Day 8: Last drop, first splash

2010-03-23T09:46:00.002+11:00

Drove another 90 minutes south to Siebeldingen in the Pfalz for a tasting at Rebholz. I find the dry wines here harder to gauge as young wines. We ran through some interesting varietals -- silvaner, pinot blanc, pinot gris, riesling, gewurztraminer, a clear pinot noir (they call it blanc de noir), a rosé pinot noir ... some could work better than others.

Germany is ahead of the curve when it comes to dry whites. People might scoff at some of them but dry riesling sales are soaring in Australia and the US at the very least.

Anyway, Hansjorg Rebholz is confident the 09s are his best yet -- he has two levels of many wines and he feels that the standard wines are as good as the reserves of some other vintages.

We had lunch in a cute little joint in the next village where a famous chef has returned to treat the locals. Lovely stuff and no hiccups :-)

Will stomach full and a bit of wine on board I struggled the two hours or so further south to a regular favourite stop of mine for a night out with friends. We stayed in a local pension, ordered two pretty smart wines -- a 2002 Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne and a 1976 DRC Richebourg -- and let the restaurant match a few courses with it.

I managed to stay awake but it was difficult with the restaurant being so hot. A decent sleep-in beckoned though ...

Day 7: Nahe two ways about it

2010-03-23T09:36:00.002+11:00

A quick drive an hour or so from Winningen and I was at Monzingen for a tasting with Frank Schonleber at Weingut Emrich-Schonleber. This was hiccup day. I had the hiccups for the whole drive after stuffing my breakfast down in the morning. I actually got rid of them while I waiting in the tasting room for Frank, but then they came back as soon as we finished trying the 09s!

We tried a lovely sparkling riesling brut which I will import, then a range of rieslings from dry to eiswein. There were two TBAs fermenting away and not ready to taste. They'll either blend them and sell it direct, or bottle two and sell one direct and send one to auction.

It was interesting to see the differences between their two main vineyards, Fruhlingsplatzchen and Halenberg. I preferred the Fru spatlese and the Halenberg Auslese and, fortunately, Frank agreed. Who knows in a few months' time though, and we were splitting hairs. They are just different styles and will suit different people.

We had a nice lunch and tried matching four wines with a sea trout with a creamy sauce. Then Frank got the hiccups. Heh heh.

I drove about 15 minutes from here to Bockenau for a tasting with producer of the year Tim Frohlich at Schafer-Frohlich. We went through about 20 wines and my hiccups returned mid-tasting, damn it all. It was so annoying ... Tim reckons sweet wine cures them and in fact they stopped when we hit the residual sugar of a kabinett.

Again, a knockout collection. Tim won a lot of awards for his 2008 range and I am wondering how they are going to justify not giving them all to him again when this vintage is even better! He can seemingly handle a lot of different varietals too -- I really enjoyed his pinot blanc and pinot gris, and will probably buy a couple of reds from here as well!

I wanted cheap digs for the night but Frank booked me into a hotel at a local spa resort. I had a room well away from the main restaurant, but it was nice and they eventually forgot to charge me for dinner or the internet ... at least at checkout. I am sure they will catch up with me before long. I struggled to stay awake at dinner too but I enjoyed horrifying the waiter by ordering a Donnhoff spatlese (06). The menu was full of trockens so I wanted to shock him. He thought I would taste it and reject it, but I enjoyed it will all three courses, even steak.

Day 6: Haart to Heart

2010-03-18T17:19:00.002+11:00

It was freezing in the morning -- zero degrees and foggy. But apparently this meant it would be a nice day, and sure enough the sun eventually broke through and the temperatures reached the mid teens.

My day had started at 5am when I must have heard my phone vibrate and I got up to answer about 30 emails. I never got back to sleep but I had a fun day. I went back to Willi Schaefer to pick up some drinking stocks for a friend, then went to Reinhold Haart, where Johannes guided me through their 09s. Again lots of lovely ripe fruit, burying the minerality somewhat, but good acid and excellent balance. We tried a 01 dry wine that had been open 10 days (and still looked great) and a 1982 auslese -- really smart wine for a weaker vintage, and this wine had also been open 10 days!

Dry and sweet riesling end up in similar shape after 10 or 20 years in bottle -- the fruity styles lose a lot of sweetness and the dry styles put on body and complexity.

From here I went back to Schloss Lieser to pick up some goodies, then set out for Winningen, about an hour north, near Koblenz.

Gas stations seem in short supply around villages in the Mosel but I finally found some fuel for the car and myself -- diesel for the Peugeot 5008 and a massive bratwurst in a bread roll for me. Yum.

Cruised along at 180 to Winningen and then caught up on emails and orders till 5pm, then went to see Matthias and his mother Beate at Weingut Knebel. There I tried a few 09s, including two awesome auslese goldcaps and an eiswein. Mmmm, more sugar. Yum again!

Went out for dinner in Koblenz and had a lovely 99 spatlese and a fairly yeasty Burguet Gevrey village 00. I was falling asleep though so it wasn't a late night. In fact I stole a 30-second shutdown and reboot in the toilets to get me through!

Day 5: Mosel madness

2010-03-17T09:01:00.003+11:00

An overwhelming sugar-hit today.

Spent three hours at Weingut Willi Schaefer, trying all the 09s. A sensational range, with the auslese being pants-wetting material ... then an eiswein and a BA! Gorgeous stuff. Golden delicious all round.

Then lunch in Mulheim with Christoph before making my way to Lieser to meet with Thomas Haag. We moseyed around his vineyards for a while before settling in for a couple of hours of tasting his 09s.

The goldkaps rocked my world and that was just the start. We finished off with a long goldcap and then two TBA goldkaps! One had 470 and the other 530g/l of residual sugar!

Quick dinner with Thomas and then back to the Schmitges guesthouse. Back on the road tomorrow.

Day 4: Ruwer and Mosel

2010-03-17T08:56:00.003+11:00

Drove back towards Trier -- loving the 280km/h commute -- and wound my way to Mertesdorf to meet with Dr Carl von Schubert at Maximin Grunhaus.

We tasted through the range of 2009s, ending with a sensational eiswein, then settled in for lunch with his wife and eldest son.

Loving the lamb lettuce here ... weird name though!

Had a 1981 Herrenberg Kabinett and 1988 Herrenberg Jungfeinweine for lunch, then headed back to Erden.

There I ran through the Schmitges lineup, now resplendent in Stelvin Lux closures for every single wine.

Again, an awesome eiswein completed the lineup. Then I wandered down the road for a typical stodgy German mean and a painfully chemical weissbier.

Day three: Land of the giants

2010-03-17T08:49:00.004+11:00

I'll post briefly now and expand later.

After waking at 4am and pottering around for hours we had breakfast then went to Zilliken to pick up some goodies for Gav and David Clark in Burgundy. Dorothee served us a 1983 Rausch auslese that had been open for days but still looked as fresh as a daisy. And she is comparing 2009 to 1983 ...

Raced along the river past some precarious vineyards to Van Volxem in Wiltingen. Cellarmaster Dominic entertained us while Roman was delayed on a flight. We had a quick look at the bubbling cellars (dry wines on a long slow ferment), then looked at the exposed Scharzhofberger vineyard and some of the other sites overlooking the Saar.

Went back to the house and started tasting some 08s, including fabulous grosse gewaches -- Volz and Gottesfuss. Then Roman arrived, gave us a history lesson about riesling fetching higher prices than top Bordeaux around 1900, and served up three 2009s. Very smart.

I drove on to Erden while Gav and Gen set sail for Burgundy. I arrived at the Schmitges lodging to an empty house but thankfully they turned up, surprised to see me a day early, and we settled in for the evening.

Day two: back on the right side of the road

2010-03-14T16:14:00.004+11:00

I love Europe. It was exciting to be back on the continent. I had dozed on the short flight from London to Charles de Gaulle, negotiated the disinterested French immigration control post (no questions, just a stamp of arrival in the passport), was surprised to see both of my bags emerge from the carousel, walked past an empty customs post and then hurried to the rental car counter hoping they still had my car, booked for collection four hours earlier.

My rental booking is great value but I later realised it looks like I have no insurance cover. I hope that's not right as I thought I had just declined the major excess reduction, which is covered by my travel insurance (I have an annual policy, which saves a fair bit of money and hassle). The car is a diesel Peugeot 5008 stationwagon. It's got heaps of room, two vital power outlets, plenty of grunt, and diesel is so much more economical in Europe.

The TomTom fired up and quickly had me on the right roads. I was soon on the A4 doing 135kmh towards Reims and then Strasbourg. I was heading for Germany but I was thrilled to be back in France. I decided Germany was like family -- reliable, secure, constant -- and France was more romantic intrigue. It'll be better when I have time to improve my basic French, but for now I can get by and I love it.

I hit some roadworks and a major traffic jam near Luxembourg, and ended up doing a U-turn to get my exit, but I was on track for a 4pm arrival in Saarburg. Gavin and Gen had driven up from Beaune via Champagne so Gavin could fill his boot with more grower/bio champagnes, and arrived at the Hotel Galerie half an hour or so before me.

I had a shower, changed and we walked about 150m up the road for the first tasting visit of the March-April 2010 tour: Weingut Forstmeister-Geltz Zilliken.

With Hanno and Ruth away, the ever-delightful Dorothee gave us a guided tour of the cellars and then did a tasting of the 2009 range. German wine rules are changing again in a bid to make them simpler and more logical for the customer, and Zilliken have tackled all of the changes in this vintage.

They now have a three-tier range, start with gutsweine, or estate wine, then orstweine, or village level, and finally the Erste Lage range.

The names are also being simplified, and while all VDP members are expected to make a Grosse Gewachs now (a grand cru dry wine), they must no longer name wines kabinett trocken or spatlese trocken. No matter what must weight the grapes are picked at, they will be labelled trocken (max 9g/l r/s) or feinherb, with the terms kabinett, spatlese and auslese reserved for fruity wines.

At Zilliken we started with a trocken from each of the three quality levels: The Zilliken Riesling Trocken was first, and I was really impressed. It's very open and floral on the nose, and has impressive softness in the mouth. The Saarburger Trocken is less expressive on the nose but has a richer, more soil-driven palate. Then the "Rausch GG", which in more confusing times would have been called Saarburger Rausch Spatlese Trocken Grosse Gewachs. I'm not convinced about the pursuit of dry wines from a region that does fruity so well, but dry is where the German market is, so I understand the desire to try.

Zilliken's first is a nice effort -- it has real length and persistence. It's closed on the nose but on the palate it is dense and yet still elegant. Yellow fruit seem to be a hallmark of the vintage here. I often think of Z wines as featuring lime, vanilla essence and slate, but this vintage there is more tropical fruit -- mangoes, peach, apricot and pineapple.

Dorothee opined that Saar's point of difference is the variation in the climate, which she believes gives the wines more character and depth of flavour. 2009 had been wet in August but was perfect in September and October. One day after they finished picking it rained for a month.

Zilliken were able to make wines at every level they wanted, except eiswein as the grapes had lost their sugar and acid by the time the weather was cold enough to snap freeze them.

The process at Zilliken is to handpick grapes, press gently (or not at all for a couple of wines, taking just what juice emerged naturally from the weight in the press), put the juice in tank for one day and then transfer it to old oak fudres in the cellar for fermentation, which they believes improves the mouthfeel. When they feel the wine is balanced at whatever sweetness level they rack the wine off the yeast (twice if necessary), do a large-pore filter and then sulphur to stabilise. The sweeter the wine, the more sulphur is required to ensure there is no refermentation with all that sugar.

