At the recent Just Add…Bibendum tasting, the recent hard work of our Buying team came to the fore as we launched 23 new producers from 8 different countries to the UK Trade. One of these exciting new producers is the Soho Wine Co from New Zealand. Soho is a winery with an interesting winemaking concept and striking branding, so we thought we would give you a quick lowdown on what they are all about.

The Soho Wine Co caught the eye of our buyers as the company do things a little differently down in New Zealand, with a philosophy which stands out from the winemaking crowd that we really love. The Soho Wine Co is a family run operation with vineyards in three of New Zealand’s leading wine regions; Marlborough, Central Otago and Waiheke Island. Within these regions the Carter family create wines in consultation with three of New Zealand’s leading winemakers.

With this approach the Soho Wine Co is able to create wines which really speak of the individual region’s terroir, made with all the technical know-how of their highly acclaimed winemakers. Award-winning winemaker Grant Taylor, of Valli Vineyards works with the team in Central Otago. Born and bred Marlborough winemaker Dave Coulston of Two Rivers has helped create the Marlborough range. While in Waiheke Island, legendary Waiheke winemaker Pete Turner of Pleasant Valley Vineyards creates stunning wines in one of New Zealand’s emerging wine regions.

Over and above the winemaking, the Carter family wanted to create a brand that showcased a passion for life, style, quality and fun and this all comes across through Soho’s contemporary branding. With a nod to the Soho regions of the world and their strong link with culture, music, fashion and socialising, Soho’s wines are named after figures that embody this image. We expect the Stella Sauvignon Blanc, Jagger Pinot Gris, Westwood Rose and McQueen Pinot Noir to be at home on the wine lists ofour very own Soho in London’s west end.

3 Regions and 3 Winemakers -

Dave Coulston & Marlborough -

In Marlborough, Dave Clouston produces wines that are a true expression of Marlborough’s terrior. Dave’s wines are clean and pure examples of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir, with a strong focus on expressing the vibrancy, balance and texture that Marlborough can create in these varietals.

Pete Turner & Waiheke Island -

Pete’s Soho wines have a definite French flair from his time spent at wineries in the Rhone |Valley &s outhern France, and this is evident within his three wines – The Soho Carter Chardonnay, Soho Revolver Bordeaux Blend & Soho Rosé. Waiheke Island’s climate is heavily influenced by the surrounding sea, and its maritime climate is slightly warmer than nearby Auckland, it also benefits from a long warm growing season and cooling sea breezes. With climatic similarities to winemaking greats such as Coonawarra in Oz, Napa in California and Hermitage in the Northern Rhone, Waiheke Island is ideal for growing ripe, vibrant wines from classic varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Chardonnay and Merlot.

Grant Taylor & Central Otago -

Within the Central Otago operation, Soho and Grant Taylor focus all their attention on Pinot Noir. Grant knows his Pinots, and has twice won the award for Best Pinot Noir at The International Wine Challenge. This wine showcases the classy Pinot fruit that can be produced in this part of the world, and offers up a full bodied Pinot, with sleek silky tannins, ripe plum and cherry fruit and fantastic acidity. A blend of fruit from both the Gibbston and Bendigo regions, it uses some of the best fruit from the region to create the The McQueen Pinot Noir.

Check out the video below of Soho’s Amber Mepsted talking about the ideas behind the Soho branding  -

To read more about the Soho Wine Co, check out their website, facebook and twitter pages.

As one of the leading names in New Zealand winemaking, most wine fans have tried the delights of the Wither Hills stable, with fine examples of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay on offer here in the UK. With Bibendum’s Just Add…Bibendum tasting taking place last week, it was no surprise to see the Wither Hills table jam packed with eager tasters from the UK trade.

With a large selection of the range on offer, it was the Wither Hills Single Vineyard wines which received a lot of interest, in particular the Single Vineyard Rarangi Sauvignon Blanc 2011.  A real stand out wine, it hails from an impressive site situated a couple of hundred metres from the sea, surrounded by native wetlands and at the end of the Wairau Valley. Wither Hills grow a range of grapes on the Rarangi site, including Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris, but is the Sauvignon Blanc that is most at home here.

