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




Thursday 28 May 2015

Amongst the vines – Touraine fin mai



We arrived in Epeigné early evening yesterday following a fine drive down from Calais. The good weather has continued today – indeed some of the locals here would have preferred for once if we had brought rain with us as the ground is certainly dry and hard. After tackling the 'lawn' with over knee high grass after a month of neglect, I found time to take the mountain bike out into the vines to have a quick look at how the vines are progessing. 

On a very quick look while riding through the local vineyards, backed up by comments from the RAW Fair (17th May) and at the London Wine Fair (18th May), there seems to be quite a big 'sortie' of potential grapes this year. Probably certainly bigger than the last three vintages. It is, of course, still very early days. The next step, flowering, is crucial. If the weather during flowering is cold and wet, then the yield this year will be considerably reduced. If instead the weather is hot, sunny and flowering is over in a few short days then most of the potential bunches will have become real ones. Time will tell! For the moment the forecast for the next few days is good unless you are a gardener and need rain. 

        





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