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!
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Day 5: Mosel madness
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
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.
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
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.
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.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Day two: back on the right side of the road
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.
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)!
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!
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!
Friday, January 22, 2010
New arrivals
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!
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!
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