An interesting little corner of the Marlborough Valley, the vineyard was planted in 2002 and its soils are a combination of what was the coastal waters edge and natural wetland waterways. Over the centuries this has slowly been uplifted by the movement of tectonic plates that form the main fault line up the east coast of New Zealand. Today this heady mix of different soil components with the uplifted seabed, pea gravels and pockets of silt and clay, has created a fantastic environment to produce fresh, vibrant whites.

Alongside the Rarangi’s interesting soil structure, the climate is also very kind to the winemaker with the Rarangi vineyard blessed with an extremely warm climate moderated by a cooling easterly wind. This maritime influence coupled with these soils, produces wine which encapsulates this particular site, and tasted alongside other Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs, the Rarangi terroir really stands out proud.

The 2011 vintage was characterised by the long warm days and cool nights which is so common in this area of the world, and alongside a long warm growing season this all enables the Marlborough growers to create the ripe fruit, fresh aromatic flavours and great acidity found in the best Sauvignon Blanc.

With Rarangi’s already warm microclimate, the grapes here offer rich, ripe citrus and tropical fruits, but being so close to the ocean and benefitting from the cool sea breezes, the acidity and structure found within the wine is top notch.  All in all, the elements of the unique site create a killer Sauvignon Blanc!

Check out the video below to see Wither Hills’ Winemaker Sally Williams talking about the Single Vineyard projects at Wither Hills -

Every year the Bibendum Annual Tasting seems to come and go in a flash, blink and you’ll miss it! So we like to cover all the action from the day wherever possible, and each year we make every effort to get out amongst the tasting crowds and see what you guys have to say. Just Add…Bibendum was no exception, and off we went armed with our Flip video and a question for all the wine fans roaming The Brewery.

Just Add…Bibendum, Just Add Training, Just Add Market Insights, Just Add Vivid…We know what we would add, but what would this year’s guests want to add?

Keep a check on B Times over the next few weeks, as we continue to post video coverage from Just Add…Bibendum.

All the photos are now in from the big day, check them all out on Bibendum’s facebook or Flickr page.

Take 10 tables of some of the biggest names in the wine industry at Australia House for Stonier’s International Pinot Noir Tasting (SIPNOT) and pour 12 Pinot Noirs from around the world. All tasted blind. Then ask each table to tell you what they think the wines are….and you will find two types of Pinot Noir lover.

This is what happens.

In the one corner, the Purist.

Often a Burgundy fanatic, the Purist likes to drill down to the vineyard details with as much zeal as a forensic scientist on CSI. Deadly serious, they want to talk about terroir and region and whether this wine has closed down or whether the vintage is showing well. On the upside, you can rely on these types to give you the facts quickly, just in case your cellar is flooding and you have to grab something fast: “Get the Chambolle Les Gruenchers. The 1985. It was a great year…”

In the other corner? The Hedonist.

These sensualists melt to the very mention of velvety textures and perfumed pleasures found from Pinot Noir and Burgundy. They love the poetry of the “heartbreak grape”. The Hedonist is definitely someone you want sitting next to you at a party, someone who will pass around the bottle with abandon (Pinot Noir is perfect for long, decadent dinner parties). They are more likely to tell you a sordid joke about funky barnyards rather than explain the technical reasons for reduction.

Sitting under the chandeliers at Australia House in London as a guest of Stonier from Mornington Peninsula and organisers of the SIPNOT event the two approaches to understanding Pinot Noir became apparent.

On my table: Jane Parkinson (The Wine Gang), Neal Martin (Robert Parker), Guy Woodward (Decanter Magazine), Gabby Savage (Drinks Business), Katie Exton (Sommelier, Chez Bruce), Colin Thorne (Vagabond Wines). After tasting a flight of 6 wines we discussed each wine amongst the tables, refereed by a panel lead by Willie Lebus (hedonist extraordinaire with a very good knowledge of Burgundy, Director at Bibendum).

First up, most people were keen to work out whether it was a “New World” or “Old World” Pinot Noir (and not just at our table).

Guy Woodward quipped, “It seems as if we can’t guess where a wine is from then it must be Oregon.”

An uncanny insight into what was to come…

Generally, wines believed to be from the New World were described as “clean” and all about the fruit. Old world wines may have had more complexity but they had “faults”.

We only knew the wine was either from Burgundy in 2008 or from the “New World” in 2009, which could mean New Zealand, Oregon or Australia (including a Stonier Pinot Noir – a very brave move for a winery). It all seemed very obvious at the time.

