Jancis Robinson MW and Nick Lander (Mr Jancis Robinson) do not sell wine!

Jancis Robinson MW 

@Montreux November 2014

Warning to wine producers and négociants: 

Producteurs du vin Prenez-Garde !

Jancis Robinson MW is one of the world's leading wine communicators. However, neither she nor Nicholas Lander, the restaurant critic and Jancis' husband, sell wine. This, however, has not stopped a fraudster or fraudsters pretending to be Nick Lander in order to scam producers out of wine. 

This is clearly a new twist to the unfortunately well established scam of pretending to be a wine buyer for an established UK wine company. 

There are clues from within the scam emails that this is a fraud. The most obvious is that the email address used editorials@jancirobinson.com misses the s in Jancis. Also the company name given is incorrect.

If you receive one of these scam emails do not reply. Instead please forward it to Jancis.

Jancis has contacted ActionFraud, so far to no avail. I am not surprised. Budget cuts to our police service must be affecting our police forces, who were already struggling to cope with the now huge amount of fraud around. If you pay for a Trabant you cannot expect a Bentley! 

•

Here are extracts from Jancis' post on the scam emails:  

 

'2 June 2015 Early last Friday a wine merchant based in Carcassonne forwarded the following email to me from the subtly-different-from-ours email address, editorials at jancirobinson dot com (note the missing S on Jancis): 

Dear Sir, 

We are a company based in the united kingdom and We would like to inquire about your products (Food,Wine,Champagne,etc...) 

We will be very please to build a business relationship with your company on a long term contract.

So this will be at the same time an opportunity to establish a permanent business relationship.

We strongly believe in the principle of working together as partners.

In which everyone benefits - and these long-term relationships are vital to the continuing success of both parties.

So we would be appreciate if you could send us your price list of : Wine, Champagne, Whisky for our order confirmation.

And in the meantime, also open a credit line 14 days payment from date of invoice by credit insurance.

For more information please feel free to visit our website at http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles

Our terms of payment Strictly net 14 days payment from date of invoice after credit insurance this is not negotiable we are looking for wine suppliers to build strong relationships The key of success, both-parties-satisfied.

Thanks as we hope to establish a long business relationship with your company.

We are looking forwards to hear from you as soon as possible.

With best regards,

Nicholas Lander

Export Manager

www.jancisrobinson.com

JANCISROBINSON Ltd

Tel:+44 (0)8006891849

Fax:+44 (0)2080430299

editorials@jancirobinson.com

export@jancirobinson.com

nicholas.lander@jancirobinson.com

Just above the telephone and fax numbers and the email addresses (none of them having any connection to us) is given our personal address and the number and VAT number of our company  - all of these details freely available from Companies House in the UK. 

Soon after receiving this I sent an email to editorials@jancirobinson.com telling whichever fraudster was behind the attempted scam to stop, pointing out it was highly damaging to the genuine JancisRobinson.com. Later that day a wine trader based in Spain kindly forwarded me an identical email he had received, together with the complete details of the header, IP address etc, which yielded frustratingly little.

I phoned the 0800 number at the bottom of the email and got a series of recorded messages such as 'For customer service press 1, for exports press 2' etc. I pressed 1 and, when no one answered, rang off. Less than 30 minutes later my phone rang (a very rare occurrence; I have almost entirely swapped phone for email) and a gentleman with a very deep, very unEuropean voice claimed, as soon as he heard my voice, to be seeking 'Pete in transport'. I challenged him, pointing out that I suspected he was the behind these scam emails. He insisted that he must have dialled a wrong number. I heard him looking down at my number (which begins 0207) and claiming he had wanted the same number that begins with 0208 (which does not, of course, exist as a genuine telephone number).

For a short while we were worried that our extremely securely stored list of email recipients had been hacked, since both of the first two merchants to bring this to our attention are members of JancisRobinson.com. But since then it has become clear that the fraudster has been accessing lists of wine traders based in continental Europe that have nothing whatsoever to do with us. And is still sending out these emails today, Tuesday.

Just in, for example, is this comment from Sarah Chadwick, who represents Dourthe, yet another recipient of the badly written email above:

'We receive scam emails similar to this regularly but normally taking the identity of BBR [Berry Bros & Rudd], Sainsburys, etc. This takes scamming to new heights.'

It is a well-known ruse for a fraudster to try to order and have delivered expensive wines and spirits to an accommodation address and then to scarper without paying for them. But this scam - attempting to establish credibility as a wine buyer by pretending to be my husband, the well-known 'export manager' of JancisRobinson.com, reaches new levels of stupidity. I spend quite a bit on wine admittedly, but in general wine writers are not known to be major purchasers of high-value wines and spirits. And, I would hope, quite a few of the recipients of this email would know that (a) I am not in the business of establishing long-term trading partnerships with wine merchants and (b) I do actually know how to spell and punctuate.

