It’s been 2 months and 3 days since my last confession. Sorry.

To tell you the truth, I’ve been busy. Very.

I have an agent. Well, a support team to be more accurate, who will provide me with administrative back-up, as well as social media support.

Allow me to introduce to you Sophie Sweerts de Landas, my events manager, administrative support and booker, and recent member of the English World Cup Lacrosse team.

…and Henry Dinkel, an autodidactic web ninja, cameraman, art director, and Knightsbridge dweller.

Go team Joe! Today The Oval. Tomorrow the world.

They can be contacted at [email protected] and [email protected] respectively.

I’ve been travelling too. A lot as it happens. South Africa, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and a country I never thought I’d get to, and if I did, have hyped up so much in my mind that it couldn’t possibly live up to its billing. Portugal. During this time, I nearly fell in love with someone, fell out of love with someone else, and bally well decided to cheer up about things. I have to grin and bear the sad things. I didn’t see my two beautiful children throughout the entire summer holidays, and although it feels little better to share that fact, I hope that one day they will realise it was only for a more secure future for them and me.

A quick word on how each country made me feel .

South Africa

A country that is such a visceral assault on the senses that when I finally saw my first rainbow in ‘The Rainbow Nation’, it, compared to the turned-all-the-way-up-to-eleven nature of everything else in this incredible country, looked, well, grey.

Two new great wines. World class greatness.

Cartology White 2011 by the humbly charming Chris and Suzaan Arheit.

It’s fat in a lean way. It’s vigorous and explosive, in an elegant, laid-back way. It’s an impressionist painting by Canaletto. It’s like a demanding, high-maintenance woman that you know is worth the effort. To put it another way, my mate Nick says about his wife that he loves her so much that he could throw her through a plate glass window. Despite her complete loveliness, if she wasn’t so darned unpredictable and frustrating, they would never have lasted all these years. Trust me. You want to get a ring on the finger of this little madam.

Nick and I, on drinking the first out of the case earlier this week, had one of our rare collective wine epiphanies. Good job the Clos des Lambrays 2002 was the night after. No wine this good deserves to be out-shone by anything. Call Harrogate Fine Wines pronto if you want to have the slightest idea what I’m talking about.

 

 This is Nicholas Dymoke-Marr modelling said wine.

and

Porseleinberg Red 2010.

Isn’t that the sexiest label you’ve ever seen? The wine is breathtaking too.

So granitic it makes your teeth ache. If only gravel was this tasty. Carved from pure rock with nothing more than bare hands and a cherry stick, this is the wine equivalent of Mount Rushmore in North Dakota. When it arrives in the UK, it’s going to cost, ahem, £55 or thereabouts. Still undeniably worth it. Again Harrogate Fine Wines will have some.

Italy (or rather Piedmont.)

One of the great and rare privileges of the last few years is the going on a guided tour of one of my favourite wine regions, accompanied by my pal David Williams, and the towering inferno of Italian passion, David Berry Green. I have so much to say about this trip, but you’ll have to wait a little longer.

Two Wines? (Both from Berry Brothers and Rudd.)

In light of the fact that the other blogs will be concentrating on Nebbiolo, I thought I’d share with you a couple of wonderfully weird reds.)

Grignolino d’Asti 2010 Az. Agr. Laiolo Reginin

On the first night in Piemonte, England were playing Italy in the semi-finals of the European Cup. So we went back to Camp David, and Mr. Berry Green racked up eleven different grape varieties, and almost as many winemakers, to pair with each of the football players. The food was incredible, including a sea of incredible cheeses and petit fours at the end.

More about that another time, but check this out. Another sexy label. Boobs. Two of them. That’s twice as many as the Château Cadet Piola in St Emilion, although they look like falsies. This is a grape variety that I had never tried before. I was also assured that examples this good are rarer than literate bloggers.

So elegant. Fine boned like china. Wood spice and Marascha cherry with a dance that you wouldn’t feel on the back of your hand. Weightless and joyful. Absolutely perfect with the fabulous carne cruda being served.

Pictiures of the wonderful food…

Moscato d’Asti 2011 Cerutti

The sorbet course (no sorbet). If this wine doesn’t make you smile and instantly trigger your adrenal glands into a joyful, hyperactive overdrive, you’re almost certainly retarded. In which case, go away. I don’t want to speak to you. The most fun you can have for 15 euros. Legal or otherwise.

Portugal

Well, I‘m pleased to say that my first sight of the Douro Valley rendered me completely speechless, and, at one point, quite teary. Anyone who has ever met me will know that if I’d witnessed a mafia hit, I wouldn’t be able to shut about it, so this is a rare thing indeed. Also apart from meeting some great people and drinking great wines, I had the best seafood meal that I’ve ever had. So good, in fact, that I intend to go back to Oporto. On my birthday. For lunch. With Hamish Anderson. To do it all again. The restaurant? La Gavote. Talking to Jancis on my return, I hear her hubby’s a bit of a fan…

Two wines?  (There were many. More about this trip later.)

Soalheiro 2011 Vinho Verde

I believe that Dirk ‘The Guru’ Niepoort had a major say in the way that this wine is these days, especially the Primeiras Vinhas, which is a sort of ‘Pimp my Ride’ Alvarinho. I preferred the freshness, honesty and value of this wonderfully precise organic white. They don’t make much but it is an autumn sunset-coloured fuzzy apricot in a glass.

Quinta do Crasto 2010 Douro

This is a picture of their infinity pool on a rather gloomy day. And that’s the Douro stretching off into the distance. Cool huh? 

Oh, the wine? Sorry. Here’s the whole Crasto line up.

Just in the process of being released now, all, and I mean all, of the reds from this estate in 2010 were complete humdingers. The further up the tree you go, the more elegant power they manage to cram into the bottle. For the minor upgrade in price from the straight Crasto, this appears to me to offer the most bang for the buck. Smooth and slick, like a ripe Bordeaux Cru Bourgeois, this is astonishing value in my view. I can’t imagine anything more perfect with a roasted Dexter fore-rib than this red.

Slovenia

Seeing as I went to film a business video for a client, I only tasted their wines. But I think they are very nice. Here, at Puklavec and Friends, is a virtually limitless resource of pristine, modern, white wines. Mitja, the Chief Winemaker, has celestial ambitions to produce the best Sauvignon Blanc in the world. Who’s to say that he won’t achieve that goal? His Sauvignons are already delicious, the best value of which is available in Waitrose at present. My pick is their premium, single-vineyard Sauvignon, La Gomila. It is a ripe luscious style of modern Sauvignon. Think Lenswood, or Shaw and Smith in Adelaide rather than Marlborough, New Zealand. Creamy, tropical and very very suave. The 2011 is a leap forward for me. I will hopefully be doing much more with these guys over the coming months. When the video is finished, it will be posted here.

That’s it for now, but I’m looking forward to discussing my travels in depth with you over the next few weeks. Watch this space…….

Yours faithfully,

Joe x