My vote for post of the year (well we are 90% through!) comes from wineterroirs this weekend – take a tour through a list of wine additives and their catalogues with Bertrand Celce for a little insight into what might be in your wine.

At first it’s a stark and often unpalatable list, but let’s be clear, even referring back to our ‘producers who do nothing’, one in every 10+ cuvées will require some kind of manipulation – we are, after-all, talking about a very natural and somewhat variable process.

I personally think that a winemaker (at least ones I buy from) has two duties; to make a wine that reflects its origin, and to make it palatable – the second point tends to be the main determinant for the length of their career! If it takes a little powdered tannin (and I assume M.Rolland’s comments refer to the Bordeaux cepage, not pinot noir) to stabilise a cuvée – so what. I’m less sure that I need a yeast to make my Musigny smell of banana…

It’s not so long ago that I mentionedJamie Goode’s (in)famous ‘discussion’ with the magnet guru, Dr Patrick Farrell MW. It now seems that the market for ‘wine enhancers’ is burgeoning – why pour a wine through a magnetic device when you can simply stand the bottle on a nice looking stand.
However, this important advance 😉 has now come across the desk of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) – seems they are offering $1,000,000 – what a lucky guy this Robert Catania is !!!

It is with great pleasure I hear today, that long time correspondent and occasional partner to lunches and bottle openings Neal Martin has finally sold-out. He is appointed (over Michel Bettane no less) to be the ‘critic at large’ for Robert Parker’s online empire.

I say sold-out, not because he is moving to eRP but because he will no-longer be providing ‘album (that’s CD for younger readers!!!) of the month’ for his readers – though in-truth it was becoming every second month of recent. It seems I will have to return to Baccarat and René & Renata without his youth perspective.

STOP PRESS – Neal Martin has officially not sold out – he confirms to me in writing that it’s not the end for this seminal work – my kipper ties can stay in the closet a little longer…

[EDIT1] – How it happened – Part 1
[EDIT2] – How it happened – Part 2

It appears quite a strange hijack of a posting.

I suppose it’s his house, so RMP can say what he likes, but it seems as if he’s undermining his new staffer David Schildknecht even before he starts, who will now (possibly) have to review the 2002 wines of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti with one arm tied behind his back – it wouldn’t do to disagree with his new boss – or would it(?)!

PS I have no concerns about the wines I bought AFTER I tasted!

Craig Camp seems an awfully discerning chap, or at least he’s yet to see through me 😉

Value, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

That said, I expect the market for vintage Beaujolais is rather limited – just one guy/gal in Ohio it seems – at least when he/she wants $1,200 for said bottles.

They say that there’s one born every minute (mug that is), I expect our person in Ohio will have to trawl very wide to find them!

Hard to find this wine as it’s such a small (monopole) vineyard in Vosne-Romanee – it’s attached to the old hunting lodge of the Dukes of Burgundy and at 0.55 hectares, barely big enough to have been their kitchen garden, but Dave Brookes has managed to get hold of a bottle! – Looks (overly) pricy, but it is a ’99 I suppose, and it did sound rather nice…
Cheers