Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Saturday 4 October 2014

2014 Loire: Epeigné-les-Bois – Les Reines des Vendanges

Noémie and Louise: Les reines des vendanges 2014
avec leur grandmère, Micheline


Noémie organising the adults

Louise en plein vendange


Noémie avec Maman



Les Reines avec leur grandpère, James

1 comment:

Luc Charlier said...

Yes, they are sweet, Jim. But ...
This thing of “Reine des Vendanges”, also “Weinkönigin” in Germany, has always had dionysian connotations, with all its mythical and implicitly sexual contents. I think it wrong to alter this deeply rooted orientation into something more “politically correct”, once again the hallmark of our disingenuous society. I remember the pride of young Melanie Stumpf, a gordious teenager herself at that time, when she mentionned to me the past crowning of her pretty mother, Carmen Bickel, as Weinkönigin for Franconia. It told on its own the whole story. And the wines were excellent, by the way (Thungersheim/Frickenhausen). They still are.