In honor of Benjamin Leroux’s visit to Oregon to represent Comte Armand, as well as his own label, at IPNC, we’ll feature several of the wines he makes and throw in a bonus pour of Freddy Mugnier’s 2008 Nuits-St George, Clos de la Marechale 1er.  Tasting fee is $15, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

We will release the 2009 Leroux Wines the week of July 25^th.

The world has arrived in Oregon for four days of endless bacchanalia and indulgence that goes by the name of IPNC – the International Pinot Noir Celebration. Let the games begin!

We are psyched to have wine luminaries Benjamin Leroux (Domaine Comte Armand and his own eponymous label) and Raj Parr (uber-sommelier of the Michael Mina Group nationwide, including the Burg-centric RN74 outposts in Seattle and San Francisco) joining us for our annual pre-IPNC dinner in the cellars tomorrow night.

Burgundy rock-star Benjamin Leroux Photo - Andrea Johnson

Then we get to spend the weekend with so many of our friends from all over the planet – Burghound’s Allen Meadows, writer Jordan Mackay, dear friend and mentor Véronique Drouhin, Alex Gambal, David Croix, Thibault Morey, Alexandrine Roy, Dominique Lafon, and all of our great customers and fellow Pinot-geeks world-wide – not to mention a few dozen of the best chefs the great NW has to offer. And somehow I’m going to attempt to maintain my marathon training throughout all of this – wish me luck!

There will undoubtedly be massive amounts of great bottles making their way to many tables over the next few days. I’ve pulled a few goodies out of the cellars, including a nice selection of 2001 Grand Crus – time to check in on them at age 10 and see where they are in their evolution. Keep your eye on FB and Twitter for updates on all the hedonism as it unfolds…

Saturday, July 23rd and Sunday the 24th!  Carlton’s Walk in the Park is one terrific gem of an event that you should not miss.  It certainly says something special about Carlton that a town of just 1,700 residents stages such a successful wine & art festival.  Sample wines from renowned wineries, purchase dishes from some of the Valley’s best restaurants, view and purchase art, pottery, jewelry and more directly from the artists (juried selection), check out the vintage cars, and dance to the irresistible beat of bands like March Fourth.  Scott Paul Wines is proud to participate and encourages you to make a weekend of it.  Proceeds benefit local charities, supporting education, recreation and enrichment programs for youth and teens, and more.

Alors, c’est fait! It is done – Kelley and I have just finished making the final blending decisions for our 2010 Pinots. Yum! What the birds didn’t get is indeed  quite delicious (you may recall that the Willamette Valley was subject to a rare attack by swarms of birds just before harvest last year, and the hungry birds ate some 30-40% of the meager crop that was hanging. Merde!) .

After all is said and dine, it’s a vintage of purity and precision – ripe yet bright and crisp, with more fruit and fruit “sweetness” than we would have thought early on. Overall, there’s a great freshness to the fruit character, coupled with nice palate weight and good length. It doesn’t really compare to any vintage we’ve experienced before here (since 1999). It was not a hot year, but yet it shares little with the cooler years of ’05 or ’07. Ultimately, the wines will have the last word anyway, so it’s moot to conjure up comparisons at this point.

Sampling the components of the 2010 Pinots...

As previously mentioned, there will be three different wines from 2010. There will be seven barrels (about 175 cases) of a lovely Audrey – silky and delicate and graceful as always, and sourced entirely from our old vines at Maresh Vineyard in the Dundee Hills. The 2010 La Paulée brings together fruit from Maresh, Nysa, and Ribbon Ridge Vineyards, and as always shows more roundness and richness than Audrey, with nice concentration and plenty of ripe fruit. New in 2010 will be a tiny four-barrel cuvée from Nysa Vyd. in the Dundee Hills, with a nice raspberry-richness and lovely round textures that show very nicely on their own. This wine will be called “Les Gourmandises”, a true delicacy indeed…