Back to the vintage 09: Dorothee says the wines have the elegance of 04 but the intensity of flavour of 05. Then she compares it to 1983. Every vintage has its subtle differences, and although the acids are as high as 08, they are softer, riper, rounder, comprising less malic acid (apple flavours). Minerality shines through, and the devonian slate seems to have imparted a powdery, wet-concrete taste that we'll call slate.

So, back to the glass: I'll go for the estate trocken because it's so expressive and will be the best value (people love dry wines but seem reluctant to pay much for them). The second flight is three off-dry wines: Zilliken Butterfly, Saarburger Feinherb and "Rausch Diabas", a new name in the family. Without kabinett trocken or spatlese trocken to identify a wine picked at a higher must weight, Zilliken convinced the VDP of the need for a new estate name for a top-class feinherb. Diabas is the second most prolific type of rock in their vineyards, a minerally stone.

The Butterfly is pretty, fresh, limey, talcy, just lovely. With 17g/l r/s, a screwcap and a label that was inspired by a wine writer's description of Zilliken wines as being as delicate as a butterfly, this is certain to be a big seller. I like it more than the 07 and 08, from memory.

The Saarburger Feinherb has a pale yellow colour, nice intensity, 22g/l r/s but finishes even drier than the Butterfly. It's very good.

The Diabas was picked at auslese level of ripeness -- 108 oechsle -- and fermented to about 24g/l r/s. It has delicate flavours but they are intense, clean and long, and the wine again finishes virtually dry.

Up a grade in sweetness now to kabinett and a chance to compare Zilliken's 8ha of Saarburger Rausch and 1ha of Ockfener Bockstein. Ockfen is the next village along the river.

The Zilliken Riesling is the estate kabinett and shows lots of ripe yellow fruit. It's clean, fresh, fruity and carries the 50g/l of sugar with ease.

The Saarburger Kabinett is richer on the palate and has hints of passionfruit. It's full in tatse but light on the alcohol, one of the reasons I love German riesling.

The Bockstein Kabinett comes from a vineyard that is not as steep as the Rausch but is still south-facing. It has devonian slate but it's more gravelly. The wines tend to be more open and powerful, and this one, even with just 45g/l r/s, tastes quite dense, with grapefruit, passionfruit and powdery slate on the palate. The alcohol is about 8.5 to 9% (the final analysis is not made until the wines are submitted for approval for their AP numbers).

The Rausch Kabinett leaps up to 65g/l r/s and is more floral and delicate. This site delivers more elegance and tropical fruit flavours of apricot, peach and pineapple.

The next wine grabs me too -- the Rausch Spatlese, which will be AP #6, and here comes a revelation about the grade of quality at Zilliken. They assign AP#1 to their best wine and move down the order from there. So if there are three spatleses in the vintage, the lowest number is what Zilliken consider to the best of them.

This spatlese is intense, with lots of peach, apricot, mango ... lots of acid too to keep it clean and in check on the finish. It leaves the palate thirsting for more. Dorothee likes to call it "animating, elegant acidity". This wine has about 80g/l r/s and alcohol of 7.5 to 8%.

Even the next wine, the Rausch Auslese (AP#5), doesn't taste sweet at 95g/l r/s. You can see it's a dense and ripe vintage but it's still bright and lively on the palate.

A quick palate cleanser and then we have a look at the 1993 Saarburger Rausch Auslese which I'll be importing later in the year (I've also got the last 10 cases of the '93 spatlese). The sugar has subsided (and was probably spatlese level to start with), and waxy, lanolin flavours have begun to develop, but it's still so fresh on the palate -- lemon curd, quince, a hint of licehn -- and then we learn that this bottle has been open for six days!

Next up is the Rausch Auslese #8 from 2005. This was the vintage of a lifetime for Zilliken and one they consoled themselves with when they cracked their last bottle of 1959 last year. They made six auslese that vintage -- two standard, two goldcap and two longcap! The best of them was AP#5, so this goldcap was fourth in the queue. The flavours are concentrated and in the lemon curd spectrum, but the acid is fresh and energises the palate rather than overwhelming it.

I'm exhausted and distracted so Dorothee decides to perk me up with their best two wines of the 2009 vintage. Both will be available only at the VDP auction in Trier in September, so I'll have to go to that!

The Rausch Auslese Goldcap #2 was picked at 130 oechsle, with 100% botrytis, but it is so clean and light on the palate. Energy and intensity rather than lushness. The 180g/l r/s is easily carried by acidity of 12g/l.

The big daddy is the most intense TBA Zilliken has made, with more must weight than their gauge could measure, and it goes to 230 oechsle! The raw figures are approximately 400g/l r/s, 15g/l acid and a surprisingly high 6.5% alcohol. "We've never had a wine with such concentration," Dorothee says. There is just 80 litres of it and I'll be trying to get my share. It's noticeably viscous in the glass but still not overpowering in the mouth. It's all about balance.

Looks like 2009 is a cracker, and yet different to the great string of vintages preceding it. And that's got to be a good thing.

Today's schedule: Van Volxem. Owner Roman Niewodniczanski is leading the charge for classication clarification at the VDP and will surely have plenty to say. And with his 2007 and 2008 wines grabbing people so quickly on arrival in Australia, I'll be paying close attention to the stars of his 09 lineup.

Back in Europe: daily updates (I hope)!

2010-03-14T15:49:00.004+11:00

Hello anyone out there.

I figure it's time I attempted a daily blog to keep any interested parties up to date with what's going on during this extended buying trip in Europe.

Friday, March 12, 2010:

My usual chaotic preparation for a trip overseas. I'm always a fairly good chance of missing flights because I attempt to do so much before I fly. This day was no exception. I had a 9am appointment with a dermatologist because of an inflamed mole on my lower back that had been bothering me, and with two previous skin cancer incidents I had decided to play it safe. The doctor felt that the two moles I referred her to were fine but she removed them both anyway and they will be tested for nasties.

I went home and packed and worked through a list of jobs, primarily being frustrated by TomTom ... I'd almost missed flights 18 months earlier after stuffing around trying to download maps of France and Germany to my mobile phone, and this time my GPS was giving me just as much grief. The maps I had bought for my unit at $180 downloaded to my computer but wouldn't fit on the GPS. I got a snotty support guy at TomTom who eventually hung up on me and went to lunch. The next guy was much better but I eventually had to give up on making it work. Instead I had deleted everything off the unit and was going to try to figure it out on the plane.

I had intended to catch a cab at 2pm so I could beat the driver changeover and be at the airport in plenty of time for a 5.40pm flight. Too easy, so instead I drove around town to do three jobs: I left home at 1.45pm and booked the cab for 3pm, then set off to drop off two bottles of chablis at the warehouse to add to an order and one bottle of champagne to be posted to a restaurant that is looking for 50 cases. Then I drove to News Limited to leave three bottles to be photographed for an article James Halliday is writing on Schloss Lieser for The Australian weekend magazine. The final task was to get 2kg of Campos Superior coffee beans from Newtown for a mate in Burgundy. I pushed the cab booking to 3.15pm and then 3.30pm as I raced home.

Scrapping plans to have another shower, I quickly changed, grabbed all my things and headed outside. The cab turned up almost on time and although it took longer than I would have liked, by checking in the night before I only had to arrive 60 minutes early to check in bags.

Qantas were unmoved by a letter from my doctor asking me to be given a more comfortable seat (that would have been business!) so I settled in at the back of the plane on a new A380. New but not reliable apparently as it had "engineering" issues and we left about an hour late. My connection time in Singapore was only one hour for th flight to Paris and I was given conflicting information about whether that flight would be held.

Despite the constant farting of the old man in the aisle seat, or maybe because of it, I slept a couple of hours and caught up on a couple of movies. There was no hope of making a quick getaway because although the crew offered to take me upstairs through business, the old farter didn't want to let me out.

Ground staff told me the flight was going to be held for 70 minutes but then when I checked at the transfer desk they told me it had already left. They were going to put me back on the 380 for London, with a connection to Paris and an arrival time about five and a half hours later than planned.

I changed clothes, got back on the plane and this time had 13 or so hours to look forward to sandwiched between two big guys -- one a nice British businessman based in Hungary, and the other a giant Mormon who smelled bad, slept with his mouth open and also turned out to be a chronic farter. Why do people do this in enclosed places? Can't they go to the bathroom and spare the rest of us the nasal torture?

Still, I slept for a few hours, watched a couple more movies and made it to London and my new connection. Also, on about the fifth attempt, I got the TomTom map to fit on the GPS. I then went in and deleted a bunch of voice files (as instructed) to free up more memory, and then tried to add one voice. It wouldn't work until I emptied the trash, but even after downloading the voice the unit said it didn't have any matched to the maps and I would be guided by arrows instead of voice commands.

Still, I thought I could live with that -- at least I had the maps. Let's call that the end of the first day and the end of a ridiculously long post. I'm not going to be able to do this much every day!

New arrivals

2010-01-22T12:03:00.003+11:00

The boats are lining up over the next few weeks.

First in to port is the 2007 Unison Syrah from the Gimblett Gravels in Hawke's Bay. I somehow missed the release of this and could only snare 56 cases ... I've got 50 here now, just in time for a 95-point review in Gourmet Traveller Wine by Andrew Caillard MW. Apparently it was one of the highlights of a recent NZ visit. The 06 was very popular and this is by all accounts better. There are just five cases of the 06 left if anyone is keen. $39.95 retail, but you can get it on www.eurocentricwine.com.au for 10% if you read the instructions. Amazing how many people don't!

Next up is the overflow of an ambitious containerload that arrived last December. These three producers had to sit in the coldstore (which was really a warm store at 12C since it was sub-zero outside) until I managed to get space in a new shared-reefer scheme through one of the freight forwarding companies.

So, hopefully by the end of next week I will see the debut of Domaine des Croix (two 06 red Burgundies), Camille Giroud (red Burgundy from 02, 03 and 06, but maximum of five cases of each wine, including the Decanter Trophy-winning 06 Chambertin!), and Domaine des Chenevieres from Chablis (awesome juice!)

"Finally", a container full of 2008 German rieslings ... including, just in time, the full range of Willi Schaefers and Schloss Liesers. Thomas Haag of Schloss Lieser will be in Sydney and Melbourne at the end of Feb/early March, and his wines should go through the roof, they are so good. The Schaefers have been sold out bar one wine, and I expect these to go quickly too. I'll put out a pre-arrival offer on this duo next week (sign up for the newsletter at www.eurocentricwine.com.au to be in the front of the queue).

There are some lovely quirky wines in this shipment, including a gorgeous red called Cuvee X, weissburgunder (pinot blanc), chardonnay, spatburgunder (pinot noir), grauburgunder (pinot gris), sparkling riesling, sparkling pinot-chardonnay, and various expressions of gewurztraminer.

That'll be all for a little while, although the orders are banking up in Europe, if only I could sell some of this to free up some money and space! Spend, my friends, spend up large!

Comings and goings

2010-01-09T20:46:00.003+11:00

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!

The calm between the storms

2009-12-21T12:37:00.006+11:00

I'm taking a break! Well, in a way I'm just working from a different location -- a different continent for three weeks -- but the plan is to wind down and recharge the batteries after a full-on couple of years.