Then you taste the 2008 Cristom Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley, Oregon. One of the favourites at SIPNOT. It had a lot of the “wet forest” characters I associate with Vosne-Romanee (having just come back from Burgundy tasting the 2010 from barrel). Velvety on the palate with depth and complexity. Not flavours everyone associates with Oregon. However, Australian winemaker, Brian Croser of Tapanappa, who has also worked in Eola Valley, suggested a lot of what is seen in the UK is not representative of the quality found in Oregon.

And the quality is deeply impressive.

Thankfully two producers I love were also in my top 3: Domaine Confuron-Cotetidot and Domaine Tollot-Beaut, which I have tasted recently and recognised their slightly wackier characters in 2008 than 2010.

Tasmania showed very well. Also, the Fleurieu Peninsula on the coast of South Australia. The 2009 Tapanappa Foggy Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir had a lovely mouth-watering freshness, I did not expect from South Australia.

There were a few prejudices that needed to be re-thought.

One, in particular: I had wine critic Steven Spurrier down to be a technical Purist.

Yet, after Spurrier perfunctorily listed all the good things about a wine like reading out a shopping list (good wine, good definition, good fruit…) he punctuated his note with a telling sentence:

“I don’t care where it comes from! It’s a good wine.”

A Hedonist! No terroir speak here. In fact, it was Steven who organised a similar style of event called the Judgement of Paris in 1976, where unknown Californian wines beat some of the great French wines.

The Judgement of Paris shook up a few prejudices in 1976. Just as the organisers of SIPNOT want to happen in 2012.

Although I don’t think I will become a “Purist” anytime soon (although I am obsessed with Burgundy vineyards), this tasting proved there are just too many great Pinot Noir wines made all over the world. And all the more enjoyable for their differences!

The list of wines tasted at SIPNOT -

1.       2009 Tamar Ridge Kayena Vineyard, Tamar Valley, Tasmania, Australia

2.       2008 Gevrey-Chambertin Lavaut Saint-Jacques 1er, Domaine Confuron-Cotetidot, Burgundy, France

3.       2009 Martinborough Vineyard Pinot Noir, Martinborough, New Zealand

4.       2008 Corton Bressandes Grand Cru, Domaine Tollot-Beaut, Aloxe-Corton, Burgundy, France

5.       2009 Bay of Fires Pinot Noir, Pipers River, Tasmania, Australia

6.       2008 Cristom Jessie Vineyard Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA

7.       2008 Chehalem Ridgecrest Vineyard Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon, USA

8.       2009 Stonier Windmill Vineyard Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia

9.       2008 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru Domaine Armand Rousseau, Morey-St-Denis, Burgundy, France

10.   2009 Tapanappa Foggy Hill Vineyard, Fleurieu Peninsula, South Australia

11.   2009 Escarpment Kupe Pinot Noir, Martinborough, New Zealand

12.   2008 Les Suchots 1 er Vosne-Romanée Domaine de l’Arlot, Burgundy, France

Below are a few videos from some of the evening’s guests. Listen to their thoughts on Pinot Noir and this fantastic event -

* Stephen Spurrier was talking about No 8: 2009 Stonier Windmill Vineyard Pinot Noir.

Steven Spurrier on the Stonier International Pinot Noir Tasting 2012  -

Oz Clarke talking about Pinot Noir at SIPNOT 2012 -

Richard Hemming and his thoughts on the SIPNOT tasting -

Visit Bibendum’s YouTube channel to see more videos from this year’s Stonier International Pinot Noir Tasting.

Check out Bibendum’s Flickr page to see more photos from the evening.

As Bibendum’s Annual Tasting, Just Add…Bibendum, creeps ever closer (January 25th, check your diary), the training team are busying themselves with a showcase for the kind of activities we get up to for the other 365 days of the year (2012 is a leap year, don’t ya know).

Our Training Team comprises five people on a mission: to improve the quality and understanding of wine service throughout the country. With so few of us, you might think this a thankless task, but we work smart: small team, big impact. Our workshops are cleverly designed to engage with the people who influence the others they work with, enabling the good word to travel far and wide.

So what’s on offer from Bibendum’s Training Team at Just Add…Bibendum.