2010 Audrey, La Paulée, and Dix

We also tasted through all of the ‘09s this afternoon. The Audrey is of course already on the market, and drinking nicely now, though I would wait for another two years or more to really let it show what it’s all about. Next up will be our special 10th anniversary cuvee, called “Dix” – which we’ll be releasing in September (with a special party, including a vertical of La Paulée and a bunch of Magnums too – all on Sept. 17th here in Carlton – details soon.) The Dix is showing loads of rich red fruits and nice detail – there are only 100 cases of it, but it’s a beauty. Then next spring we’ll release the ’09 La Paulée – velvet, black cherries, and succulence – more info as we get closer to release…

In the meantime, it is supposed to start acting like summer around here this weekend, thankfully just in time for Carlton’s Walk in the Park. I look forward to seeing you there!

2010 Oregon Pinot –  On Thursday Kelley and I are putting together the final blends for what will be three very cool and very different bottlings from the vintage. Sneak preview – there’ll be a La Paulée and Audrey of course, and a special bottling from our blocks of Nysa vineyard that will be called “Les Gourmandises” (a French term that means “delicacies”.) It’s just a matter of making the final barrel selections now, and then we’ll rack the wines into tank a few weeks prior to bottling in early September.

There’s no chance that our bottling will conflict with harvest this year. Everything in the Willamette Valley is still way behind due to a late, cool spring (and not much summer to speak of as of yet!) We’re seriously looking at an October 25th start this year, or thereabouts. A hot August & September could speed things up a bit, but I’d actually prefer that it doesn’t. I’d rather have a nice long string of 75-80 degree days throughout September and October, like we had in 2008. What I would like, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the final outcome. All we can do is roll with it and make the best out of what nature brings us…

It is the 19th of July and our vineyards are STILL not completely through flowering yet – some of the higher elevation blocks at Maresh and Azana still have a few days to go. It’s amazing that we even have flowering at all, given the lack of sun and heat to this point. Typically it takes about 450-500 “heat-units” for flowering to happen (average daily temp. over 50 multiplied by number of days. Example – a day that averaged 70 degrees would be a 20-degree day. 10 days like that would give you 200 heat units, etc.) This year, we had flowering after only about 350 heat units. The vines were just biologically ready to go, apparently.

Volnay - June 18th, 2011

On the other hand, Burgundy is looking at another very early harvest – with all signs pointing to a start in the Côte de Beaune around August 22nd. What’s really interesting is that it hasn’t been hot there at all, they just got an early start to spring, and have had a very mild, even cool summer to this point (it’s in the hi-60s there all this week, for example.) Their spring started in late February. Ours has apparently not yet really arrived…

In the meantime, we’re looking forward to the annual Carlton’s Walk in the Park event this weekend (and the forecast looks great as of now.) Bring everybody out for great wine and food, music, dancing, arts & crafts shopping, and just hanging out. Our tasting room will be closed this weekend so we can be with you in the park – look for us there Saturday from 11-8 and Sunday 11-6.

Kelley Fox with Thiébault & Mariel Hubert at IPNC

Then, we can focus on the big 25th anniversary IPNC, July 29-31, the best wine event in the U.S. every year bar none! This year’s three-day-weekend event is already sold-out, but as of last report tickets still remained for the Sunday afternoon tasting – check it out if you can. It’s a great way to taste Pinot from over 70 of the world’s top producers, meet the winemakers, and sample the goodness from over a dozen of the Northwest’s best chefs. I’ll be there with our Burgundy superstar Benjamin Leroux, pouring wines from Domaine Comte Armand in Pommard and of course his own Benjamin Leroux label as well, and we hope to see you there!

Tasting update – 2009 Burgundy. In a word – utterly delicious. This is indeed the vintage that the world thought they were getting with the 2005s – succulent, open, ripe fruit in harmony with the soft tannins and precise minerality – a vintage of absolute pleasure and dare I say instant gratification. Many of my friends in Burgundy speak often of comparisons with 1959 and 1985 – two of my very favorites over the years. I did not get to drink the ‘59s upon release (I turned 7 in 1961), but I do have some experience with the young ‘85s – which I recall being a little leaner and lighter-bodied overall than this crop of outstanding ‘09s.

