Real Wine Recollected In Tranquillity

A few reflections – in no particular order

*Our third Real Wine Tasting (all have been on fruit or flower days) and the best to date.
*A venue can make the tasting. With its high ceilings, swanky chandeliers, big stage and arched recesses the Porchester Hall had the perfect dimensions for this particular event. It would also have served brilliantly as a set for Hamlet with its alcoves ideal for eavesdropping or clandestine trysts…
*Organisation creates time and space. Amy and Louise did a magnificent job.
*Silliest oversight. No bread to dip into the delicious Valentini olive oil. D’Oh etc!
*Fifty-five growers under one roof is an extraordinary collective effort
*The wine dinner is the symbol of magnanimity and connection. Great food, great wine, great company
*It is important to be generous with food and wine. It makes people relaxed and happy.
*A lot of trade tastings are solely populated by ranks of slick commercial export managers giving it the soft soap. Having the growers present gives a definite air of verisimilitude to the proceedings.
*These were genuine artisans; very few produce wines in any commercial quantity.
*If you like the grower, you want to like the wine.
*The growers of the South West radiate enough bonhomie to warm the most echoey of halls
*A real compliment is a truly precious thing. Thanks to those who thanked us!
*The low/no-sulphur wines split customers down the middle. Those who were told what to expect responded more favourably.
*Once you acquire the taste for natural wines it is difficult to return to those manufactured wines which wear such heavy make-up.
*It would be have been interesting and instructive to calculate the average alcohol levels on the wines displayed, but I can’t imagine many trade tastings where the vast majority of wines were under 13%
*Generally speaking, real wines possess delicious balanced acidity.
*Generally speaking, very few of the wines were fermented or aged in new oak barrels.
*For unusual taste thrills the whites and reds from Friuli take some beating.
*Barbera is a truly under-rated grape variety.
*Truly, people can be divided into open tasters (enquiring palates, eager to ask questions) and closed tasters (quick to judge/dismiss a wine)
*The white wines of Frank Cornelissen apparently should be filtered, decanted and drunk three days later. Mais naturellement!
*Why do people accept dinner invitations and then not attend without as much as a call? Especially those who work in the trade?
*Standing and talking for eight hours is a lot harder than it looks. In the end you feel like a raddled turnip.
*Our archive of pictures this year will not win any photographic awards. Everyone looks very fuzzy - but then perhaps they were.
*There were about 1% of wines out of condition over the two days. There were fewer reductive wines than I would have expected.
* I have a stupid theory. When growers/vignerons stands next to their own wines, they behave better (the wines not the growers)
*Biggest discovery: Pinot Grigio, Princic (magnums)
*Best conventional expensive wine: Meursault Narvaux, Frederic Cossard
*Wine which tickled the hairs on the back of my neck: Sancerre Blanc, Skeveldra, Riffault
*The one which everyone drank: Trebbiano Frizzante, Camillo Donati
*Biggest disappointment: I didn’t have the opportunity to taste every single wine.
*The best tastings are those when every single grower receives a glowing review from at least one person.
*The very best tastings remind you why you fell in love with wine in the first place