I finally made it to David Motion’s The Winery at 4 Clifton Road W9 (http://www.thewineryuk.com/) recently, close to Little Venice.

Recording interviews for the Food Program of July 27th/28th has given me a chance to visit some old friends as well as new estates on the English sparkling wine scene.

Champagne intends to expand its growing area. Here’s the nitty-gritty, based on a recent visit.

Is this a new idea?

This is a very brief introduction to a vast subject, prepared from a speech given to Waitrose Wine Advisers at the London Wine Trade Fair on May 22nd 2008. It is divided into two sections, crudely called Macro and Micro.

Macro

12 billion years ago – in other words 12,000 times one million years ago – the Universe came into being.

To the London Wine Trade Fair for two days last week. Faced with the possibility of tasting almost anything and meeting almost anyone, what’s the strategy?

Aimless wandering is best avoided, since the Fair drifts by in a succession of 10-minute chats with old acquaintances: socially enjoyable, but professionally useless. A determined stride and temporary tunnel vision is the best way to move down the channels and gulleys which separate each island stand.

Spreading the word

Off to the Decanter World Wine Awards tastings every day last week, medal-hunting with the Regional France and Languedoc-Roussillon panels. I can’t reveal any of the results, obviously; indeed I don’t know them yet myself in any useful sense, since all we’ve done is award medals to unidentified wines. What I can do is pass on a little of flavour of the week, and try to explain why it’s so enjoyed by its participants.

Those of you who have bumped into my writing down the years will know that I love French wine.

Decanter magazine has asked me to write a piece addressing the issue of whether the palates of professional wine buyers, sommeliers and wine critics are ‘too developed’. Example? I don’t like anything much in the Yellowtail range (yes, I know it’s “[yellowtail]” but I refuse to get involved in typographical affectation without good literary cause). I don’t drink much Gallo Colombard, either. Yet these wines bring pleasure to hundreds of thousands of drinkers every day. Should I take this into account before I dismiss them?

I believe ... wine drinkers, even the most cultured, are unfairly blinkered about beer. (Not all, but most.) Whereas cultured beer drinkers invariably appreciate wine. Unfair!

First, a warning: this is a boring post. The subject does, though, matter. If you’re looking for pure entertainment, though, I’d skip this one.

The background can be found in the entry for February 10th: Fairtrade or rogue trade? In a footnote to that post, I wondered what controls there might be to stop producers (or retailers) who had won a gold medal at either the International Wine Challenge (IWC) or the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) committing fraud along the following hypothetical lines.