2005 is certainly a better vintage in terms of classically great Burgundies that will age 50+ years. The 2005s are mostly closed-down tighter than a drum right now, however, and are probably best not approached before 2015 in most cases. 2009 on the other hand is one of those extremely rare Burgundy vintages that is open for business from day one – but also has the capacity for at least medium-term ageing. At the time it was said that the ‘85s and even ‘59s would not age well. Most ‘85s hit their peak at age 15-20, and the great ‘59s are still going strong 50+ years down the line. So much for conventional wisdom.

At any rate, I haven’t seen a Burgundy vintage in my lifetime that provides such pure pleasure early on. These wines show more fruit than is typical, but it’s not the very-to-over-ripe fruit that is commonly found in many New World Pinots these days. Yes they’re ripe, but only in the context of Burgundy. They are still restrained and elegant and nicely structured, but with the added bonus of lovely fruit at an early stage. In other words, what’s not to like?

Volnay Clos de Cave des Ducs

We’ve been opening a bunch of ‘09s at the tasting room recently, as the new releases arrive. This past weekend the Benjamin Leroux Savigny-lès-Beaune and Volnay Clos de la Cave des Ducs 1er were both stunning. The Volnay is, to me, the very essence of Volnay – pure silk, lace, perfume, and drop-dead sexy. The J-J Confuron Bourgogne Rouge sold-out on the first day – a reminder that this is a great vintage to buy at the “lower” levels, they are lovely wines and stunning values. The Confuron Chambolle-Musigny was also a huge hit – in a word, “sex in a glass”. Also popped the Confuron Chambolle 1er Saturday afternoon – man, just layers and layers of elegance and yumminess. Great, great stuff. (Opened a JJC ’07 Romanée-St. Vivant yesterday at a party – amazingly accessible for a young Grand Cru, and age 10 should be jaw-droppingly divine…)

I would be remiss if I didn’t say a few words about the ’09 whites. The best wines are superb, and generally come from the producers that tend to work in a more understated style. Those who picked later in search of maximum ripeness have made wines that I find a bit too heavy and rich, masking the underlying minerality too much for me. Our friends at Domaine Buisson-Charles in Meursault, great practitioners of the old-school, less-is-more style of winemaking, have produced some of the best whites of the vintage in ’09. Burghound’s Allen Meadows’ laudatory reviews and high scores have produced a bit of a feeding frenzy for the wines. I was at the estate in Meursault two weeks ago, listening to the phone calls come in from China, Japan, and all of their importers around the globe begging for an allocation. Fortunately we placed our orders way before the reviews, and were able to get everything we wanted from Buisson-Charles this year (though of course it’s never enough – they only make a few barrels of each of the 1er Crus, so we get just a few cases of each!) We still have most of the Buisson-Charles ‘09s in stock, but they will not be around for long…

Speaking of reviews – the first big report on the ’09 vintage in Oregon has just been released in Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar. We were thrilled and honored to get excellent reviews and scores from Josh Raynolds of 92 for the ’09 Audrey, 91 for the ’09 La Paulée, and 92 for the ’09 “Dix” – a special 10th-anniversary bottling that we’ll be releasing this fall. My take on the Oregon ’09 Pinots has always been “ripe and rich and round, with some wines too far over the top”. It was a warm year, but nowhere near the heat of ’06 or ’03, though some wines are approaching those ripeness and alcohol levels. Ours are all under 13.5% alcohol, and though they’re pretty “big” for us, in the context of the vintage they are still fairly restrained. We’ve only released the ’09 Audrey so far – watch this space for info on upcoming releases later in the year…

I’ve been back for a week now from our 4-week adventure in Burgundy, Italy and Switzerland. It was a great trip on all fronts. The most amazing thing happened however, something I never expected in a million years. I got excited about an Italian wine! I have nothing against Italian wine, but truly know next to nothing about them, as I’ve spent my adult life immersed in Burgundy and Champagne. When I’ve been turned on to good Italian juice by people who know it well, I’ve always enjoyed it, but I’d never considered adding anything from Italy to our import program. It was really never even a thought.

