Jefford on Monday

The perfect evening? There’s no formula, of course. If the final hours of the day weave great wine with great music, though, I will generally make my way happily to bed.

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Is there a grammar of wine? Is there, in other words, a system or set of first principles through which the mass of 'wines' can be articulated and comprehended? The analogy isn't an exact one, but ampelography comes closest to making the metaphor work.

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I haven’t yet dared post a Monday blog about bottle closures. Like ‘natural wine’, the subject rouses such strong, intransigent and forcefully prosecuted views that discussing it sometimes seems pointless. Too bad. Let me suggest that the debate has been overly technical so far.

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We’ve done our bit for the 2012 harvest. Virgile Joly, one of the Languedoc’s most convivial growers, organizes a ‘Journée Sécateurs’ every year for incompetent but wine-friendly families; he let us all loose, about a month ago, on a parcel of Cinsault. To my surprise, we all came home with our fingers intact. It was sticky business, though.

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As we tasted our way through the submissions for Decanter’s Asia Wine Awards the week before last, a persistent rumour swirled around Hong Kong island. It hinted that Robert Parker was in the process of selling his ‘brand’ to unspecified Asian investors. Maybe it’s true; maybe it isn’t (there were emphatic denials from at least one of his tasting collaborators). In either case, it poses interesting questions about succession in the new media world.

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