One of our exhibits this year involves a large, magnetic back bar display, upon which you will be invited to apply the design which allows the greatest attention to be paid (by your customers) to those items which make you the most profit. Simple application of well-known psychology can enable you to increase the profitability of your venue, just by making some basic adjustments to layout, and we’ll show you how.

We will also be taking the time to talk people through the basics of food and wine pairing. This is another subject where getting a grasp of the basic principles can unlock enormous potential. Rather than just talking through the details – there are plenty of books and websites you can turn to for that kind of advice – we will be walking you through the various steps (what you should be considering when pairing wine and food) and putting them into practice. The training team have selected some of their favourite wines for you to experiment with, and see for yourself how the theory is put into practice.

As well as being able to talk with members of the training team, we will be inviting you to embark on a treasure trail of discovery in the form of our treasure hunt. For this activity you will be unleashed to taste wines around the venue, and find out about them by talking with the producers. This represents a unique opportunity for you to speak with the people who not only sell the wines, but are involved in everything from the planting of the vines right through to bottling.

So, if you would like to take part in any of our activities, or simply come and have a chat about what we can do to help you improve wine service in your venue, come and find us in the Mezzanine floor of Room 1 at any point during the day. We look forward to seeing you there.

Click here to find out more about what’s on offer at Just Add…Bibendum.

Over the years Huia have taken quite a bit of blog space here on B Times. They’ve always got a story to tell and whether it’s their involvement with MANA and natural winemaking, a cheeky Pinot Noir wine of the week or harvest news from the team in Marlborough, we love to tell you all about what’s going on at one of New Zealand’s most exciting wineries.

What makes the winery one of the most interesting and exciting in New Zealand is their approach to winemaking. Not only are they a very small outfit, so there’s not much to go around. The team operate with an artisan approach to producing wine, with all their grapes biodynamically grown, and from 2012 onwards all their hand crafted wines will also be certified organic. Not stopping there, last year Huia were officially awarded Carbon Neutral status by the CaroNZero programme. All good stuff, but this wouldn’t be half as interesting unless their wines were top class. Producing some of the finest Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer to come out of New Zealand, alongside a fantastic sparkling, their wines are awesome examples of boutique winemaking in Marlborough.

So as we enter a New Year, we thought we would give you an update on what’s going on at Huia vineyards -

Seriously Buzzing! -

We recently caught up with the team from Huia, who were all rather excited about a new and unusual initiative they have up and running amongst the vines.  Within any winery that focuses on growing grapes with biodynamic practices firmly in the mind, the winemaking philosophy is always closely linked to the earth and nature.  One of their new vineyard practices fits this philosophy perfectly, and aims to increase the number of bees in and around the vines.

The reason for this lies within that fact that Bees in New Zealand are very much in danger, due largely to a lack of food and increased numbers of predators.  This is very much the case in Marlborough, with its widespread vine plantings. As grape vines are self pollinating, they do not require bees for pollination, and this has meant wild bees find it hard to survive in a landscape where flowers are only formed for a short period once a year.

To support a healthy bee population, Huia’s vineyards need to be full of flowers nearly all year round, calling for more diverse plants such as clover, buckwheat, blue tansy, alfalfa, tagasate, dandelion and yarrow. These plants not only feed the bees, but also protect and feed the soils, while also attracting further benefits such as other insects, bacteria and fungi that protct against diseases and pests that can attack the vines.

The Huia team believes bringing more bees to the vineyards creates a virtuous circle and leads to better soils, healthier vines and ultimately better wines. Interesting stuff…here’s to the humble honey bee!

Riddle me this….

Huia has recently finished hand-riddling their 2006 Brut, which was then disgorged and labelled in December. A labour of love for the team, riddling is the process by which the dead yeast and deposits from fermentation are gently brought from the bottom of the bottle into the neck to be disgorged. A slow and pain-staking job!

This ancient technique devised within the cavernous cellars of Champagne, involves turning the bottles of fizz a quarter of a turn at a time, repeatedly every other day. At Huia, riddling 6000 bottles takes around 5-6 weeks, and they hand riddle each of the 12,000 bottles produced every year.

Owner and Winemaker Mike Allen learnt these skills while working at Veuve Cliquot and the A frames used for the riddling are all from the Champagne region.  For Huia, making their fizz is all about authenticity, taking the time and doing things with the greatest of care to make the best wines.