A view over the vineyards of Montalcino

And then out of nowhere, it happened. I immediately went on Facebook to ask our fans what they’d think about us bringing in some nice Italian juice. I was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic and unanimously positive response. And so, very shortly, we’ll be unveiling our first, and probably only, foray into the world of Tuscan wine. We’re hammering out details as we speak, but exciting news is on the way in the very near future. All I can say for now is – Brunello di Montalcino that a confirmed Burgundy lover can love. Stay tuned…

Saturday, July 16, 12-5pm

The accolades for the outstanding 2009 vintage in Burgundy are unanimous – it’s a great vintage full of rich succulent fruit and pure pleasure! Join us in Carlton for a tasting of new arrivals from three of Burgundy’s brightest stars. New treasures from J-J Confuron, Domaine Pavelot, and Benjamin Leroux will be on offer.  The tasting fee is $10 for this special flight, refundable with any 3-bottle purchase of the featured wines.

Scott and Martha will have just returned from Champagne and Burgundy and will have plenty of tasting notes and news about all of the producers.

Typically when I’m working in Burgundy and Champagne, I am posting daily with updates on all of the wines, meals and assorted adventures along the way. I am also typically on my own. This trip I was happy to be able to bring Martha & Pirrie along – and my usual late-night and early-morning writing sessions gave way to enjoying family time & some actual sleep and vacation – something I don’t normally experience while I’m on the road. It’s been a couple of weeks since the last entry, and it seems like there’s a lifetime worth of stuff to catch up on.

Martha & Pirrie in the Swiss Alps

First off, it was truly the trip of a lifetime. Two weeks of work and then two weeks of pure vacation and adventure. Champagne, Chablis, Burgundy, Munich, Verona, Montalcino, Siena, Florence, Pienza, Montepulciano, Grindelwald, Lausanne, Geneva, and now 39,000 feet over the Atlantic on the way home after a four week odyssey of epic food, wine and discovery. Not to mention all sorts of exciting new wrinkles to add to the Scott Paul program. (Kelly Karr, if you read this before I talk to you don’t freak out – we’re only adding two or three new producers, I promise!)

The Tuscan countryside - Photo Martha Wright

Somehow, among the seemingly endless 4-week feeding frenzy, I managed to get in most of my training runs – but am really looking forward to getting back to my beloved Leif Erikson trail in Portland’s Forest Park. The Portland Marathon is on October 9th, and I fully intend to be ready and to drag my butt over the 26.2 miles in some way shape or form. The best run of the trip was in the Swiss Alps – up and down the hills of Grindelwald and along the gorgeous river that roars across the valley floor at the base of the Eiger.

On the slopes above Grindelwald - Photo Martha Wright

This was my first visit to Switzerand, and I am now a huge fan – despite the insanely high prices for everything in the country. I can also forgive them for the mediocrity of most of their wines – as their hospitality, the natural beauty, the cheeses & sausages, not to mention the plumbing, are truly world-class. I was astonished to learn that an entry-level, non-local-language speaking dishwasher makes the minimum wage of about $3,500 per month. This explains why a scoop of ice cream is $6, a plate of pasta is $35, and a nice steak in a restaurant runs you about $55+. The Swiss also pay hardly any taxes – they apparently need all their pay just to afford the $5 donuts and $60 t-shirts we saw everywhere.