I'm in Canada staying with friends for Christmas, and trying to catch up on some paperwork before what should be a huge 2010.

This year has already been massive, including landing a third container from Europe for Eurocentric Wine Imports in early December. It was a lot more trouble than it should have been, thanks to crazy shipping companies. I used Ziegler for my pickups this time, as they offered a quick, careful and inexpensive service. They also wanted to pack the container and ship the goods, so I let them to see how they went.

Well, they didn't fill the container for a start. They left out 150 cases! Granted I may have been ambitious, forgetting how much bigger Champagne and Burgundy bottles are than riesling bottles, but it seemed crazy that they left the back row stacked only halfway up, and throughout the container it looked like they could have gone one row higher.

At first I thought I would be paying storage for these 150 cases until I could get another full container organised out of Europe. But then I discovered a new service, where you can share space in a refrigerated container. It's an extra expense, but better than driving customers mad waiting for overdue stock. And I wanted to get it off Ziegler as soon as possible, thinking this all might have been a scheme to get more money out of me.

Then, the day before the container arrived, the customs clearance agents realised they didn't have the necessary paperwork. Why they didn't think about this earlier, they still won't say. The shippers said they'd send it by DHL, a useless courier company which managed to turn a three-day promise into a six-day non-delivery before I went and snatched the envelope off them. We dodged cancellation fees at the port and fortunately Ziegler picked up the bill for the courier and a day of storage, and finally the container was delivered on December 8.

Anyway, it was still nice and cold when we cracked it, and replenished stocks of René Geoffroy and Henri Billiot champagne, plus included David Léclapart champagne (biodynamic, zero dosage), Jean-Claude Bessin chablis, Jean-Marc Burgaud beaujolais, and 2007 Burgundy from Dupont-Tisserandot, Humbert Freres, Aurélien Verdet, Benoit Ente and Jean-Philippe Fichet.

Some of these have already been snapped up by Rockpool Bar & Grill, Bentley Bar & Restaurant, Aria and Ultimo Wine Centre in Sydney; the Royal Mail Hotel in Victoria; and the Wine Emporium and Enoteca 1889 in Brisbane.

I've hardly had a chance to show the wines yet and already I want to uplift another container in Europe -- this week! I'm hoping to get the go-ahead today for collections in Germany to bring out the 2008 rieslings from Willi Schaefer, Schloss Lieser, Reinhold Haart, Andreas Schmitges, Knebel, Schafer-Frohlich, Emrich-Schonleber and Rebholz, plus the first shipment from Van Volxem in the Saar, including 07s and 08s. There will also be some left-field wines -- sparkling riesling and pinot-chardonnay from Rebholz, as well as weissburgunder, grauburgunder, spatburgunder, dornfelder and gewurztraminer from various producers.

There will also be some very limited mixed dozens from Willi Schaefer -- just six of them, which will contain one bottle of a special 07 auction auslese, a very rare 08 auslese, the last of some other special 07s and the best of the 08s.

There will be other limited items, including back vintages from some of the top producers. The best way to get a heads-up on these is to subscribe to the Eurocentric newsletter at www.eurocentricwine.com.au

Hopefully the German container will land in Sydney by February 1 because it will contain a large parcel of the off-dry riesling Haart to Heart as a potential Valentine's Day gift. Maybe I should team up with a gift basket company on that one!

Next up, as soon as I can afford it, will be another container primarily out of France, but also including the first shipment from Carl von Schubert's Maximin Grunhaus and a mixed 1993/2008 shipment from Zilliken. The French portion will include champagne from Vouette et Sorbée, Chartogne-Taillet and Georges Laval for the first time; beaujolais from organic producer Roland Pignard; clean, lush and inexpensive Rhones from Domaine des Espiers; and gorgeous Burgundies from Drouhin-Laroze, David Clark and hopefully I can squeeze in a couple of others.

That might have to do us for a while! The warehouse is bulging, so I better concentrate on sales! Well, by the time I get back on January 13 I will have six weeks to sell, plus host Unison (NZ) boss Phillip Horn in Sydney and Melbourne, and hopefully do some German wine dinners with one or two producers on a flying visit.

Then it will be back off to Europe to sample the 2008s from France and the 2009s from Germany, plus attend the Grands Jours de Bourgogne trade show in Burgundy and finalise agreements to import one or two more boutique producers from the heart of the Cote de Nuits.

I better recover quickly because it seems like the pace isn't going to let up for a while yet!

However, I'm encouraged by surging sales, new restaurant listings and some others to be added soon, plus the blanket coverage achieved in WA by my agents Terra Wines. The Eurocentric website store is now fitted out to accept credit cards, and debtor finance will make it easier to deal with the cashflow challenges of introducing so many new producers to the market in quick succession.

Starting our third year, I'm more excited than ever and looking forward to bringing more great wine to those who appreciate quality at a fair price. There's no reason not to spoil yourself and try a few of these new gems.

Wave goodbye to heat damage

2009-11-18T22:05:00.006+11:00

If you've ever bought wine from an interstate cellar door or retailer, hopefully you've been told of a "heat policy" that delays delivery of wine at certain times of the year. Like right now.

With a heatwave gripping much of Australia, it's timely to consider what happens to wine when it's shipped with regular postal carriers or couriers.

There isn't much available in the way of specialised wine delivery service in this big brown land, and Australia Post is not only increasing its rates but slowing delivery times, in my opinion trying to force people to use their more expensive express service.

The lack of proper service is a real concern for Eurocentric Wine Imports, which has always had a "driving" concern about the heat-sensitive (or rather insensitive) handling of wine by some parties entrusted with its care. We use temperature-controlled trucks in Europe, a shipping container set at 14C for the duration of the journey from warehouse to warehouse across the high seas, and a 14C storage facility in Sydney. Transport across Australia has been the missing piece of the puzzle.

Where possible, Sydney deliveries are done in an airconditioned vehicle, but interstate despatches have required an eye on weather forecasts along the intended route. And we don't send wine interstate on Thursdays or Fridays to ensure it doesn't sit around in unsuitable conditions over the weekend.

This has come to a head with the 40C+ heat in the Adelaide region at the same time our Perth agency, Terra Wines, has been going gangbusters getting listings for Dombeya, Knebel, Emrich-Schonleber, Ployez-Jacquemart and others.

It seems every customer wants to list the wines -- and now. Terra quickly ran out of stock and put in an urgent request for a top-up, but we weren't about to ship (especially Champagne) when we knew the wine would be unprotected in the back of a truck for more than two days. OK, the trucks use two drivers and go virtually non-stop, but there is still a chance of heat damage as the wine cruises out of Sydney and thunders over to Adelaide, across the Nullarbor and into Perth.

Then, just when it looked like Adelaide was going to get some respite from the heat, the forecast for Sydney was several days of heat, and once that passes Perth is set for a temperature rise. And we're not even in summer yet!

Enough was enough, and after many frustrating phone calls to freight companies who admitted they couldn't deliver, we struck gold with a firm that does daily runs across the country. The Perth pallet was booked in, we get to choose a temperature down to 2C, the wines never leave that environment until they reach Terra's airconditioned warehouse, and everyone's happy.

We can also make temperature-controlled deliveries for order of eight cases or more to Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne, and we'll be working on securing proper facilities there so we can store and dispatch smaller orders from each city, thus saving time and avoiding the risk of damage.

It's one of the reasons Eurocentric was formed -- to treat customers and their wine with the respect they deserve. We trust you'll appreciate the difference in your glass.

On the road again ...

2009-10-04T17:31:00.003+11:00

I made a last-minute decision to postpone my European buying adventure and do an Australian selling adventure instead.

I packed the car with new-bought eskies (one holds 36 bottles and stays cool for days and the other holds about 12 bottles and runs on mains or car power) and set off after two hours' sleep for steamy Brisbane. Remarkably painless drive and even managed to make a few phonecalls via Bluetooth. Fair bit of roadworks but not too many delays.

After catching my breath in Brisbane I set off for Noosa and knocked on plenty of doors to see if anyone there wanted to drink decent wine over summer. Some said they had already done their summer shopping, others didn't have space, and others promised to order. If I was going there for a week, I would have eaten at Sails at Noosa Heads, the River House, Wasabi and Ricky's at Noosaville. Sails has several cellars and would be your best bet for a decent wine list.

Made contact with several contenders at Maroochydore, Mooloolaba and Caloundra and emailed the catalogue and pre-arrival offer to 20 or more potential customers.

Then I hit Brisbane with very little time to organise anything. I started by sending out an email to every restaurant and retail address I had in town, and soon had appointments at Aria Brisbane, Wine Emporium, Cru Bar, Drinx/Grand Central Cellars, Festival Cellars, Bar Alto, Stewarts Wine Co, Enoteca 1889, Bar Barossa and Nectar.

Aria already has the 93 Zilliken spatlese and 06 Dupont-Tisserandot Fixin on its list but really needs much more red and white Burgundy, so I hope they buy up soon.

Tony Harper at WE seemed impressed with many of the wines and hopefully they will expand their Eurocentric offerings. Cru already take a few wines, namely Willi Schaefers and Alex Gambals (which they reordered), as well as Alluviale, Dada, Rene Geoffroy champagne and now the Benfield & Delamare bordeaux blend from Martinborough -- their first outlet in Australia!

Grand Central went for Dombeya shiraz and the bordeaux blend, and the Champagne Gallery ordered Henri Billiot as a Christmas treat for their loyal supporters.

Bar Alto boss Simon Hill is renovating his Isis Brasserie and relaunching with a new look and feel before Christmas and I am very hopeful of getting a good range of German riesling and gewurztraminer there, as well as the gorgeous Redoubt Hill pinot gris.

Better not jump the gun but I think Brisbane wine lovers will be able to find other Eurocentric wines in several other retail outlets soon.

WA has been going great guns through the agency Terra Wines, and after a week of driving through the Gold Coast, Byron, Coffs Harbour and Newcastle, I will seek to spread the love throughout NSW to Canberra, then Melbourne and Adelaide.

I'm counting on it all going well enough that I can sneak over to Europe in November.

I've also added a post on the www.eurocentricwine.com.au site showing the shipping movements expected over the next few months.

Redoubt Hill should be in the warehouse next week, about the time the new Dombeya wines set sail from Durban (I ship from there to avoid going through Singapore and a double equator crossing).

My focus now is on some quick sales to clear some space and raise money for three more containers planned from France and Germany. Sales have been going well for the first one, heavy on 07 Burgundy, with our two Chablis producers and two Beaujolais domaines to make their debuts, and David Leclapart's first 20 cases of champagne for Australia finally to get on board.

It's hot here in Brisbane. Perfect weather for Hawke's Bay sauvignon blanc or German riesling. And now I'm thirsty!

New shipment, new markets

2009-09-21T01:36:00.003+10:00

After a frantic week last week, this week should be, well, frantic as well!

Last week I had Dombeya winemaker Rinie Strydom in town to celebrate the success of her Haskell Pillars Shiraz 07, which won the Tri Nations prize for best shiraz, best red and best wine of show. The 2007 Dombeya Chardonnay also won a gold medal.

We toured the Sydney restaurant and retail scene on Monday and Tuesday, cramming in 16 visits and securing several new markets, the best being an order for 30 cases of 2009 Sauvignon Blanc by Quay, Sydney's No.1-rated restaurant.