Keep up the good work Mike…we all are big fans of the Huia fizz!

If you want to try Huia’s fantastic fizz and all their other great wines, as well as chat to the guys about what they are up to in the vineyard, check them out at Just Add Bibendum later this month.

Last year I sat here and wrote about the stellar vintage of 2009, with the Burgundy growers making their annual pilgrimage to the UK on the back of a fantastic year for all involved.  Weather wise it was pretty much perfect, ideal conditions throughout the year had created superb quality drinking across the board, with hugely fruit driven, expressive wines.  So as we turn to 2010, growers are again smiling, but it was not all plain sailing in 2010.

One word which keeps cropping up when talking about the 2010 vintage is yields, or indeed the extremely low yields which characterise a year on the slopes of Burgundy.  Following the large yields of 2009, the vines of Burgundy were ready for a well earned rest through the winter.  However tricky weather conditions were on the horizon.  Temperatures plummeted across the region through December, while in Spring just before flowering was about to start, the temperature dropped once again and the rain lashed down. The result was these very low fruit yields, however on the flip side, the fruit that did manage to survive the onslaught of the weather, was much smaller in size.  Mix these low yields and small berries and we have fruit with great concentration of flavour, and the makings of some great wines.

Move forward to this year’s 2010 En Primeur tasting; what does all this mean for the juice in the bottle?  Starting with a general overview, the wines of 2010 differ vastly to the wines of 2009.  What was a ripe, fruit driven style, with low levels of acidity in 2009, has been replaced by a year of precise acidity, elegance and freshness. What’s more, lovely minerality is matched alongside a concentration of fresh fruit flavours.  All these aspects being the direct result of the low yields and small berries.

For the whites, 2010 could well be up there with some of the best vintages for many years, with the Chardonnay fruit offering up awesome acidity, concentrated fruit and the minerality which characterises the wines of this part of the world.  It seems the areas which came out on top were those that picked at the perfect time for ripeness, and this fresh fruit and minerality is most evident in the wines of Chablis, St Aubin and Meursault.  The reds are a similar story, however the low yields are more of an issue for the Pinot Noir vines, and this year the availability of reds will be very limited. The fruit however is superb, with a lovely balance of fruit concentration, acidity and mineral character.

So onto a few of the highlights from the tasting. First off, so many of the whites were fantastic and really expressed the balance of fresh fruit and minerality. Domaine Jean Defaix’s selection of Chablis is always a highlight, but they were particularly good this week. The Jean Defaix Chablis with pronounced, lively citrus fruit and a long delicate finish can be enjoyed young, and is one of the best value wines from the night. Jumping up a few notches in price Domaine Morey-Coffinet’s Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Fairendes is full of rich, luxurious tropical fruit and again offers great value for this level of quality. Another white which must be mentioned is the Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champ Gain from Domaine Alain Chavy. This is lovely stuff and quite full bodied in style, with rich fruit and a long lingering finish.

Onto the reds, a mention must go to the wonderful Volnay of Domaine Pascal Bouley.  New to Bibendum this year, the Domaine has been producing wine in the region for five generations, and their Volnay offers luscious raspberry fruit, with plenty of smoke and spice.  Elegance and balance a plenty, the finish is characterised by smooth, sweet tannins. Another favourite was from Domaine Jean Chauvenet, where their exciting wines from Nuits-St-Georges have bucket loads of style and finesse. The 1er Cru Les Perrieres has elegant black fruits and is light, fresh and full of character.

A mention must also go to the wines of Domaine Hudelot-Noellat.  With a range of amazing wines, these guys cater for all budgets.  For great value, it has to be their Bourgogne Rouge.  This has all the characteristics of this great vintage, but with a very appealing price tag. Increasing the price level slightly, the Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Les Suchots is made from the Domaine’s oldest vines, which were planted just after the 1880 phylloxera epidemic. A wine of great depth and power, it’s fantastic red fruits are both elegant and concentrated.

