Hetton in the Yorkshire dales.

We finally got home yesterday, even though our return was supposed to have been on Monday. In that time we enjoyed Betty’s café, a UK curry, the nice lunch of the previous post, various scones, fish and chips, my mum’s lovely wedding, a missed flight that resulted in an extra night in the UK and finally back home. I slept well!

Now attacking a mail and typing backlog – and without (yet!) milk for my coffee too – ouf!

Amazingly (sounds like a well-worn record…) today’s the second consecutive day for shorts and a T-shirt whilst out jogging. The last time was probably in September.

Report deadlines are not the only ones in Beaune just recently, there was also the entry for next Saturday’s Beaune 1/2 marathon last week, the day after which, something ‘popped’ in my hamstring after 85 minutes of a 90 minute run – humph! Yesterday, it was only problematic after 45 minutes of running, requiring to be stretched every 5 minutes to avoid any potential for exploding. I’m currently working on the strategy of lots of stretching, anti-inflammatorys, and that’s about it. Oh and there was some Latricières-Chambertin too – I’m sure that will help, despite being from 2004 😉

Truth be told, the hamstring’s never properly recovered since it popped during a race almost 2 years ago – that’s old age I suppose – I can go ‘forever’ at 5 minutes per km (8 minutes/mile), but wind it down to 4 mins/km and something shouts ‘stop!’ I’d love to run 1h35 on Saturday, but probably won’t finish the race (unlike the Latricières) if I go for that pace. Hmm – who wants to run 1h45 anyway? – I guess I’ll just run faster and see how long it takes to break…

No one-track focus here at Burgundy Report – certainly not! How about wood-working(ish)?

The perfect use for a 54mm DIAM 10, extracted from a 2012 Chevalier-Montrachet.
Those birds are just so lucky! I even found a use for the wine too…

It comes to all of us, but sooner or later we have to take stock – or at least have a reasonable idea of our ‘position’!

In that context I started to work my way through the cellar, cataloguing. At one time I had most things noted on a spreadsheet, but that hasn’t been updated since the arrival of the 2007s, so with trepidation I began the task at the weekend, and I’m still only halfway through! A glass or two of Rebourgeon-Mure’s 2010 Beaune Vignes-Franches was helping yesterday, hopefully today too. I expect I should have it completed by next weekend!

Wine should have a purpose, and that purpose demands the opening of the bottle.

Unless a wine is in some respect faulty, it will always have a purpose; wine can be crap, it can be contemplative or it can be conversational (thanks Juel) but given the right circumstance it is always fit for purpose – even if the purpose you have in mind is cooking – just to say I’ve done it, I did once add a little 1996 Lafite to a sauce reduction.

If it’s not fun, there is no point 😉

Now for some swiss wine – where are my skis!!!

No not in the Côtes, at home!

Beautiful weather enabled a ‘useful’ weekend. Four trees completely pruned for winter, avoiding the garden sinking under the volume of falling leaves. In three weeks time there’s even a man going to come and ‘chip’ all the branches – I suppose that means I’ve time to ‘do’ another tree!

No notes from weekend wines, but with friends we got through another 78 Pucelles and 84 Charmes, plus an 08 Pillot Chassagne Clos St.Jean, a 66 Bourée Pommard and a 98 Clare Valley Shiraz. All drank very well. Now back to work!

After a wretched end to last week – we start afresh this week.

I’m sipping a simply lovely 2008 Fixin Champs Vosger (that’s a white wine!) from L&A Lignier whilst trying to decide where some of my Swiss EP purchased 09s, delivered today, should go. South to north; Pavillion Volnay Santenots, Bouchard Père l’Enfant Jesus, G&P Ravault Ladoix Le Bois Roussot and last, but not least, M&P Rion’s Chambolle Charmes.

I suppose I should give them a week or-so to settle down…