One for the road ... or should I say the sea!

Tomorrow, I set sail for London aboard the good ship ‘Irene’. Normally when I travel I’d be worrying about what to pack … how many pants, socks, shirts? Will it rain? (Which jacket?) Will there be a heat wave in February? (Pack shorts, just in case …) But this time I’ve got to worry about packing something else much more important: 833 cases (or more specifically, 1666 half-cases) of the 2009 ‘Le Voyage’ wine!

Yesterday saw the wine dressed with label, paper wrapped, sealed and wooden boxed ready for the trip. For me, this is a real start-to-finish wine. I harvested the grapes back in September 2009, watched daily the ageing in barrel, bottled the wine and now I’m actually taking it to the customer! Just have to do the pouring on arrival and I think the job will be done.







































Bottled the 2010 SY today … a lovely little VdP d’Oc Syrah from the Midi. It’s a great wine to enjoy and drink now and I’ve kept it simple; just the like wine they serve at lunch down in the Midi. It has a deep colour and oodles of ripe black fig fruit with that classic ‘olive noir’ and ‘garrigue herbs’, so typical of the Midi. I think I’ll sneak a few bottles on board to remind me of the Midi!

I will be blogging and keeping everyone informed of our progress, plus, technology permitting, you can follow the 'Irene's' live progress here. See you in London on the 19th of May!

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Monday 2nd May - Provence!

I left Bordeaux on the late flight to Marseille … great views of the Côte d’Azur as we flew in along the Mediterranean coastline.

I picked up a hire car and drove east into the beautiful hills of Provence towards Brignolles. The sunset lit the distant hills beautifully and the warm air carried the typical aromas of lavender and Provencal herbs.

I arrived late and managed to find a little restaurant where I had a taste of Jonny Depp's 2009 Chateau Miraval 100% Rolle (the local name for Vermentino). It was very good indeed – but expensive – and I can assure you my 2009 Vent de Folie Vermentino beats it hands down.

Up at the crack of dawn again and soon winding down through the hills towards St.Tropez. It was quite cool this morning and I had heard it had been rather cold the last 10 days in comparison to the heat wave in Bordeaux. It was startlingly evident in the vineyard where the new shoots were a third of the size of those in Saint Emilion!

I stopped a stone’s throw before St.Tropez at my destination of Ramatuelle which lies just inside the prestigious vineyard commune of St.Tropez.

The cooperative is very small and friendly and gets overshadowed by the bigger coops and posh Domaines in the area but they have some great rose! I tasted through the vats and once I was happy I loaded the awaiting tanker.

I was taking the wine safely up to the Breban family bottling facility back in Brignolles with whom Tony has been working with for many, many years. On arrival, I met Laurent who was as energetic as ever and as I walked towards the winery, sisters and cousins popped out here and there to say bonjour!

The tanker was unloaded and then I went up and up the stairs until I reached what seemed like rose heaven! The tasting room was jam packed and in every direction I looked there were hundreds of bottles of beautiful salmon pink rose so typical of the region!

We tasted some lovely 2010's in bottle before tasting some 2009 sparkling that the Brebans are famous for. The P.S. tasted great, as did a little 7% alc fizzy Muscat.

A quick tour of the winery and bottling plant and a good ten minutes spent with Laurent admiring his new addition to the bottling line; a top-of-the-range screw-cap machine!

Back to Bordeaux tonight as I need to be in Pomerol first thing tomorrow!

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Eel Day in Bordeaux, Sat 30th April

Up first thing as a busy day ahead starting with the Lamproie Fete in Sainte Terre. Lamproie are a type of eel and a very traditional and expensive Bordeaux dish. The Lamproie are only fished at this time of year and are cooked in a thick red wine sauce - using Bordeaux wine of course! The Lamproie are sold live and are extremely ugly creatures but they taste divine.



The French, as always, need no excuse to put on a party and eel day was perfect! There were brass bands, a huge marquee with 300 people having lunch, local food stalls, antiques fair, bars and a car boot sale! We could of stayed all day but we had a lunch invitation at Chateau Mangot in St.Emilion.

Today was also the 'portes ouverts' in St.Emilion where all the Chateaux open their doors and welcome visitors. The lunch was for 100 guests and we sat down to eat in the magnificent cellar looking out onto vineyards. The menu was matched superbly with various vintages of Chateau Mangot including asparagus and duck with the 2008 and the sauté de boeuf and the 2005 although the 2002 was excellent with the brebis cheese.

Dinner was eel now excellently disguised in the red wine sauce and it went beautifully with the recently bottled 2009 Grand Chai Montagne Saint Emilion.

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