Watching the Paragliders in the Alps - Photo Martha Wright

Some random thoughts:

•    The Italians seem even more obsessed than the French with passing any car that might have made the grave mistake of actually being in front of them. Even if they have nowhere to go once they’ve passed you, they MUST pass you – it seems like a national requirement.
•    The French, Germans, Italians, Austrians and Swiss all do a remarkable job of accurately posting signs and pertinent information on all major roadways. I made it through five countries without a significant wrong turn, and was especially proud to have safely navigated my way out of the middle of Florence and back to Montalcino in thick traffic and total darkness late one night.
•    The coolest public restrooms anywhere on the planet are in Switzerland. There was one 7,100 feet up a mountain that was so nice and so huge that I was tempted to move in. (And there’s a good restaurant right above it too – no reason to ever leave!) Apparently the Italians don’t often go to Switzerland, which is a shame as they could learn a trick or two.
•    Bistecca alla Fiorentina, done well, may be my favorite beef preparation ever. I enjoyed three excellent versions – at Il Latini in Florence, Osteria Le Logge in Siena, and Ristorante Lamole near Greve. Not the best way to prepare for a marathon, I know, but it’s just so damned good! I found the beef in Italy much tastier than the vaunted Charolais beef in France.

•    This is very hard for me to admit, being the hard-core Francophile that I am, but I think that on a daily basis one eats better in Tuscany than in France. Top-end French may indeed be better, but with the daily fare in Tuscany so good, who needs to go high end? Bistecca, Gnocchi and Gelato, oh my… (There’s a great book on this, “Au revoir to all that“ by Michael Steinberger, all about the decline of France as a culinary power – I highly recommend it, btw.)
•    I’ve also enjoyed Tuscan wines much more than I expected to. I’m such a one-trick pony that I spend virtually all of my wine life immersed in Burgundy, Champagne and domestic Pinot. I have now been awakened to the joys of a great Brunello, among other delights. Experiencing the place, the culture, really helps me understand the wines. (Staying on the estate with a great producer also helps immensely.)

On the grounds of Villa le Prata in Montalcino

•    We take it as a given that restaurants in the U.S. with a great view are only mediocre at best. Just the opposite in Italy, it seems. Poggio Antico and Bocco Divino in Montalcino and Lamole in Chianti Classico were not only three of the most dramatically beautiful settings I’ve ever seen – they were among the best meals of the trip as well. Restaurateurs in Malibu and all other waterfront settings across the States, please take note.

The view from dinner in Montalcino

We were fortunate to be in Tuscany round the time of the famous Palio – the centuries-old festival centered on a horse-race around the Piazza in the middle of Siena, a wonderfully cool medieval city just south of Florence. Each neighborhood in the city – called a “Contrada” – has an entrant in the race, and the winner gets bragging rights and gets to lord it over all the other contradas for the next year. It seems to be mostly a matter of luck, however – as both the jockey and horse for each contrada are selected in a random drawing. Some contradas apparently win much more often than others, however. This leads to a flurry of conspiracy theories and accusations of massive corruption – most of which are probably at least somewhat rooted in truth. (We witnessed one jockey pull his horse back out of the race in the first turn, just so he could savagely whip a competitor – another jockey, not the horse! We also saw the jockey in the lead after the first turn take a dubious “dive”, leading most locals to believe he was paid off to lose the race. These scenes were replayed in slow-motion from six angles about 125 times on TV that night, as the experts dissected every possible motive and meaning behind all the actions in the race. I’ve seen them do this for Italian soccer matches as well – it’s a national past-time to analyze every sporting event to death, and of course to debate every little nuance well in to the night.)

Pre-Palio parade thru the streets of Siena - Photo Martha Wright

The entire city is decked out in banners and flags and medieval costumes for days leading up to the event. Two days before the race they hold the drawing for the horses, and as many people pack the Piazza for that as they do for the race. Same goes for the drawing of the jockeys the next night. We were there for both of these events – and witnessed a huge fight break out between the “Tower” and “Goose” contradas (apparently long-time bitter rivals)– literally hundreds of men pummeling each other in the middle of the square. Apparently hundreds of thousands of Euros are passed around in payments or bribes to jockeys, not to mention the heavy betting on the race – leading to all the conspiracy and corruption theories, of course. Two days later it was the “Goose” contrada that emerged victorious in the race, and we saw the residents of the winning neighborhood walking around town the following day sucking on pacifiers and baby bottles – a custom that indicates “Now that we have won the Palio, we are born again”.