Enough from me…check out a few pictures from the night, including our wine of the week -

The guests get straight into the wines –

The line up from Domaine Henri Gouges -

Passing judgement on 2010 –

Puligny-Montrachet from Domaine Alain Chavy –

Two of Bibendum’s finest pourers -

Our B Times Wine of the Week, Domaine Jean Defaix Chablis 2010 –

One more glass! –

Check out the video for thoughts on 2010, and its comparison to 2009 from Domaine Morey-Coffinet’s Thibault Morey -

Our third and final day in Burgundy began in quite possibly the most picturesque little town known to mankind: Meursault. As the sun rose on the town hall, this sleepy village yawned into action, the light streaming across the vineyards in on the horizon.

A short, brisk walk through the village took us to the door of Domaine Latour-Giraud, where we were met by Jean-Pierre Latour. He tentatively told us that he speaks a little English. This was the first sign of his tendency to understate: he had a grasp of the language which continues to elude many native speakers. He was similarly humble about his wines, despite being widely considered one of the best wine-makers in the region, and the winery itself was all business.

Now perhaps it was a function of the time of day (a 9am tasting is enough to challenge even us hardened professionals), but the balance of citrus and vanilla oak on Jean-Pierre’s wines was quite extraordinary. The first wine I tasted (2009 Meursault Cuvee Charles Maxime) was so reminiscent of honey on toast, I felt like I could’ve eaten it for breakfast (please note, this is a metaphor, no need for an intervention). Jean-Pierre uses only free run juice, and ferments using only natural, wild yeasts – another great example of the regions tendency to embrace a more natural approach to wine making once again.

Our next and final stop was to Pouilly-Fuisse, in the Mâconnais sub-region of Burgundy, where we paid a visit to Nicholas Robert of the Robert-Denogent winery.

It was apparent from the moment we arrived in Pouilly-Fuisse (which is actually made up of two villages, Pouilly and Fuisse), that the area has far steeper hills then the rest of Burgundy. Closer inspection reveals a different pruning system is in place to allow airflow through these hill-top vines. In the winery, however, all of the previous revelations pale into insignificance.

Having been in the wine and spirits trade for some time now, I’m well aware of the effects of using oak to age a liquid. I’m also aware that different types of oak will work in noticeably different ways, and that even when the same species of oak is used there will be subtle variations in the way the flavour manifests itself. What I was not ready for, however, was quite how marked these variations could be. Two identical wines, made from the same grapes, from the same vineyard, which had been stored in barrels in the same cellar, side by side, made from the same type of oak should, to all intents and purposes, taste very similar. Well, we tasted two such wines, straight from the barrel, and they were completely different! I would happily believe that one had spent two years in American oak, and the other six months in French oak, but it wasn’t the case.

Of course, oak is a natural product, and as such will be prone to natural variations, but quite the extent to which two barrels can vary took me completely by surprise.

And so it was that our whistle-stop tour of Burgundy came to an end. From Chablis, through the Côte d’Or to Maconnais, we had visited five different wine-makers, each making very different wines. The lessons we learnt? Well, there was an enormous amount of technical knowledge which simply cannot be gleaned from textbooks, but the most important (in my humble opinion) were as follows:

* Terroir is important, and makes a huge difference to the style of wine produced
* Oak can vary tremendously in the effect is has on wine
* Burgundian wine makers are amongst the best (and, in some cases, maddest) in the world
* “I don’t like Chardonnay” is an invalid sentence

The third chapter of our trip to Burgundy took us about an hour and a half south on the A6, to the southern part of the Côte-d’Or: the Côte de Beaune.

Land here is knee-tremblingly expensive. I’m told that 1/24th of a hectare (about 400 square metres, or 20m x 20m) recently exchanged hands for 900,000 Euros. It seemed almost blasphemous to walk on it.
What makes the land here so special, is that it changes so much in such a small space. Within Beaune there are around 50 different soil types, each bringing different qualities to the wines they ultimately produce. In the picture below you can see two sides of a single-width track: to the left there is chalk, to the right, clay.

If you need the effects of the terroir on the wine explaining to you, you could do an awful lot worse than spending the afternoon with Sebastian Roux, who walked us through the vineyards, bringing the wines to life as he did so.
Back in the tasting room, we were guided through some twenty-something wines: having moved further south from Chablis, there was now Pinot Noir to get to grips with as well. The tasting room was well stocked, and we worked our way through an astonishingly wide variety of wines. If you, or anyone you know, has ever uttered the words “I don’t like Chardonnay“, then I would argue you (or they) simply haven’t found the one you like yet. Never have I seen such an array of texture, acidity, fruit and flavour as I did in that one tasting session, all from just one grape variety (well, two including the Pinot Noir, but you see my point…).

