Diary of a Wine Writer

More writing. I am on about 5,000 words per day, which is intense, but hey, that’s what I do.

In the afternoon, Tomoko and I go to inspect at a house for sale in north Guildford that is very tempting. Beautiful interior, nice size rooms, lovely kitchen, decent garden…just in the wrong side of town vis-a-vis schools, which is our priority. But the price is a rare one, determined by logic instead of greed. Perhaps we are being influenced by the owner, who has lit some floating tea lights and inserted a soothing CD for our visit, to intensify the feng shui? Of course, Lily and Daisy and more interested in the Scottish terrier and we have to explain that the canine does not come free with the house (or maybe it does?) We muse upon the prospective Martin family abode on the way home…

One the drawbacks of my job, and it is something that you have to live with, is the time spent away from the family, particularly in the evening. I am out almost every night at tastings this week and one is a last-minute addition: a Burgundy tasting at the Saatchi Gallery organized by Goedhuis & Co., that I might have turned down if the wines were not so unmissable. My wife, who has prepared her magnificent, patented “spag bol”, lets me off the leash for a couple of hours, but expects me home by 08.30 when the pasta will be al dente, whether I am home or not. I arrive at the gallery early but forced to loiter in the freezing cold until opening time. I then shoot in at the front of the queue and focus on three verticals: Romanée-St.-Vivant from Hudelot-Noellat, Clos-de-la-Roche from Ponsot and Clos des Lambrays. I am ruthlessly efficient, almost coming to blows with a young gallery attendant who insists that I leave my bag in the cloakroom. I dump it behind Laurent Ponsot’s stand and hope that he does not report it as a bomb.

For the record, I tasted the Clos des Lambrays next to a stuffed cow that appears to be threaded through a plastic tube.