The Contrada flags flying in Siena

Some favorite meals from the trip:

•    Il Latini in Florence. A mad-house, old-school joint that has no menu – they just bring plate after plate of amazing stuff. Platters of great Prosciutto and Melon. Bruschetta drowning in great tomatoes and olive oil and Chicken Liver Paté. Bean and Bulghur salad. Bistecca alla Fiorentina – enough to feed the Roman army. Good wine list, great service, great fun. Even with a reservation, it’s a zoo. Somehow they get everybody in (the place seems to have dozens of rooms sprawling all over an old Palazzo) – and once you’re at your table, the food just starts coming. Magic.
•    Café de Paris in Geneva. Also a place with no menu. No need for one, as they serve only one dish – rib-eye steak and fries, with a green salad. The steak comes smothered in butter-garlic sauce, grilled to perfection. The frites are crisp and salty, and the salad is deliciously dressed. Crap wine list, but the meal is divine. Would eat there every day if I lived in Geneva.
•    Ristorante Lamole in Greve. Way way way up a the top of the mountain, with a jaw-droppingly stunning view over all of Chianti Classico. Fabulous service. The best antipasti anywhere. Genius pastas and grilled meats. A few glasses of the house Chianti Classico Riserva. Heaven.

Antipasti at Lamole - Photo Martha Wright

•    Poggio Antico in Montalcino. This world-class Brunello di Montalcino producer also has an amazing restaurant on the estate. The fresh breads and pastas were the best I’ve had – creative, simple, and singing with flavor. A true standout. We went for lunch – would love to return for the full dinner experience one day.

Ravioli with fresh Peas at Poggio Antico - Photo Martha Wright

More random thoughts:

•    German television is a riot. I don’t understand the language – which may make it funnier – but it is a riot nonetheless. Now I get why SNL parodied so many German shows over the years – this stuff is whack!
•    Most languages heard anywhere –  in Geneva. On one ten minute tram ride we were likely to hear French, Italian, German, Dutch, Spanish, assorted African languages, Mandarin, Japanese, and English, of the American, British, Australian and Kiwi varieties. With everyone on their iPhones at once, it’s quite a cacophony.
•    Best Gelato – a tie between the place in Verona on Via Mazzini  and a place called “Why Not” in Montalcino – the best dark chocolate frozen concoctions ever. Honorable mention to the place in Siena that I could never find again if I tried…

Great Gelato in Verona

•    Best food shops – Pienza. A tiny hill-town half way between Montalcino and Montepulciano, jammed full of the best cheese, salumi and chocolate shops we found anywhere. Dangerously good. If you can find Maglio chocolates anywhere – get them! Huge thanks to Portland wine retailer Darryl Joannides of Cork – A Bottle Shop for the recommendations on Pienza and tons of great wines and restaurants…

A cheese shop in Pienza - Martha Wright

•    Most kid-friendly destination – Switzerland. Everywhere we went you could see that a lot of thought had gone into providing genuinely fun and interesting things for kids to do.
•    Best value in all of Switzerland – the 6-Franc (about $8) grilled sausage on a roll on the main street in Lauterbrunnen.
•    It is petrifying driving on the sections of the German Autobahn that have no speed limit. Scared the crap out of me to be doing 85-90MH and have people passing me doing twice that. I was afraid to get out of the slow lane, even to pass a truck. Felt like we could’ve been killed any second.

If you’ve never been, once in your life you should see the Swiss Alps. We’d never actually even thought of going – we were only there through the courtesy of Martha’s brother and sister-in-law, who’d invited us to join them for a week at a lovely chalet. We were based in the village of Grindelwald. The dramatic beauty is in a league of its own. It is so vast and so beautiful that at times we were sure it was a painted Hollywood backdrop, with the clusters of chalets on the hillsides little miniatures like you’d see in an architect’s model of a new development. The mountains are massive, the villages are incredibly charming, and the recreation is boundless.