The Pinot Noirs also showed remarkable diversity, with supple, soft tannins and ripe red fruit. Autumn was the perfect time for tasting these gems of the Côte de Beaune, but that certainly shouldn’t stop you visiting Sebastian when he comes to London for the Bibendum Annual Tasting in January.

Read all the previous posts from the Training team’s trip to Burgundy -

Bibendum Training Team in Burgundy – Day 1, Chablis

Bibendum Training Team in Burgundy – Day 2 (Part 1), Chablis

“I am a legend!”

The great Ben Collins is indeed a Bibendum legend. He’s been here from the very beginning, half his life in fact, selling fine wine to the great and the good around the country. On Monday night more than a few Bibendumites gathered upstairs at our local The Lansdowne to celebrate his 60th birthday. As befits a fine skier, it is, as Ben himself put it, all downhill from here.

For a man pickled in Pauillac, he is looking remarkably well as he heads into his dotage. Don’t rule out him trying to flog you Bordeaux 2031 en primeur.

The rules of admission were very simple: you needed to bring a more than decent bottle and a story or two about Ben. Neither were in short supply.

So what did we choose to drink in honour of one of our best loved colleagues?

Bastianich Vigne Orsone Friulano 2010
Besserat de Bellefon Brut Rose NV
Echezeaux Bouchard Aine & Fils (no-one seems to be able to recall the vintage of this one)
Catena Zapata Malbec Nicasia 2007
Barolo Bricco Rocche Ceretto 2004
Charles Smith Kung Fu Girl Riesling 2010
Chateau Batailley 2004
Chateau Batailley 1990
Chateau Batailley 1996
Chateau Belle-Brise 1995
Chateau Cissac 2000
Chateau d’Esclans Esclans Rosé 2010
Chateau Lagrange 2004
Chateau Paveil de Luze 2007 – in multiple imperiales
Chateau Pichon-Longueville Baron 2004
Cuatro Rayas Verdejo 2010
Dr Burklin-Wolf Trocken Riesling 2009
Nuits-St-Georges Henri Jayer 1998
Howard Park Chardonnay 2007
Vouvray Clos du Bourg Sec Huet2009
Cote Rotie Jamet 1994
Katnook Estate Odyssey Cabernet Sauvignon 2003
Sancerre Les Hospices Paul Buisse 2010
Les Tourelles de Longueville 2003
Long Meadow Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon Napa 1996
Marotti Campi Luzano 2004
Maison Roche de Bellene Puligny Montrachet Les Referts 2008
Barolo Paolo Conterno 2005
Bourgogne Pinot Blanc Vieille Vigne Patrick Javillier 1997
Petit Chablis Patrick Piuze 2010
Petaluma Adelaide Hills Viognier 2009
Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling 2009
Prophet’s Rock Pinot Noir 2009
Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Brut Jeio Bisol NV
Quinta do Vallado Douro Tinto 2003
Valpolicella Classico Superiore Quintarelli 2001
Rex Hill Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2008
Rolly-Gassman Gewürztraminer 2007
Meursault Clos des Poruzots Domaine Roux Pere & Fils 2008
Rully Clos des Mollepierres Domaine Saint Abel 2007
Cotes du Rhone Saint Cosme 2010
Gigondas Saint Cosme 2009
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo San Calisto 2005 (I think)
St Hallett Blackwell Shiraz 2007
Brunello di Montalcino Talenti 2005
Vieux Chateau Certan 1993
Villa Russiz Collio Friulano 2009
Villa Russiz Collio Merlot 2009

There were quite a few of us after all.

Personal highlights included the VCC, the Jayer, the Jamet and the Huet. No surprises there, perhaps. I didn’t even see the Quintarelli or the Talenti at my end of the table. The last drop of Prophet’s Rock swigged from an all but empty bottle boded well for 2012’s drinking. It will arrive in our warehouse in the New Year.

As someone said to me over a restorative lunch yesterday, few people are lucky enough to work somewhere where 50 or so colleagues can come together for an amazing evening of great food and wine. That it was in honour of a true wine trade legend, just made the claret taste even better.

Happy Birthday, Ben.