Ah it’s January and a young wine-buyer’s thoughts turn to en-primeur!
Well that’s the case for anyone with an association with the UK market, which seems to have retained its relative importance despite (just like the US) buying very little of the 2007 and 2008 vintages – or has it? – I wonder if merchant’s allocations are quite at the same level as before. I’m not sure you’d find anyone who would admit it even if it was the case.
Anyway, on Friday I’ll post a link to some EP offers that are already available – the first tastings are already starting next week.
At home I’ve started the year drowning under the weight of things I have to write and things I’ve not yet read (Manzanilla – Fielden & Hidalgo, Burgundy: Vines and Wines – Arlott, Fielden, Grandi Vini – Joseph Bastianich, Our Kind of Traitor – J le Carré, The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson, A history of modern Britain – Andrew Marr, Burgundy (French Regional Guides) – Arthur Eperon, Burgundy – J.E. Flower, Burgundy – Ian Dunlop, White Burgundy – Fielden, Country Wines of Burgundy and Beaujolais – Patrick Delaforce, Wonderful Burgundy – Bazin and five unread issues of Granta!), at least (above) there are some new bottles to help me with the drowning!
One thing I did already find time to read: Why do your barrels smell?
A little 2010 site info: Rather surprisingly, everything associated with this site continues on an upward trajectory; the telephone-book numbers for 2010 were: 448,730 visitors to the wordpress generated pages (90% of this site), the busiest day bringing 7,320 people (Autumn report day). Over 800 comments were written, though (more than) balancing those were just over 30,000 spam comments in just one year! As I type this there are 774 in the filter (15 days worth) – I long since gave up checking the contents of the filter for miss-classified comments as there wasn’t enough time in the day! If you think you wrote something that fell into a black hole let me know, but I can’t resurrect anything more than 15 days old. By popular demand the forum came into being at the end of April – its use almost slowed to a halt in December but there seems a January flourish! The forum anyway has 200 registered users and 960 posts in about 8 months. Enough puffery I say, what about wine?!!!
Well, I’m sitting drinking F et D Clair’s 2005 St.Aubin Dents du Chien and everything seems okay – despite reports of rampant p.ox in 2005s – everything is in order with this bottle, at least.
Wishing you all the best for 2011…
