I’ve left New York behind and find myself in Philadelphia – well the airport Marriott anyway, and it’s definitely not grubby! The bar of the hotel throngs to quite a number of people cheering an (American) football team, on (as far as I can see) 6 TV screens in the bar area – maybe it’s a local team – turns out it’s Philly vs the NY Giants. Downtown Philadelphia looked like it might be quite nice with the sun setting on its tall glass buildings, but all I saw was the cab-ride from the quite impressive train station to the hotel ($46 just in-case you need to budget).

Regarding the domaine Denis Mortet, it seems it is all-change again: The excellent Claire Forestier is once-more without portfolio as the 24 year old Arnaud Mortet is now assuming the full-time role of technical director, his mother Laurence, will continue to manage the administrative side of things. I hope that Claire will find a more ‘stable’ role soon – unless of-course she is intentionally following the (helicopter piloting) path of the flying winemaker!