A groovy South African food store in Lane Cove called Springbok Delights took all three wines available and put their hand up for the three new releases -- the SB, a straight 2007 cabernet and a straight 2007 merlot.

Aria, near the Opera House, went for the 2006 Boulder Road Shiraz and 2005 Samara cabernet/merlot/malbec, while Bentley Bar went for the Samara and wants the SB as well.

The well-stocked Sackville Hotel Bottleshop at the top end of Darling St in Balmain/Rozelle loved all the wines and took the three available now, as did Cremorne Cellars, which is one of the best-looking wine stores in Sydney.

We expect orders from Tetsuya's and Galileo, too.

The SB, Cabernet and Merlot should be landing in Sydney in late October.

The rest of last week was taken up with drawing up a pre-arrival offer for the next shipment of wine out of France, containing lots of fabulous 2007 Burgundy, as well as our first Chablis and Beaujolais, with two boutique producers from each of those two regions. We'll also be getting more Billiot and Geoffroy rosé, and the first shipment from cult Champagne maker David Léclapart.

Arriving today, September 21, is some new wines and some fresh stocks from New Zealand. From Alluviale in Hawke's Bay comes the gold medal-winning 2007 Merlot Cabernet Franc and more stock of the moreish 2008 Alluviale Blanc. Unison top up their fabulous 2007 Gimblett Gravels Merlot and 2008 Rosé just in time for summer. Ash Ridge on nearby Ngatarawa Road move onto the gorgeous 2009 barrel-fermented reserve sauvignon blanc and the equally enticing 2007 reserve cabernet merlot.

From Benfield & Delamare comes our first Martinborough wine, the cult classic bordeaux blend from 2006, and there's just 25 cases for the country.

Next onto the boat from NZ will be fresh stocks of the 2006 Surveyor Thomson Single-Vineyard pinot noir from Central Otago, and our first delivery from new team member Redoubt Hill in Nelson, with crisp, fresh and fruity 2009 sauvignon blanc and 2009 pinot gris.

I'll be hitting the road this week to spread the word and find some new homes for these beauties. I'll drive to Brisbane on Friday and meet with the famous Book Club members for some Burgundy callibration first. From Monday I will work my way down from Noosa, then have a couple of days in Brisbane, a couple on the Gold Coast, and then Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour, Newcastle and back to Sydney.

Then it'll be on to Canberra, Beechworth, the Yarra Valley, Melbourne and Adelaide, with a couple of sneaky side trips pencilled in.

Let me know if you have a fine wine store, wine bar or restaurant on this route that could do with some great boutique wines from some of the world's rising stars.

Europe might off the travel agenda for now, but I'm doing my best to bring a taste of it to our shores.

Online shopping up and running

2009-08-26T07:57:00.003+10:00

I've had a website for my wine importing business for more than a year, but with the addition of a retail liquor licence in April, I cracked the whip on a friend to set up online shopping on that site.

The idea isn't to undercut the retailers who support my producers, but to offer consumers the wines that aren't being offered anywhere else, such as very small allocations, bin ends, and very rare wines that might not otherwise find a home at a full retail price.

The store is up and running now, although improvements will continue to be made. I've finished adjusting prices and adding reviews to the product descriptions, and my friend has taken bottle shots and hopes to upload them this weekend.

Ideally I would like orders in straight dozens because then I don't need to handle the wine, reducing the cost of time and the chance of breakages. But in reality orders can be one bottle of each wine up to a minimum order of six bottles of champagne or 12 bottles of wine.

This gives people the opportunity to mix and match, try all sorts of new styles and producers, or share a sampler pack with friends.

I will probably tweak discounts from time to time and offer special trial packs, but for now you can enter the word "dozen" at the checkout stage to receive a 10% discount on the total order. Remember, many of these items are already at a lower price than retail, so the savings are substantial.

Payment is via direct deposit, so you place your order, await email confirmation and an invoice, pay the account and then wait for the mailman with your delivery. Postage rates are very reasonable to the eastern metropolitan areas but a little steeper to SA and WA. Order four dozen or more and we will waive the fee altogether. Insurance is available at $2.80 per $100 value.

Meanwhile, Terra Wines has made a great start to distribution in WA and Eurocentric wines will soon start to grace the wine lists of several restaurants and wine bars, as well as the shelves of adventurous retailers.

I will soon be hitting the road to Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide to try to improve the takeup rate in those areas. Whether I make it to Europe in time for the German riesling auctions -- where the best wines of the 2008 vintage will be shown and sold -- depends on whether I see a sudden influx of orders and payments.

I'd certainly like to be there to try the cream of the crop, to finalise orders from the big Eurocentric team in Germany, to visit a new Champagne producer, catch up with the latest from Burgundy and to meet one of the leaders from the resurgent Beaujolais wine scene.

New producers and online shopping

2009-08-03T02:49:00.004+10:00

Very remiss of me not to update you more regularly. If I ever end up in hospital and have use of my arms (or preferably a remote location with power and internet access), I will spend some of the time catching up on months of tasting notes!

There are two main snippets of news to share right now:

I have secured the Australian distribution rights for Martinborough, NZ, boutique producer Benfield and Delamare. I've been allocated 25 cases of the delicious 2006 vintage of their top wine, a merlot-cabernet franc blend. It is an elegant, enticing wine, plummy and perfumed with what I would call fruits of the forest -- blackberries, blueberries, wild strawberries even.

And the website for my business -- www.eurocentricwine.com.au -- now has an online store so that the Australian public can browse and choose from the complete range. Retailers obviously pick and choose through the portfolio according to what they believe their customers will buy, and some great wines have until this point been overlooked. There are also some rare and very expensive German sweet wines that might find favour with a collector or parent wanting to tuck away birth-year gifts for well into the future.

Special introductory mixed dozens are yet to be listed, but you can mix and match single bottles of your own choosing to a minimum order of one dozen and enjoy at least 10% off the total price.

Payment is by means of direct bank transfer of cheque, although the latter must be cleared before goods will be shipped.

The website now also carries a downloadable PDF catalogue with notes on producers and many international independent reviews of the wines. The monthly newsletter will also soon be available as an archive.

I will be busy in Sydney for the next two weeks, with plans to show wines to interested retailers and restaurants on Thursday, August 6. I will be in New Zealand from August 14-31, primarily to catch up with the North Island producers and try their next releases.

I aim to make quick visits to Brisbane and Melbourne in September and then go to Europe by about the 23rd. The VDP German riesling auctions are a great way to taste the best the 2008 vintage has to offer, plus secure some very limited edition gems and catch up with the 11 winemakers I import from.

If I manage to go, I will stay for a month and see some new Champagne prospects, taste the 2008s in Burgundy, and meet my new Beaujolais producer, Roland Pignard.

There are plans for a shipment of wine out of France in September if the finances come together. That shipment would include Champagne, Burgundy, Chablis and Beaujolais.

Another shipment out of Germany would bring Maximin Grunhaus and Van Volxem wines here for the first time, plus the 2008s from Willi Schaefer, Schloss Lieser, Rebholz, Emrich-Schonleber, Schafer-Frohlich and perhaps the rest of the team there.

Champagne has been the hot ticket lately, with Rockpool Bar & Grill in Sydney lapping up the Rene Geoffroy Empreinte, while Aria, which won the Good Food Guide wine list of the year award in 2009, proved their good taste in opting to list the Geoffroy Rosé de Saignée by the glass and bottle.

Stocks are low of red Burgundies until the 2007s arrive, but there are some fantastic New Zealand reds available now, and ample riesling and white Burgundy to suit the white wine lovers.

And so this brief note turns into another epistle ... I'm off for now, but please check out the website. I'd not only appreciate your custom but your feedback.

Cheers!
Neville

Sleepless in Sydney

2009-07-09T17:31:00.003+10:00

Well, it's kind of nice to be in the one place for a little while, because the second half of the year is shaping up to be quite hectic.

I've just done a lap of the right-hand side of Australia (OK, I went to the three biggest cities outside Sydney) to show off some of the new arrivals and "old" favourites from the first shipment.

Straight back from NZ I went to Melbourne, starting with a Central Otago tasting at Prince Wine Store in South Melbourne, where I helped Sharon Flavell on the Surveyor Thomson stand. We got a lot of good feedback for the 06 pinot, which is sealed under diam reconstituted cork. The 07 was out and about for a sneak preview. Some of it was sealed under diam, the bulk under screwcap, but right now the diam-sealed is the better bottle. I think the screwcap will have caught up by the time it is released in November.

It was a pretty big turnout and a tiring day coming on top of about two hours' sleep as I printed catalogues, prepared materials and caught a 6am flight ... I stayed with friends in the Yarra Valley for the next two nights and then ventured back to the big smoke for a trade tasting at Comme. Well, only 13 of the 25 trade who confirmed for the Central Otago masterclass bothered to turn up, and there was only a handful of other trade who came along to taste. It was a shocking result for the region. Melbourne seems to be hurting a bit more than it is letting on, and I have heard more than a dozen restaurants are banned from buying wine from other suppliers because of non-payment of bills.

I left there and went to the Albert Park Hotel, where I had a beautiful room upstairs for my first trade tasting of the year. Again, the turnout was disappointing. Many who said they would come didn't, most with valid reasons: doctors stuck in surgery, lawyers stuck in court, retailers swamped with work. The feedback from the punters was fantastic though: the champagnes from Billiot, Geoffroy and Ployez all found many new fans, and the lineup of 20 or so rieslings was like a masterclass of nine producers, from dry to auslese goldcap.

I bundled up all the leftovers for a major retailer to try the next day, and prepared for leg two in Brisbane. I went straight from the airport to the next Central Otago session, trade followed by public at the same venue. These were both well supported and the feedback very popular. Punters would come back and say the Surveyor Thomson pinot was in their top two or three of the day, and at $45 retail it's good value.

The next day, Wednesday, June 17, I held my own tasting at Monsoon in Fortitude Valley. There wasn't a huge turnout but they were quality customers -- a guy who owns a couple of top restaurants spent a fair bit of time there, as did the whole team from the Wine Emporium in a couple of shifts. Cru Bar + Cellar staff tasted widely and ordered strongly, and wine critic and writer Tyson Stelzer took lots of notes and will be publishing some in the next WBM100 magazine. There's a 94, a 95 and a 96-pointer in there from him, which I'm mildly pleased about ;-) There was also a great crew of customers from the Champagne Gallery who call themselves FOCers - Friends of Champagne. The head honcho described herself as the Mother-FOCer. 8-)

Went back to Sydney to regroup and plan the next tasting on Monday, June 22. Again, lots of no shows from trade ... it seems I will virtually have to go door to door to catch the attention of some sommeliers, which is rather time consuming and less productive for all concerned. At this tasting I had more than 50 wines open, and if I was going door to door I would take just six to 10.

The extras this time were the new Ash Ridge and Unison wines from Hawke's Bay, plus a preview of Stephane Aladame's Cremant de Bourgogne -- bubbles from outside the Champagne region -- and some 07 Burgundies. The Alex Gambal Deux Papis bourgogne rouge is a gorgeous little wine and will be a hit later this year. The Camille Giroud 1er crus also had people reaching for their wallets, but they will have to wait for the next container too!

The feedback again was excellent -- a sommelier from an Italian restaurant who came to try the champagnes succumbed to temptation and tried some rieslings, and was stunned. He wanted to not like them but couldn't resist and said he would have to add some to his wine list! Woohoo.

