International Wine Challenge, London

Last week I stayed on in London to judge wines at the IWC competition at the Barbican centre. The competition is a huge affair with many of the top MW’s, winemakers and wine writers involved.

On arrival everyone is split into groups of 5 each with a team leader and allocated two tasting tables on which flights of blind tastings are waiting. Once the first flight is finished we switch to the second table whilst the previous table is cleared down and another flight is set up and then it’s back to the first table, this carries on all day.

The flights are very varied and can be white, red, rose, sparkling, sweet or fortified from any country. The previous week the preliminary rounds had already been completed so this was the important tasting where all wines were potential medal winners!

I tasted some very impressive wines over the 3 days with South African dry white blends, northern Rhone Syrah and Australian Shiraz being very memorable. After each long day the evening Coopers Aussie ale was much welcomed!

I also managed to go to a shop tasting in Hersham where Tony and JMS were presenting Chai vs New World. All the wines were very good and the competition was very close, but I think the chai just won!

It started with 2008 sparkling rose from leading UK bubbles maker Ridgeview Estate then:

1. Laithwaite Sauvignon Blanc 2010
vs Viña Tarapacá Sauvignon Blanc 2010
2. La Part du Boucher
vs Hickinbottom Shiraz Cabernet 2009
3. Le Grand Chai Sauternes 2006
vs Westend Estate Three Bridges Boytritis 2006

Thursday was spent at Head office for a giant Midi tasting with Tony and buyers Becca and Kat in the tasting room.

In the afternoon I headed out to Abingdon to pay a visit to Will Laithwaites’ new brewery, Loose Cannon. After all the week’s wine a beer tasting was extremely enjoyable, cheers!

Will has a great set up and making some cracking ales. On entering the brewery I was overwhelmed with the aromas of the fresh hops that were being soaked for today’s brew. I tried the Abingdon Bridge bitter from yesterday’s brew which is superbly aromatic and a lovely full flavour. I left Will finishing off his brew and hitched a lift to Henley with Caleb in the keg van delivering to great little real ale pubs along the way!

After all that work we thoroughly deserved a pint and Caleb of course knew all the pubs where we could get a good pint of Loose Cannon!

Friday it was back to Bordeaux and to the Chai where Denis was waiting with a beaming smile. Nice to see the knife, the beret and the saucisson all back in the right place!

Visit laithwaites.co.uk

It's all about Petit Denis in London: part two

It seemed Petit Denis had temporarily forgotten about barrels as I walked into the breakfast room early Friday to the echoing sound of “hello my name is Dennis; my second mother is the Dordogne”!

After a full English breakfast we made our way to the Sunday Times Festival with plenty more innocent folk being harmlessly subjected to “hello my name is Dennis, my second mother is the Dordogne”.

Then the catastrophe occurred: Petit Denis had somehow managed during the five-minute walk between the hotel and the venue to lose – yes, you guessed it – his BERET! His panic-stricken face was as if he had suddenly found himself stark naked in centre of London!

A Frenchman with no saucisson, no knife and now no beret was serious stuff, but suddenly the festival crowds were visible and before he knew it, Petit Denis was given his back-stage pass, pushed into the to the festival hall, the main doors were opened and the customers rolled in.

Petit Denis soon learned that his well practised phrase “hello my name is Denis, my second mother is the Dordogne” was difficult to simultaneously recite to every single customer whilst pouring wine. However, he was brilliant and did manage to get one “hello my name is Denis, my second mother is the Dordogne” when Hugh Johnson presented him with a signed copy of his Wine Atlas.

JMS was in fine form, arriving (late) on his scooter with the usual large ‘morceau’ of Parmesan from Neal’s Yard cheese shop.

The festival went very well with plenty of visitors to the Chai stand and ended with a well deserved Wine of the Show Trophy for the Maury ‘Font Del Bosc’ 2005! Lunch was at the always-great Italian restaurant round the corner, and then I took Petit Denis shopping for a new beret. Innocently we went to the House of Fraser which for about 15 minutes Petit Denis actually thought we were going to ‘la maison de Frazer’ (Frazer is the English sales manager at the Chai in France!)

Petit Denis wasn’t impressed with the range of berets and settled for a new English tweed flat cap, a scarf (London being at its hottest this year), shirts, jeans, shoes and a coat. He was certainly ready for the festival's evening session. The growers' dinner afterwards was once again a brilliant meal with plenty of wines to taste and Petit Denis was in his element managing to practise his now-famous phrase all evening.

The return journey to France had been worrying me as Petit Denis was going solo! I was staying in London to judge at the International Wine Fair. I wrote every detail down for him and called him a taxi bound for Victoria Station, the taxi pulled up and whisked Petit Denis away into the distance with the trailing sound of “hello my name is Denis, my second mother is the Dordogne”….

I am very pleased to say that he did make it safely back to France and was reunited with his knife. However, the airport parking ticket was – of course – safely tucked inside his lost beret somewhere in England!

It's all about Petit Denis in London: part one

It’s been quite an eventful couple of weeks, kick-started way back on Thursday the 14th by escorting ‘Petit Denis’ to London.

Denis is not the most world-wild-travelled human being, it has to be said. But once I had briefed him on suitcase size and the essentials to fill it with all seemed to be going smoothly. We finally left Le Chai for Bordeaux airport after prising ‘Petit Denis’ from his beloved barrels after his insistence on caressing each one before his ‘voyage’!

The car journey was interesting, packed full of ‘Petit Denis’ practicing his year 11 Anglais. “Hello my name is Dennis, the Dordogne river is my second mother” being the most successfully executed phrase. All was fairly normal until ‘Petit Denis’ – panic in his eyes – realised he had forgotten his saucisson for the journey! I repeatedly explained that there would be food in London (and knives) but to no avail. I gave in and had to stop for him to buy the saucisson. I did put my foot down on the 3-litre Bergerac bag-in-box wine again convincing him that there would be ‘vin rouge en Angleterre’.

At last Bordeaux airport came into view and we were safely parked in the long-stay car park. Petit Denis, I and the large saucisson made our way to the terminal … and then it began. The next 5 minutes went rather like this: saucisson stuffed in bag; no ticket; no passport; saucisson out of bag; found passport; still no ticket; saucisson back in bag; found ticket; boarding pass; passport 10yrs out of date; saucisson back out of bag; found identity card; boarding pass; saucisson back in bag; security check; knife on belt; Gendarmes; knife in police safe (for collection on his return?); on plane.

Some confusion just before take-off when the stewardess announced “who is the owner of a black bag with a pink ribbon” beautifully mistranslated by Petit Denis to “who owns black Raybans” which he had his in his bag and confidently raised his hand! Once that small matter was explained we were off to England.

I was fortunately spared practising the “Hello my name is Dennis, the Dordogne river is my second mother” as he was glued to the plane window and quiet as a mouse. Petit Denis then had a snooze during which time I was frantically thinking of how to break the news to him that we were not having a lunch. On arrival the ‘lunch’ news didn’t go down very well at all and speeding towards our Gloucester Depot in the hire car the saucisson was brought into action along with a spare knife smuggled in his main baggage!

We arrived at Gloucester and were greeted by Nick Hurlstone. The flood gates opened: “Hello my name is Dennis, the Dordogne river is my second mother” which would set the general tone for the next 48 hours – half of the Big Issue sellers from Gloucester to Westminster are now fully aware of this information.

We finally checked into the Mint Hotel and ‘Petit Denis’ couldn’t understand why a suited and booted gentleman was prepared to carry his bag to his room. It was at this point I was started renaming him ‘Crocodile Denis’.

To be continued………………………