My favorite was taking the gondola up to Grindelwald First, which is 7,100 feet up the south face of the mountain directly opposite the Eiger, From there we were strapped into harnesses on the “First Flieger” and soared on cables nearly a mile down the hill over the course of a 1,000 foot drop – exhilarating to say the least – the coolest “Zip-line” on the planet, surely. Then we hiked back up to First, and lunched on the deck at 7,100 feet on a crystal clear day with the 13,000-foot mountain peaks seemingly within arms reach. Pure magic. Then we took the gondola back down half way, where we picked up helmets and hi-tech scooters and rolled the rest of the way down the mountain – thanking god for great hand-brakes all the way, to be sure.

Summer-Tobogganing above Grindelwald - Photo Martha Wright

Final Random Thoughts:

•    Place I’d most like to revisit and spend more time – Lausanne, Switzerland. A gorgeous city on the lakefront about an hour north of Geneva – with a very Portland-like spirit (kept expecting to see a “Keep Lausanne Weird” sticker any minute.
•    Place I’m not in a rush to return to – Montepulciano. Certainly fine and charming, but I enjoyed the other Tuscan hill-towns a lot more.
•    Most amazing cultural-historical experience – visiting the Palazzo Publico in Siena. The brilliant frescoes from the early 1300s are stunning – one of which is the first painting to ever depict something other than a religious subject.
•    More fun than is allowed by law – showing a dozen of our clients around Burgundy for a week, sharing the richness of the culture, the people, the land and the wines that I love. Pure happiness.
•    The best part of it all – sharing this amazing voyage with my family, who are the greatest travel partners ever, and who brought love and joy to each and every day.

I have lots of exciting news on the wine front – some new bottlings from our producers in Champagne that blew my mind, a new producer in the Beaujolais that will blow your mind, another Scott Paul Burgundy is on the drawing board, and there just may be a tall dark and handsome Italian or two in our near future as well. All the details here shortly once I’ve got all the deals wrapped up – stand by…

First, some random thoughts. The rolling hills surrounding Montalcino are probably a great place to train for a marathon. However, a bottle of Brunello every night and two gelatos every day may not be the most effective training regimen. You’ve got to do the time if you want to do the crime…

We are having a fabulous time. It feels like the first real vacation since 2003 when we went to Corsica. I am captivated by the natural beauty of Tuscany, not to mention the aforementioned Brunello and gelato. Siena and Pienza have been my favorite towns so far, with Montalcino right up there as well. Looking forward to Florence as well, which we’ll probably hit over the weekend. On another note, here’s my new favorite oxymoron: Italian Plumbing.

So much to catch up on since the last post. The tour of Burgundy with our group of clients was a great success – endlessly great tastings and meals up and down the Côte, and it seems a very good time was had by all. After the group left we finished up the Burgundian leg with a great night at the legendary Elegance de Volnay dinner on the terrace of Domaine de la Pousse d’Or, with all of the village’s top vignerons and guests sharing great old bottles late into the night. Especially loved the ’85 Champans from Joseph Voillot and the ’93 Clos des Chênes from Lafarge – pure genius, both…

We left Burg-land and drove 7 hours to Munich. It seemed like we were catapulted to another planet, hanging backstage with the Eagles at a beautiful outdoor venue, courtesy of my old friend Scott Crago, their drummer for the last 17 years. Pirrie had the time of her life, getting her first glimpse of the inner workings of a real rock tour, and then seeing the amazing show from the front row.

Next stop was Verona. The impossibility of driving in the city notwithstanding, I absolutely loved it. Our hotel was right off the main Piazza and the ancient Roman Arena, and conveniently just two blocks from the killer gelato shop in town. Thus began our now daily routine of pizza, pasta, gelato and Brunello. I would die happy and very heavy if I lived here.

We are now settled into a lovely week in an old stone house in the vineyards of Montalcino, arising to breakfast of hot coffee and a plate full of cookies every morning – before heading off in search of more pizza and gelato. And Brunello. And Pecorino. The work is endless, I tell you…