The last stop was Adelaide. There was some confusion as to who was going to invite the trade (I'm being diplomatic), so I hit the phones on Sunday and tried to round up as many people as possible. Got a good public turnout and more valuable feedback. People loved the champagnes, the Hawke's Bay syrahs, Alluviale's merlot-cabernet franc, the Dombeya wines and different rieslings won over different people, which is exactly how it should be.

The venue was nice but I didn't like being charged $200 for a staff member who went home before the tasting started! And they are resisting my calls for a refund. They haven't heard the end of this.

The next day was windy and stormy but I eventually tore myself away from the comfort of Alex Romanee Conti's house to go to McLaren Vale. I showed a few wines to Fino (they seemed to love everything) and Salopian Inn. Couple of top eateries there. I almost bought a place in MV once and would still love to live down that way. As well as the house in Burgundy of course ;-)

Back to Sydney, I ran myself ragged with a sleepless night from illness and an early flight. For the first time in I don't know how long I couldn't sleep on the plane, and then it was into a hectic seven-stop tasting tour with Philip Horn from Unison and Chris Wilcock from Ash Ridge. Their presence opened the door at some new retailers, and the wines were well received all day (as well as at five more stores the next day). Already they are for sale at Wine Culture in Roseville, Best Cellars in East Sydney, Vintage Blue in Kent St and as of tomorrow will be at the fabulous new Rockpool Bar & Grill in Hunter St.

We had dinner that night with friends at A'Mews on Glebe Pt Road to show how food friendly the wines were ... Richard Moyser did exceptionally well (on his birthday) to match dishes to wines he hadn't even tasted!

I'm never without plenty of work to do ... and I have to make the most of the new financial year to ring up some good sales as the pressure is on from Europe to settle bills and pay for the next shipment. I would love to get this 20-foot container of Champagne and Burgundy -- including my first Beaujolais and two Chablis -- here by October, in time for the warmer weather.

What's next? An agency is about to start pushing the range in Perth, which is well overdue, and I will sneak out to Canberra and Newcastle to show any interested restaurants and retailers a few bottles. In mid-August I will head to NZ to try new releases from Alluviale, Ash Ridge and Unison, and in September I hope to go back to Europe to try new wines, attend the German riesling auctions (for the rare few sweeter wines of the 08 vintage), try to find a northern Rhone bargain to import, and seal the deal with a couple more cult Champagne producers.

Stay tuned.

New shipment, more travel, trade shows ...

2009-06-12T15:20:00.002+10:00

I must be way overdue for an update.

A lot has happened in the past few weeks: the second container for Eurocentric Wine Imports arrived; I went to New Zealand to visit Surveyor Thomson; and I booked venues for four trade and consumer tastings in Australia!

The bare bones ... the container was finally delivered to WineVault in Sydney on Monday, June 1. It wasn't on pallets, and the paperwork was wrong, but those are things that can be overcome. With the help of WV staff, an impatient truck driver, a friend I had taken along just in case and The Hawk on rescue duty, we pulled the 800-900 cases off the truck and roughly stacked them on pallets. I even took a crash course in how to operate a forklift (the push kind, not the drive kind) and managed to get all the wine off without a breakage.

That day and next, Michaels and I restacked every pallet so we could check them off and put them in more reasonable order for storage. Turns out the WV guys are going to restack it all again anyhow. I managed to kick over the most precious wine there -- a 1993 Zilliken Auslese -- and as fantastic as it smelled, I resisted the urge to lick up the remains from the dirty cement floor.

Fortunately I did most of the order packing while I directed Michaels on how to correctly identify and stack the rest of the wine. I think he was broken for about a week afterwards. No wonder I was so sore when I unloaded that first container almost by myself!

The pre-arrival orders were all dispatched without drama and then I raced to NZ for a week. I stayed overnight in Auckland then flew to Queenstown, where Sharon Flavell, the marketing manager of Surveyor Thomson, showed me around. I checked out the small vineyard, planted in two stages on an elevated site overlooking Lake Dunstan. They are going to build a tasting room/lodge there on the highest spot, in the shadow of a mountain range. Awesome place.

The tour included a helicopter flight over the ski fields, lakes and mountain ranges to get a feel for the special place that produces some of New Zealand's most internationally acclaimed wines.

I returned to Auckland and then made a detour to Tauranga to talk to Doug and Ange Hendry about their business, The Puzzle Company, for which I am the Australian rep. They are doing very well in the face of threatened newspaper extinction, and in fact a lot of people probably buy the paper for their crosswords, quizzes and brain teasers.

I had a nice surprise with two big orders from new customers while I was away. I hadn't met either person but they had seen the new catalogue and they knew of some of the wines. Rene Geoffroy is proving a hit (and I have opened only one bottle so far, and that was a rosé for Aria, who promptly made it their house rosé).

Bernadette O'Shea is the queen of champagne in Queensland and she prompted the Wine Emporium to lash out on some Ployez-Jacquemart, Rene Geoffroy and Henri Billiot, and we will probably team up for some dinners later this year. I've also had contact from "Champagne Jayne", a champagne corporate educator/entertainer, who is a mad Geoffroy fan and is keen to see as many people enjoy them as possible.

The second satisfying order came from the new Rockpool Bar & Grill, which boasts the best wine list in the southern hemisphere, if not the world. They bought Geoffroy, Billiot, Alex Gambal red and white Burgundies, Dupont-Tisserandot red Burgs and Matrot whites. They are also sizing up the Geoffroy Empreinte as their house champagne.

I've been frantically trying to book venues in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide for tastings to get the wines seen by as many trade as possible. Melbourne was a real problem, not only to find a suitable venue, but to find one that didn't want thousands for the honour! I eventually locked in the Albert Park Hotel's upstairs lounge. I should have moved on this earlier as that was a suggestion by Winestar supremo Bert Werden ... I've since heard it is renovated and looks a treat.

I'm going to Melbourne tomorrow (June 13) for the Central Otago series of trade and consumer tastings, then on Monday afternoon I will be waiting hopefully for trade to turn up at the Albert Park for my session from 2pm, with retailers able to bring their favourite customers in to the late sessio from 5.30pm.

The format will be repeated in Brisbane at the Monsoon restaurant in the Bravo Hotel next Wednesday, in Sydney at Time to Vino on Monday June 22 and in Adelaide at the Universal Wine Bar on Monday June 29.

After that I will try to arrange a session in Perth, and will do road trips to Canberra and Newcastle.

The orders are flowing from people I haven't even spoken to, so hopefully the cashflow will overtake the buying debts and I can work on the next super-exciting container of Burgundy and Champagne.

I finally created a new portfolio and price list, as well as a newsletter in a reader friendly format, so if you'd like any of them, drop me an email.

Cheers,
Neville

Hard at work in Sydney

2009-05-23T17:46:00.004+10:00

It's all happening at the moment ... hang on, when hasn't it been all happening for the past year?!

I've been out and about in the trade for the past couple of weeks, meeting existing clients and potential new ones. The first couple of days was with Grant Dodd of Dombeya in Stellenbosch, even though Grant is an Aussie, former golf pro and now Channel 10 golf commentator! The Dombeyas have been getting a great reception, and people are very pleasantly surprised by the cost. I approached Grant about these wines originally because Kemenys wanted some. I didn't intend to source them but Grant twisted my arm (lob wedge to the back of the head). When they landed, Kemenys cancelled their order. Grrr.

Now Becasse has put the chardonnay on its list, North Sydney Cellars and Wine Culture at Roseville have taken the chardonnay, shiraz and Samara bordeaux blend, Annandale Cellars loved the chardonnay too, and Cremorne Cellars has gone the chard-shiraz double. Who'd have thought South African wine would be so popular? Must be all the new immigrants! No, the wines are genuinely good, and retail for $30-35 each. Another of Sydney's top restaurants, Aria, has asked to see the chardonnay and bordeaux blend next week too.

This week I was on the road with Wine by Brad and Mantra wines, Surveyor Thomson pinot and Alluviale wines from NZ, and a couple of rieslings. The response made me realise I should take fewer wines each time ... people wanted to buy all of them but couldn't, so they were in competition with themselves. Becasse ended up taking Schloss Lieser riesling; Fix St James went for the Brad duo of cab merlot and sem sav blanc, as well as Schloss Lieser and Willi Schaefer rieslings; the Australian Wine Centre restocked Surveyor Thomson; Cremorne Cellars went for Schloss Lieser, Alluviale Blanc, Surveyor Thomson and Dupont-Tisserandot premier cru red Burgundy; and Annandale opted for WBB, Surveyor Thomson, Willi Schaefer and Dupont's Gevrey village.

Most of these wines are sealed with screwcaps or diam corks, so I don't have any problem with faults, thankfully.

I'll be hitting the phones again on Monday and Tuesday to rustle up some more appointments, because on June 1 and 2 I hope to be packing people's pre-arrival orders, on June 3 I fly to Auckland, on June 4 I pop down to Queenstown to see the Surveyor Thomson vineyard (even though it will be under snow! What is it with snow following me everywhere?!)

Then I have a couple of days to celebrate a friend's 50th birthday, at the same time finishing off the new catalogue to reflect the 20 exclusive imported wine brands that will be available nationwide from Eurocentric Wine Imports from June 10. Scary in a way -- that's only half of it!

I'm really excited about this shipment, although it's all white wine. What's with that in the middle of winter? Oh well, in plenty of time to get on the sumer wine lists, I hope. What is going to take off? I think the Rene Geoffroy and Henri Billiot rosés, the Geoffroy Empreinte champagne, as it's just been listed as the house bubbly at French Laundry and Per Se, the bourgogne blanc sealed in screwcap from Thierry Matrot, and the bargain premier cru whites from Stephane Aladame.

I'm obviously a riesling tragic, representing 13 top producers from Germany, but these truly are some of the great whites of the wine world, and so inexpensive. Arriving down under for the first time are five-star producers Emrich-Schonleber, Schafer-Frohlich, Okonomierat Rebholz and Zilliken, and the bargain Mosel mover Andreas Schmitges.

What else is happening? The company bought me -- or is leasing at least -- a much more suitable car for sales and delivery calls. It's an SUV, so I can flip open the boot, put the seats down and load up the back with wine that can be covered and kept airconditioned, and there's not the same back-bending and scrambling as required when you load up the back seat of a Honda Accord!

The deal has been done in such a way as to take advantage of the government's tax breaks on asset investment, while the sale of the Honda will go back into the business as I battle on manfully for the three years that banks insist on before they will even consider financial support. By then I might not need it.

Right, back to work ... I'm ringing every Australian who has stayed at the wonderful house at Ployez Jacquemart in Ludes, Champagne, offering them an introductory deal and some free flutes and ice buckets if they buy enough!

