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I love places like this: non-de script & inauspicious, blending seamlessly with local denizens of the night. The joint’s been here a while, certainly far longer than I’ve been coming to Hong Kong over the last two decades. But like this still engaging town, things have changed. The dazzling selection of wine within belies the gritty cul de sac at the top of some stairs in Wanchai. As good, ample Italian bottles are on offer despite Hong Kong’s French tide. A priceless memory. Soul, grit, humanity. I can only look forward to the next time

I’m back on home turf, bedraggled & yet,l wishing, in a sense, that I was still coasting along the Adriatic in search of the next thirst-slaking Verdicchio, all pine & sub-alpine mettle in Metallica; a bit more coastal laxity & Adriatic quench, in Jesi. Both great in good hands. Good hands, as with so many producers visited, from the warm embrace of the Piemonte & Veneto, to Tuscany beforehand. Yet for whatever reason, it is this shot, in Ascoli. The only cold day of a long trip, that somehow sums up the fatigue, bloat, excess, joy, humanity & fatigue of a quest to find good wine & somehow, I suppose, to reaffirm a life worth living. It is a career chosen. This shot encapsulates complete strangers, cm friends, caught up in the love of wine! Thanks to all who pathed the way x

Things don’t get done without a disciplined matriarch behind the scenes. While ex-Rousseau maker Roberto Valetti has honed a refined suite of 2022 despite the vintage’s challenges, walking 5kms a day at 83 years and a 1000 watt smile as artillery, Signora Seghesio keeps the motor purring. Son, friend and overseer, Frederico, the main man. David Berry-Green, a new friend.

Now that the embargo has been lifted by a ‘major news network’, I am faced with the task of determining which images, if any, do an experience like 1899 Romanée-Conti justice. I have been asked whether the wine was this, or that: oxidised, alluding to any ‘fruit’, or most trite, ‘worth it?’ Nebulous bones of contention, attesting to a grid of values founded on the putative truth of empirical analysis, or more shallow, the notion that a wine is only as good as what is in the glass. A wine like this is more. A great bottle (and it was), is a talismanic rite of passage to a place far more beautiful…More on that in pieces to come. There were other great bottles that day, but it was the 1899 that was, somehow, the most invigorating. A liquid kaleidoscope of moments, people & places, it was a celebration of the urgency of now, resolute & sincere. Special thanks to all attendees, including compadres

Not often that one meets a part-Japanese by way of Vladivostok & the Caribbean, in Singapore. Nagai san. His father grew strawberries, working frozen fields. With the Thompson Twins on rewind on the soft, throwaway radio in these parts, Nagai’s tales of deploring waste while appreciating seasonality & the beauty of food, feel most profound. Bravo

Clearing the continent and heading to London makes for reflection. A few wondrous days in Burgundy culminated in the thrill of tasting what is putatively the last authenticated bottle of 1899 Romanée-Conti. Supple and expansive, despite its age, the bottle’s beauty belied a lunch of warmth, humanity, rich conversation and an intuitive acknowledgement that wine’s greatest gift-no matter how prosaic or profound the bottle-is its capacity to bring us together rather than tear us apart. As much as I’ll remember each bottle’s incantations and the emotions they elicited, I’ll remember most of all the smiles in the room of those in attendance. I’ll also remember all the makers who graciously gave me their time. Thank you .robert.groffier

There are moments in wine that resonate for all the right reasons, transcending grandeur and ostentation, by virtue of friendship, warmth, connection & humanity. When asked to join a celebration marking the sole remaining authenticated bottle of 1899 Romanée-Conti, I jumped! To Pommard, to be exact, when yesterday I relished the centrepiece, a time capsule of ineffable beauty, sitting amidst some stunning wines. But best, I was warmed by the kindness & grace of those alongside. I can garble on about the bottles, but I shan’t. The moment did not call for effete tasting notes, or rankings as such, although the ‘79 la Tache, an outlier from a challenging vintage, was a beautiful underdog! What this occasion did demand, however, was recognition of how transcendental wine can be, capturing place, time and the matrix that draws us together, rather than tearing us apart thank you to all who partook

It is always a pleasure to receive the soon-to-come releases from before our annual gathering at the estate, Il Greppo, in mid-April. Seeing the faces of the rest of the team reminds me that it is festive season (even if it is the early morning hours for me, the only S. Hemisphere resident), while the precision, confident understatement & tension of the wines remind me to put the bells on! We are, after all, tasting a more ethereal side to Brunello, rather than obvious brawn. The 2019 Riserva brought goosebumps at the thought of what awaits for those with patience; the 2020 Annata, all bergamot, rosemary and red fruits swagger; while the skittish, tensile nature of the Rosso is an art of sophisticated gulpability. A beautiful wine in the face of 2023’s adversity.

Good vibes masterclass with compadres .lacey When it’s all about compassion, humanity, friendship & warmth…interchangeable really

In and out of Brisbane twice over the last five-days with ample wine to lubricate aching joints. As I regather some sense of poise, nothing makes me happier than reflecting on time spent with dear friends at the opening of , irrefutably the finest assemblage of Champagne in the southern hemisphere. A treat!