No slurping and spitting; these wines were really drunk and predominantly at home with food and friends between March 2005 and June 2005. I have the feeling that I’ve had too many corked wines recently but the figures are not that much higher than normal – maybe it was… Read More

Sandwiched between the vineyards of Vougeot and Nuits you might expect a vineyard to produce a rather rustic and concentrated wine, one to make the hairs on your chest curl – if you have them… It’s interesting then that this is the home of the most fabulously expensive… Read More

“I wrote the foregoing chapter in two hours directly on the typewriter, and then went out to lunch with John Dos Passos, who I consider a very forceful writer. …we lunched on rollmops, sole meuniere, civet de lievre à la cocotte, marmelade de pommes, and washed it all down, as… Read More

It was around 1880 when the Côtes de Nuits village of Chambolle decided to improve its profile by appending the name of its most illustrious vineyard, thus to become Chambolle-Musigny. Despite this early attempt at marketing, Chambolle-Musigny has remained a working village rather than a place for tourists. Today, however,… Read More

No slurping and spitting; these wines were really drunk and predominantly at home with food and friends between November 2004 and March 2005. I started 2005 with a few 1999 Vosne 1ers – usually very good, occasionally fabulous. Plenty of 2002’s that are very nice, but aren’t quite so… Read More

How time flies – In January I paid a visit to Bouchard Père et Fils – it was already two years since my last visit. My main purpose was to expand my knowledge of the domaine’s four monopoles but Isabelle Parisot also kindly arranged a tour of some… Read More

No slurping or spitting! This is a compendium of wines that were drunk with food, friends and family, between July 2004 and the end of October 2004. Corkwatch: 5 from 83 = 6.0% Regional Wines (8) Villages Wines (24) Premier Cru Wines (27) Grand Cru… Read More

Drive up from Beaune, past Gevrey-Chambertin and the land on both sides of the main RN74 becomes more and more urban as you enter the outskirts of Dijon. Just past Marsannay and into Chenôve take a quick left turn up a side street and you will come to the new… Read More

2004 Producer, producer, producer. You hear it often enough but it will be crucial in 2004 – at least for the reds – here the vintage was much more challenging and is likely to be anything but homogeneous. The grapes had excellent acidity and ripeness but triage was the… Read More