Cheers!
Neville

What's going on? An overview

2009-05-16T23:17:00.006+10:00

I'm way behind in blogging ... I must update regularly and more briefly! Just to bring you up to date, this has been what I've been up to and what the schedule is for the next few weeks:

March 24-28: Flew to Frankfurt via Hong Kong and London. Picked up a rental car and visited Eurocentric Wine Imports clients Van Volxem, Zilliken, Maximin Grunhaus, Schmitges, Schloss Lieser, Willi Schaefer, Reinhold Haart and Knebel, in that order.
March 29-31: Prowein trade show in Dusseldorf. Two days was enough for me. I tried the wines of about 30 riesling producers, which underlined just how good my guys were, although there were two others I really liked ... one day, if sales take off ... also tried a champagne house and ended up visiting them in Champagne but ultimately decided against them on price ... a Burgundy producer who was OK but not right for me ... and took the last day off to catch up on paperwork.
April 1-2: More riesling tastings in the Nahe and Pfalz: existing clients Rebholz, Emrich-Schonleber and Schafer-Frohlich, and three other potential producers that I decided against.
April 3-6: Couple of nice dinners at very good restaurants with affordable sensational wine lists, and some disappointing tastings around Alsace. One fabulous tasting at Zind Humbrecht. I ended up ordering from their Aus agent.
April 7-16: In Burgundy with Gav and Gen for 10 days. Covered a lot of domaines, up to seven in a day ... picked up a few new ones here that I had been chasing for a while or who Gav had done scouting work on. Decided against some on quality, others on price. The additions to the portfolio are Jean-Philippe Fichet (Meursault), Benoit Ente (Puligny-Montrachet), Paul Pernot (Puligny), Aurelien Verdet (Cote de Nuits mostly) and Humbert Freres (Gevrey). There were a couple I had been chasing for a year who I just didn't think cut it for the money they wanted. And there's one I haven't yet decided on. But it was great to get back to Dupont-Tisserandot and see his fabulous 07s. Also was impressed by the wines at Alex Gambal and am working on getting them to Australia for a lower price. Camille Giroud and Domaine des Croix were impressive as expected. David Clark's wines are trucking along nicely, and the 07s that will be coming to Australia are now in bottle. Thierry Matrot's 07 whites are brilliant, and I will bring some of the juicy, fresh reds as well. I'm not sure whether his late-harvest sweet Aligote would find a market, but it is sensational! I had a fun visit with the cute young Aladame couple in Montagny and toured their vineyards to get a better appreciation for their fine work.
April 17: Chablis: I think I have chosen two very good producers with quite contrasting styles. One to enjoy young and one to cellar, and both very good value: Jean-Claude Bessin and Frederic Gueguen of Domaine des Chenevieres. I'm not sure which name is easier to say!
April 18: Another pleasant tasting (but a no) in Chablis before heading to the southernmost part of Champagne for a fascinating afternoon with new client Bertrand Gautheroe of Vouette et Sorbee. These wines "out-Selosse Seloss", as Sydney sommelier Nick Hildebrandt says. They are not for the fainthearted!
April 19: A leisurely drive through the backblocks of Champagne, finishing at a small hotel chain on the outskirts of Reims.
April 20-23: Lots of champagne tasting, starting with a "soil and vine" show for boutique producers to showcase some finished champagne and to show some 08 juice. I thought EWI clients Rene Geoffroy, Chartogne-Taillet and David Leclapart performed exceptionally. Visited a large Champagne house and could import it into Australia ... if I thought I could sell 40,000 bottles of it a year. Unfortunately I didn't much like the flavour or the price of the entry level NV, which should account for 85% of sales. It made me appreciate once again the quality from EWI clients Ployez-Jacquemart, Henri Billiot and Rene Geoffroy. I also took the opportunity to see more of the vineyards, to have a long and leisurely lunch with M. Leclapart, and to get an understanding of the great work Alexandre Chartogne is doing. Another cult producer that should join the team just doesn't have any wine available at the moment but should next year.
April 24-25:Drove north to Amiens, my base for a night so I could soak up the Anzac Day atmosphere in Villers-Bretonneux and Le Hamel. A sobering sidetrack. Then a five-hour drive through Belgium to Germany again.
April 26-27: In Mainz for the 2008 riesling vintage launch. I'd tried many of the wines three times by now so I know how good the vintage is. So refreshing!
April 28-May 2: R&R in London, and some careful Burgundy research with my mentor, Dr Jenkins.
May 4: Step off the plane in Sydney and proceed to battle jetlag for a good 10 days, the worst ever. Sleeping at all sorts of crazy hours, or not sleeping as was mostly the case. Still, I had plenty of work to do, with a shipment due in on May 26. A pre-arrival offer was created and dispatched, complete with tasting notes for all 10 producers.

Coming up!

May 17-31: Tastings in and around Sydney with potential new clients.
June 1-2: Unpacking the container and sending out orders.
June 3-9: In New Zealand to see Central Otago pinot noir producer Surveyor Thomson, celebrate my good friend Doug's 50th birthday and see my grandfather, who is fast approaching his 99th!
June 13-15: Trade shows in Melbourne, including a launch of the new Eurocentric offerings
June 16-17: Ditto for Brisbane
June 18: Central Otago in Sydney.
June 22: Eurocentric launch to trade

And so on. Phew. Much to do before another trip to NZ in August and a return to Europe in Sept-Oct to finalise orders, try new vintages and to sift through another 20 potential producers.

And just like that I've written a stack again.

Digging deep in Champagne

2009-04-20T03:20:00.009+10:00

I have been too busy to update this regularly, let alone daily, but I have many stories to share in good time. But first, the latest adventure -- my first day in Champagne on this trip:

"TASTE this dirt," said down-to-earth winemaker Bertrand Gautherot in the tiny Champagne village of Buxières-sur-Arce.

I was glad he offered it to my travelling companion Gavin first, a double handful of claggy clay from a neighbouring plot of vines. Despite protestations that his English was terrible, Bertrand can express himself very well in another tongue, but in this instance the word he was looking for was smell, not taste. It was a shame Gavin understood what he meant.

It's true, the dirt in his neighbour's vineyard not only looked pallid, it smelled awful in comparison to his own lovingly tended vineyard a few steps away. It was apparent from sight and smell that biodynamic practices produce healthier soil, and logically healthier vines and potentially better wine.

The proof was eventually in the tasting - of wine, still and sparkling, from bottle and barrel, rather than the dirt underfoot - that Bertrand is on the right track in his small plots in the southern region of Aube.

The story begins in World War I, when Bertrand's grandfather fought from start to finish and returned to this village one of the few surviving men. His land holdings soon increased from 30 hectares to 300, including 15ha of vines. Bertrand eventually inherited some of that land and has bought other small holdings to take his total to 5ha, although not all under vine.

Like most of the other growers still do in BSA, he contributed grapes to a co-operative until the mid-1990s, when he made a trip to Sancerre, Chablis and Alsace and became fascinated with biodynamic practices. He converted his vineyards in 1998, but kept selling to the co-op until the 2001 vintage, when it became apparent the two styles didn't mix. In fact, in that year the bulk of non-bio vineyards in the area could manage to get their grapes to a potential alcohol level of just 7.5% because of persistent rain, and tonnes of sugar were added to bring the wine to some level of drinkability.

Bertrand's grapes were much healthier and riper and, thanks to the insistence of Anselme Selosse, who Bertrand calls a biodynamic god, his own label was launched, Vouette et Sorbée. Bertrand had sought out the Avize champagne master to discuss biodynamic practices and said that after just a few days they had developed a special rapport. Selosse visited his estate and insisted Bertrand make his own wine. He jokes that he now has a dedicated telephone - a hotline to Selosse - if ever he has a problem. He has called just twice, and both times Selosse answered with a host of questions of his own to push his protege to figure out the answers for himself.

There are other disciples - notably Jerome Prevost and Olivier Collin - and Selosse insists it is their responsibility, along with others in the biodynamic forefront such as David Leclapart, Pierre Larmandier and Alexandre Chartogne, to pass on what they learn.

Bertrand's modus operandi is basically respect for the land. He allows grass and weeds to grow to contain vigour in the vines and to force the roots to go deeper; he sprays copper sulphate only when needed, as well as a biodynamic preparation; he raises his own cattle and mixes their manure with hay as a fertiliser (but happily admits to eating the herd's offspring); and he is preparing original American rootstock to accept cuttings because he doesn't like the way the nurseries do it.

The names of wines and vineyards all carry meaning: Fidele for fidelity/loyalty; Blanc d'Argile, a reference to the rocky soil; and the domaine name Vouette et Sorbee relates to natural features of the land, the narrow track up the side of one vineyard (a vouette), and the trees (sorbées) surrounding another. He's cheeky, too: we walked through a neighbouring vineyard to see more of his vines, and he called the climb "crossing Chernobyl". He's not far wrong: the soil looked pale and lifeless.

The soil in the area is the same as in Chablis, just 60km to the southwest, but the average temperature here is lower and the average annual rainfall 80mm higher.

OK, it's all well and good to cultivate healthy soil, crop at low levels and pick at optimal ripeness (the neighbours once knocked on his door, concerned that he had forgotten to harvest because they had finished and he had not started), but how did he get to the point in such a short time that demand for his wine exceeds supply?

First, the supply was so small: 3000 bottles in 2004 when he was selling the rest of his grapes to raise funds for much-needed infrastructural expansion, rising to a pre-allocated 15,000 in 2010, with an estimated increase to 30,000 in another three years and an ultimate cap of 40,000 bottles because he and his wife Helene have decided to preserve their lifestyle and not pursue more vineyards and a greater workload. You can tell that is going to be hard for Bertrand to stick to now that he has the bit between his teeth.

Second, the marketing plan was brilliant in its absence: He took some bottles to a quirky bistro in the nearby city of Troyes, where the staff decided the wine was fantastic and they would spread the word to Paris. Within two weeks he had received his first order from Japan - before he had even settled on a price list.

He's obviously not out to make millions: he has refused requests for stock for a couple of years to build up his cellar, and he says he wants just enough money to keep his wife and children happy. He also marks his labels with a code to ensure that if wine destined for one market turns up in another, he knows the guilty party. And he says fame is fleeting, and he wants his wine savoured by enthusiasts, not only by those with money and connections.

Bertrand chuckles when he thinks about how his wine has found its way to Italy, Scandinavia, the UK, US and Japan, and will soon be appearing in Australia. The first allocation for Eurocentric down under is just 60 bottles of 2006 Saignee de Sorbée, a rosé made from the smaller bunches of vines closest to the rootstock.

Next year the offer will likely be 180 bottles of Fidele Blanc de Noirs, 90 bottles of Blanc d'Argile (BdB) and 30 bottles of the saignee, all 2007 vintage. The BdN is likely to be around $120, the BdB about $150 and the rose should squeak in under $200. He will keep pushing the release date back until the wine is a full year older than it is on release now.

So, onto the tasting. We examined nine samples in the cuverie, from barrels of different sizes. The new crop from 2008 hadn't yet gone through their malolactic fermentation so were understandably acidic, showing plenty of grapefruit flavour and crisp minerality. The first was a pinot noir from Sorbée and Bertrand thought it a little heavy. The nose was very generous and I thought the palate elegant enough. But the second sample, from the "daughter" vineyard, Biaune, was leaner, showing more finesse and yet still citrus flavours. Bertrand explained that it was a cooler area, getting less sun exposure and facing the forest rather than the village. It was thought by others to be the worst plot but he feels it is fantastic. It is hard to argue. The third sample came from a tiny warmer vineyard and was noticeably softer and mellow. All three were from Kimmeridgian soil, the same in Chablis and the Cote Chalonnaise, where another Eurocentric producer, Stephane Aladame, crafts his subtle chardonnays.

The fourth sample was more chalky, coming from Portlandien soil, with green apples, some yellow fruit, oak spice and touches of cream. The fifth was an experiment with a yeast selection to see if he could get away with using less sulphur dioxide. Bertrand isn't happy with the result, so he will pursue the same goal through less oxidative winemaking techniques.

The sixth, the saignée, was a pretty soft pink, fragrant but showing less flavour at this stage, and was made using a brief carbonic maceration in a style that hails from Bertrand's childhood. He is looking for tannin here to help preserve the wine.

The chardonnay vineyard planted by his father produced the seventh sample, very floral and slightly creamy, while the eighth was from young vines and seemed tightly wound but at the same time remarkably complex.

We then tapped into one of his soleras - a huge oak vat of reserve wine that he adds to and draws off each year. Eventually he will have one each of pinot noir and chardonnay. This blend though was simply awesome, showing plenty of oak influence but great richness of fruit and length on the palate.

At last it was time to crack a bottle. This hadn't been a standard domaine visit: there's the winery, here's the wine, let's run through them. No, we had spent two hours in the vines, studying the soil and plants - in between throwing sticks for his indefatigable dog Chops - and then an hour in the cuverie before the first bottle was even produced.

It was a 2006 Blanc d'Argile, which seemed a contradiction: a very fine mousse, elegant, classy, delicate in a way, but packed with flavour and yet not heavy. Bertrand doesn't use much sugar for the secondary ferment and there is no filtration, so he explained that the wine would run out of fizz quite quickly, but I suspect the liquid will run out before the bubbles do.

The second bottle was still on lees, and Bertrand hand-disgorged it for us. There was no need for a dosage - none of his wines have one added - but it was still rich. The oak was prominent but not offensive, like a Krug on steroids, with cream, caramel, butter and popcorn flavours, and a soft, lingering finish. It was from his second vintage, a 2002 Fidele.

The man certainly can make wine but I sense he knows there is still much to be learned. His neighbours think he is crazy but all he cares about is the love of his family, the respect of his peers and spending time communing with his small corner of God's nature.

I promise to return soon, to talk more and to perhaps go for a motorbike ride together. He has three bikes - a Moto Guzzi, a trials bike and an enduro bike - so he insists I don't need to bring one. He likes to go wild though, he warns. "I must be strict in winemaking, so riding is my release, my chance to let the adrenaline flow." I get the feeling it never actually stops.

Vouette et Sorbee website

Take note: How to dine alone in style

2009-04-04T21:36:00.011+11:00

I went to dinner last night at one of my secret restaurants in Europe that sells great wine at great prices, and kept a running commentary:

FAMILIAR faces greet me at this gastronomic delight in the middle of nowhere. The maitre d' doesn't recognise me but the sommelier does -- I've been stalking her for a year now. When she saw me at ProWein I think she ran for cover, remembering my lame pickup attempts at two previous visits to this restaurant in 2008.

This time, however, she seems pleased to see me and leads me to a table big enough for four in the main dining room. This is the room that went into shocked silence a year ago when I walked in with Gav, Gen and Michel. We're not sure what we did but perhaps it was the sight of a little Eurasian girl in the company of three hulking studs ;-)

That time we discovered a 1992 Leflaive Montrachet (the greatest wine wine I've ever had) and a 1978 Rousseau Chambertin, before slipping horrendously with a brett 1993 Rousseau Clos de la Roche and some sickly 1976 German sweet wine.

On the second visit, Danny, Alex and I were ushered to a dingy table next to a sour couple with a stinky dog. The sommelier -- in fact most of the staff -- ignored us, so we went for the jugular with a 95 Matrot Meursault, a 93 DRC La Tache and another 78 Rousseau Chambertin. That showed them :-)

So here I am alone, with a great view of the dining room. The car park was packed with BMWs, Mercedes (all a bit bigger than "mine") and Audis -- the Hummers were obviously around the back -- and the number plates show French and Swiss origins. Word is getting around.

On my left are two tables of retirement-age couples, top left there is a table with two older couples, straight ahead a couple aged around 50, in the top corner is mum, dad, son and maybe grandma. To my right and front there is mum, dad and their steamy librarian daughter, probably 25 at most. And to my right, obscured behind the door, two older chaps sharing one woman.

The waitresses are decked out in traditional hausfrau outfits (OK, I don't know what sort of outfits they are, but they are meant to look like peasant servants). Mine speaks English well but is nervous if asked to repeat anything. The younger one we terrorised a year ago is still here and obviously drew the long straw, not having to serve me.

I ignore the menus and ask for the wine list. It's not massive, but they have Bordeaux dating back to 1901. There aren't many half bottles but the sommelier tells me I can have a half of something so long as it's not Latour or similar -- she'll either sell the other half or drink it herself, she says.

The red choice is obvious: 1993 Rousseau Chambertin for 195 euros. I'm tempted by a 64 Lafite and a 75 Lafleur Petrus, but I'm a burgnut, and I'd like to see how the Rousseau is travelling since I have only one in my cellar. The sommelier says it is perfect. I want a half bottle of champagne but there aren't any. A glass of 1996 Legras Blanc de Blancs is offered but I decide I'd rather have a half of white Burgundy. The sommelier offers a Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne and says the 01 is very fresh, the 98 and 00 more developed and richer. I go for the 98, having had the 00 not so long ago. It's a pale gold colours and delicious even cold and straight after pouring.

For the first time I don't go for a degustation here -- the "gastronomic" menu is heavy on seafood and the sole red dish is pigeon in Sptaburgunder (pinot) sauce. I like the look of a calf fillet in black perigord truffle sauce, and ask if it would be too heavy for the Rousseau. The sommelier thinks it will be perfect. I go for the cod with a lime-celery sauce for entree, but they start me with an oxtail in aspic appetiser. It's lovely and flavoursome, not heavy or too spicy, and the BdM is easily up to the challenge.

I've got time to survey the room some more, trying to stretch out my drinking time since I've committed to a bottle and a half. The librarian is tall and looking closer to 30 now. Maybe she's the secretary. The waitress is hot and will no doubt look hotter as the wine goggles come on. She's got gorgeous eyes and a knowing smile, is blonde, quite tall and no shrinking violet. In fact, she's fairly sturdily built without being too solid, a bit like this Bonneau du Martray.

The restaurant host and hostess have independently done the rounds with their "guten abend" greeting, her hardly pausing for acknowledgement. I pick up bits of German by context and am able to respond to most greetings and basic questions. When the host comes around he does a double take on the wines on my side table. "Oh, very nice wines," he says. "Yes, I try, thank you for cellaring them for me," I respond.

The entree arrives. It's poached cod on a bed of lime and celery puree. It is quite pungent but tastes mostly of the lime. I'm not a saltist, but this could do with some.

Oh, there's a comedy act by two of the waiters, unintentional I'm sure. The short, young one fits under the flailing arms of his senior colleague, so the passing of plates in a ceremonial fashion passes with barely an elbow to the face. The short waiter has dark brown hair with a yellow-blond patch on top, so maybe the tall guys rubs lemon sauce on him from time to time.

The wine choices of fellow diners at these fabulous restaurants I'm going to this weekend never cease to amaze me. Most people here are drinking the house wine. Maybe that's what they came for. Actually, I can see 10 bottles of house wine and just a bottle and a half of others.

The hot waitress stops for a chat. She has been working here for three years but has "three" days off a week -- Tuesday and Wednesday -- when the restaurant is closed. The librarian seems to be more interested now, perhaps envious of the attention. Actually her group must be foreigners: they have a bottle of chardonnay but I can't tell what it is, and a half bottle of what looks like Bordeaux.

There's not much difference in price from entree to main here, by the way. My entree is 32 euros and the main 38 euros, and cheese to follow is 11e. Tap water wasn't an option, and a 375ml of still water is 3e. So the food bill is going to be 81 euros, while the degustation options were 54e, 68e and 89e for eight courses.

Oh, the librarian is drinking Bonneau du Martray too -- it's a sign.

This restaurant is located 4.5km from my hotel. The police are off at the Nato summit near Strasbourg so I needn't worry about random breath tests, and if I really get carried away I can always sleep in the car for a few hours.

More random thoughts: it's hard to pick the wedding ring situation in Europe. Many people wear their rings on the right hand, but my waitress has what looks like an engagement ring on the right hand and a wedding ring on her left. Turns out they are neither, but the ring on the right hand is a friendship ring. She's embarrassed but flattered by the attention. I think.

I ask for my main meal to be brought out as late as possible, but they've already set the cutlery: a beautiful Laguiole en Aubrac steak knife. Reminds me to buy more fakes at the market in Chablis.

No, it's not Bonneau du Martray. Must be Olivier Leflaive.

This is not a great BdM. It's not getting that creamy, rich, round finish of a great year but thankfully it also doesn't have the resiny paint aromas of too much new oak. It has a lemon edge, the fruit not quite emerging as expected. It's not tart, but it's not as generous as BdM can be.

OK, I'm convinced she is the daughter again, and maybe 23. So hard to tell. I'm guessing the waitress is 28, the sommelier 37 and in danger of never being kissed -- the ultimate ice maiden.

If Mark AS (www.winestar.com.au/forum) thought the 1991 Rousseau Chambertin I opened a couple of weeks back was the greatest Burgundy he had drunk, he would absolutely have wet his pants over this 1993. Storage is everything I guess, and this bottle was cold and dusty and probably hadn't been moved since purchase 14 years ago.

The nose is sensational and the colours rich, with a hint of browning on the rim. The palate is packed with power -- soft and supple at first, with hints of tea, brown sugar, rose petals, soy sauce, but then comes this rush of force, a punch to the mid-palate. Would you want that to soften? The sommelier tells me they don't have so many 93s and only a couple of 78s left. It's possible to see the family traits from the 78 to this one, but I'm enjoying this right now to consider I might have cut it short.

The main dish of calf meat is pinned down by equal parts warm foie gras, and the side vegetables are five potato fingers, sliced white asparagus and that Japanese kind of mushroom, the name of which escapes me.

My request to delay the main as long as possible and to decant only half the bottle of Rousseau and pour the rest into a half bottle have been ignored. It's OK, I'm hungry, I didn't have lunch and it's 9.15pm. Mind you, I've had almost a bottle of wine in 1hr 45min, and I was hoping to spread a bottle and a half over five hours.

The second glass of Rousseau is better than the first. It's getting a bit more assertive, showing a little oak and its firm structure. Maybe it would benefit from another five years.

The food is pretty rich. I can't taste the truffle much but the foie gras is powerful. The mushrooms have a lovely delicate flavour but the asparagus is fairly flavourless.

I call for the cork for the BdM. No one else is going to drink that so I wonder if I'll be charged for a half or the whole.

So, the cute waitress would like to move on. She lives alone, two villages away, her family in Dresden. She'd like to work in Austria or England but she's "waiting to see what happens". There is a problem, she says. Maybe she means the GFC. You can feel the other diners straining to hear what we're talking about, so I let her go back to her work.

I like this place because it takes Diners and it'll probably be my last chance to use it. There wouldn't be enough credit on any of the other cards anyway. I hope it works!

"We make a little break?" the waitress asks. I'd love to, but there are still a couple of glasses of Rousseau to drink.

The table in the far right corner could be son, dad, wife and ex-wife, and they speak English. People move stealthily here. I notice Librarian Girl go to the bathroom but I didn't see the middle-aged couple leave. I was probably lost in the Chambertin. I couldn't miss the cheese cart being wheeled to the table next to me though, with its own pungent cloud trailing along behind it.

People are intrigued by me writing at the table. They probably think I am a restaurant critic. Or they think I am writing them into a play. Maybe I am. The woman at the table to my right decides it should be a comedy, and starts laughing. People do seem more animated here than last year, when it was quite stuffy. The people at the top left table are even having their photo taken together now, and some diners don't have a jacket and tie on: shock, horror.

Librarian Girl is taking an awfully long time in the bathroom but I'm pinned in by the cheese cart so I can't go to trigger an international incident. Just then she floats back into the room, noticeably preened. Very cute.

The host is back. "So, what is happening down under?" he asks. He has a scar that runs from his left eye to the corner of his mouth. Maybe the hostess glassed him one drunken night. He inquires again about the wine and says Charles Rousseau is a friend of his. Charlers's daughter Corinne is said to be helping run things at the domaine now and is a divorcee. I decide it'd be rude not to call in and pay my respects next week.

Two more tables of diners leave. There are still 23 people up the other end of the restaurant, I'm told. The restaurant is usually busy -- full most Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, lunch and dinner, but Thursday and Monday are quieter. The wait staff work from 10am to 2 or 3pm, then return at 6.30pm for the night shift.

10.02pm, the top right table leaves. The "ex-wife" bails up the son while the others head for the exit. She was definitely traded in for a younger, slimmer model.

The note-taking has kept me amused, I imagine I will give my hotel name and room number to the cute waitress and she will show it to the others and giggle at my expense. Or maybe she will send someone to rough me up. Maybe that's what happened to the host. I'll ask what sort of wine she likes. She'll probably say she has to be back at work at 10am, but I have a tasting at 10.30am and it's a 45-minute drive away, so I'm no better off. I do have the afternoon free, though. And another dinner tomorrow night, subject to how good their wine list is.

Did I tell you I think I broke my elbow? When I hit my funny bone trying to reach my mobile phone while on the toilet at home in Sydney no less. Either that or I have a torn ligament from lifting cases in the cellar. I have very little strength in my left arm but there is no swelling.

My last glass of Bonneau du Martray, which the sommelier suggested I keep for the cheese, smells like french vanilla yoghurt now. Yum.

Service has tailed off to the point that I've been able to drain my glass for the first time. Something is "verboten" at the table next to me. Maybe it's me chatting up waitresses. They've paid their bill, so go home already.

Unbelievable. The waitress's name is Claudia. I was just saying the other day that I have a predisposition towards girls named Claudia. She doesn't believe me but I explain why and she seems pleased.

The cheese trolley comes back and she chooses one cow's milk one for me to match the Rousseau. I also take a gruyere, a heavily mouldy blue and another cow's milk cheese. They are all gorgeous. And there was no limit ... but I figured they would repeat on me if I took more.

I notice the candles still burning on the tables of departed guests. Maybe it's to ensure they get home safely.

Ah, I thought I was feeling good for 1.5 bottles of wine: there's about a third of a bottle of Rousseau left. I have another glass and offer to keep the rest for the cute waitress if she would care to join me at the hotel. She says she knows where it is and she might come around after work.

My work here is done. I try to pay by Diners and they no longer accept it. Gulp. Somehow, the Amex comes to the rescue again, although I'm sure I'm over the limit. Back to the hotel, I linger in the foyer using their wifi on my laptop, then wait outside in the fresh air for a while. It's almost 1am. I doubt she is coming. The last quarter of a bottle of 1993 Chambertin goes to waste.

And now? It's time for dinner again ;-)

More exciting routes than a trimmed map of Tassie

2009-03-30T03:11:00.026+11:00

Pardon the coarse headline but I couldn't help it. I'm talking about my GPS here in Germany. Well, it's a she, and she has a penchant for sending me down narrow country lanes and setting a cracking pace. Some non-wine background on the trip so far: After four hours' sleep, I spent Tuesday frantically making phone calls, packing, and looking for bits and pieces such as GPS map chips for my phone and plug adaptors for my laptop. I also had to go to the post office, meet a colleague to give her some wine samples, and make a delivery, so as usual I cut the trip to the airport a little fine but arrived about 80 minutes before departure.

Another rarity: I was under the 23kg limit for luggage (Virgin Atlantic). I had time to wolf down some lunch and wander to the gate, and was still making sales calls and chasing a disastrous delivery by Mainfreight (late and lots of breakages: way not to win a contract at the first attempt) while seated on the plane. I pulled off another one of my patented moves -- falling asleep before takeoff -- and woke ready to eat and watch movies. I had ordered gluten-free meals to see what they were like and to enjoy priority service (!), then I watched Changeling with Angelina Jolie and Slumdog Mill-a-nare (as the quiz show hosts says), then an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and one of Flight of the Conchords. I dozed off and on even though the seat was unbelievable uncomfortable, and arrived in Hong Kong reasonable fresh for a 90-minute pitstop.

Back in the same seat, with cushion and blanked repositioned, I managed to sleep a lot between HK and London (flight time 12hr 54min), although waking often and watching another movie (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and another episode of Flight of the Conchords. Arrived in London before 5am in good shape, but didn't muck around as I had to reclaim my bags and move from T3 to T2 (via internal walkways) for a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt at 6.25am. I made it with ages to spare. Plane left late but it was a comfy leather seat at the back of the plane and I managed to power nap again, despite the dude next to me snoring something chronic. Oh joy, arrived in Frankfurt to see it was snowing and I hadn't packed much more than a pair of gloves and a light jacket in terms of suitable clothing.

Got picked up by a shuttle after standing outside in the 1C chill for 15 minutes, and headed out to the Thrifty depot, where they had a Merc A150 for me but haggled over the prebooked GPS. I knew it was a good deal -- $1800 for 34 days -- but I wasn't going to pay extra. All cleared, first destination programmed in very simply (start with the postcode) and away I went. I was soon on the motorway and decided the car's model number meant the speed it was meant to be driven, but then I decided 150km/h was a bit slow and I was late for my first tasting.

Despite the rain and snow still falling, I touched on 170 now and then, scurried around the back lanes and country roads and rolled into the village of Wiltingen about 1pm. After a comprehensive chat and tour with Van Volxem owner Roman Niewodniczanski, I rolled down the road to Forstmeister Geltz Zilliken a touch on 2hrs and 30 minutes late! Roman assured me everyone was used to overseas visitors being hours late and in fact it was mostly his fault ... we had a long, slow lunch at a local restaurant, took a drive through the vineyards, and he manages to get interrupted by work everywhere he goes.

So, a great tasting at FGZ, then dinner with winemaker Hanno Zilliken in the village of Saarburg before I hit the wall. I let them twist my arm for a nightcap of 1983 Auslese, then drove 100m up the road to settle into my hotel room. I slept from 10pm until close to 6.30am and figured my bodyclock had checked into European time in good style. Day two involved tastings at Dr Carl von Schubert's Maximin Grunhaus in Mertesdorf on the Ruwer, in Erden with Andreas Schmitges, and at Schloss Lieser with Thomas Haag, who is just a great guy and always so warm and friendly. Schubert showed me his 2008s from cask samples, then we toured the cellars and vineyards. One of the amazing things here is the constant battle against wild boars. They tear the place apart, and the Schuberts killed 100 of them during harvest, including 11 in a night by one shooter. The boars come out of the forest when there aren't any acorns around, and are so brazen that they don't take flight even when one of their pack is killed. They even charged the electric fences together and take the jolt to get through! We had lunch in the house, a lovely chicken and vegetable stew, with other vegetables and a 1990 Herrenberg Kabinett.

On to Erden, where I did a fairly rapid tasting with Andreas Schmitges, who is a very sharp thinker and always trying to make the most of what he has, which is some great vineyard holdings and now a dazzling tasting facility. The wines are very smart too... I got back onto schedule and charged into Lieser just a couple of minutes late for a tasting with Thomas Haag. The 08 rieslings were sensational, and were followed by more and more back vintages, starting with Thomas's first there in 1992.

It was 8pm (four hours later) when we finished the tasting and set off for another big meal in a small country restaurant. By the time I got back to my own car and hit the road to find my digs, which I had stupidly booked in a village 40 minutes away, it was about 10.15pm and I hadn't checked in yet. The GPS had been a hoot to this point -- it chooses back roads and shortcuts at every opportunity, and it gives an ETA that is hard to beat! I mean, I can be barrelling down a motorway and only take a minute or two off what it had predicted, so it obviously is tuned in to the speed limit everywhere (which is mostly 130 on the open road). But this time she left me stranded. "Your destination is here on the right" just didn't cut it when I couldn't find the hotel or any street numbers. With some prompting from a service station attendant I found it 400m away, looking nothing like the online brochure. It was 11.10pm and check-in was meant to be before 11pm. I rang the doorbell and could hear it ringing, but no one came. Back to the service station to ring the hotel but it went to an answering machine. I started to think about sleeping in the car, but the servo had another idea and got a hotelier out of bed to come and get me.

Turns out a lot of hotel staff don't even stay in the hotel. This place was locked up for the night but the boss gave me a key and left me to my own devices on the front desk computer! Had a good sleep and breakfast and then found out the room was 65 euros -- a bit of a slap after booking a room for 35e. I went back to that hotel to make sure they weren't going to charge me as a no-show, and picked up the key for that night in case the same was to happen again. Friday's schedule involved the 40-minute drive back to the middle Mosel main towns for a tasting in Graach at Weingut Willi Schaefer, and for the first time lunch wasn't offered afterwards. Suitably shocked, I decided I had time to visit Dirk Richter at Weingut Max Ferd Richter as he had promised me some 1964s from his cellar (my birth year).

I caught him outside the winery and he claimed no knowledge of my request, but he said he would have a look and take it to the trade show in Dusseldorf for me. I then picked up a gorgeous loaf of pumpernickel bread and a snail from a bakery and set off for my second appointment, at Reinhold Haart in Piesport. It was a fairly limited tasting as the 08s hadn't finished fermenting, but cellarmaster Johannes Haart found some other old goodies for us to sample, as well as producing a bottle of 1964 Piesporter Spaltese for me to take as a gift. Another vineyard tour (in freezing winds) ensued, then just as I was about to leave came the welcome invitation for another hearty dinner.

We went to a pricey restaurant with a great mini degustation and enjoyed a lovely local beer, bottles of 1998 Clerc Milon and 2007 Clusseruth Trittenheimer Apotheke Feinherb, as well as some more of the earlier samples. I hit the wall again and actually probably talked in my sleep, cos late in the dinner I caught myself mid-jibber and didn't know how to save the conversation! I struggled back out to the hotel and had another good night's sleep.

There was no rush to move on Saturday morning so I caught up on emails and then hit the road for Winningen. I'd previously only got there via a blast on the motorway, but the GPS decided I should take the scenic back road that follows the Mosel. It was tough work at times but I managed to knock a few minutes off its estimated arrival time. You can see in the picture here an amazing house that spanned the road -- I drove right through it at a decent speed!

An amazing sweet-wine tasting here, another big lunch (wild boar at last!), another vineyard tour (this time in the frighteningly steep vineyards of the lower Mosel) and I was off at high speed looking for a 90-minute trip to Dusseldorf. I tramped along at 180 for a while and was left in the dust of a BMW 630 at one point. I passed him back at the next set of roadworks ;-)

The GPS navigated me with one or two errors to my house for the next three days, and now GPS and car rest while I walk to the Prowein exhibition at the nearby Messeplatz.

That's all probably too much information ... will work on that! Next post might be on some of the amazing wines I have had so far, to save having to bring the notes back with me!

Europe, here I come

2009-03-22T12:23:00.000+11:00

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!