Please do forward any instances of this pernicious correspondence to editorial@jancisrobinson.com (sic) but for heaven's sake ignore it otherwise.'

The latest update:

'11 September 2015 Deep sigh. The action goes on. Several times a week we receive enquiries from people who have received similar emails supposedly from Nick and asking whether they are genuine. The fraudster always attempts to place huge orders. Whatever does he do with the goods that do arrive, I wonder? I have re-reported it to Action Fraud. Very frustrating.'

Read the rest here. http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/scam-emails-purportedly-from-nick

A companion or a bible?

Following last week's post (Les 5 d Vn) on the new edition of The Wine Bible's coverage of the Loire, David Cobbold asked me to do a comparison with the new edition - the fourth - of The Oxford Companion to Wine. As always I do what I am told ......

Firstly there are some similarities: both are edited by women: The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeill and The Oxford Companion by Jancis Robinson MW. Both women sport impressive items of jewellery - a necklace for Jancis and earrings for Karen. The rather severe photo of Jancis appears to be warning reviewers to watch out or else......

Both book covers make big claims. The Bible is ' A masterpiece of wine writing' while The Companion is 'The greatest wine book ever published', so clearly we have heavyweight titles here.....

Talking of actual weight The Bible at 1.34 kilos is a flyweight compared to The Companion, which tips the scales at 2.85 kilos. Bearing in mind that Jancis' Wine Grapes is even heavier @ 3.08 kilos, it is clear that her campaign against over-heavy wine bottles does not extend to wine books!

The Wine Bible runs to 996 pages for $24.95 against 860 pages for $65 forThe Companion. These figures are, however, misleading as The Companion is very significantly wider than The Bible with three columns of text compared a biblical two. There are black and white photos or tables on many of The Bible's pages, whereas The Companion is solid text with the few full pages colour photos are not included in the page count. Although I haven't attempted a word count it is clear that Jancis uses many more words than Karen.

So how do the two contestants fare regarding the Loire? As we saw last week The Bible is weak on the Loire with a decidedly partial revision. UnlikeThe Bible, which is arranged by region,The Companion is ordered alphabetically, which makes it rather more difficult to judge as it involves hopping about the book.

Anyway time for a look at some of The Companion's Loire entries. Montlouis is covered in more detail and includes mention of the recent AC Montlouis Pétillant Naturel. However, Montlouis' recent dynamism isn't recognised and the figure of a third of the production being sparkling is low - the Interloire site has sparkling wine at 55%.

Turning to Vouvray the entry declares that 'In less generous vintages, only dry and possibly sparkling wines are made.' Whereas sparkling Vouvray is invariably made, especially in difficult vintages as there is both a demand for it in French supermarkets and the maximum yield permitted for sparkling Vouvray is substantially higher than that for still - 65 hl/ha compared with 52 hl/ha for still.

The Quarts de Chaume entry makes me think that The Companion lacks the local knowledge that would provide full accuracy. It is incorrect to say there has been little recent investment as there has been investment at Bellerive and, perhaps, more importantly the last decade or more has seen a significant number of Anjou producers acquiring parcels here. Domaine Ogereau being the latest. The situation is now radically different from the late 1960s when there were just a handful of producers. It is also incorrect to say that the minimum sugar levels are rarely achieved. Of recent vintages since 2005 only in the horrendous October 2012 was it virtually impossible to make genuine Quarts de Chaume - unless you picked unripe and used cryoextraction......

Would I buy either of these reference books? Fortunately these were both review copies. I certainly wouldn't buy Karen MacNeill's Bible and I would have to think hard before I shelled out £40 (£25.03 on Amazon…) for Jancis Robinson's Companion, although I am pretty sure there are sections that are more convincing than the Loire.

My doubts about buying The Companion are, in part, whether I would actually use it as if I have a query the net is my first resource. I have had my copy of The Companion for a while now and have hardly used it .....

Move aside Robert, Jancis, Neal, Panos, etc – here comes the cannie taster

d'Yquem boxing clever with a sample of nascent 2015

Yesterday at Pierre and Bertrand Couly's winery in Chinon I was privileged to watch the future of wine tasting – a highly trained boxer able to insert their hyper-sensitive tongue into a wine glass – truly a super-taster!  

Bertrand Couly – what does d'Yquem think of my 2015 Chinon?

The Couly family checking impressions of the 2015 
Chinon Blanc against d'Yquem's.....

 

The monumental Oxford Companion to Wine – editor: Jancis Robinson MW

Jancis Robinson MW (editor) and Julia Harding MW (assistant editor): Oxford Companion to Wine – 4^th edition, OUP, £40, 860 pages, hbk (publication date: 17^th September 2015).
Here is the 4th edition of this remarkable work of wine scholarship.  Jancis explains in her preface that this revision has been the most ‘thorough’ with ‘every single entry has been subjected to intense scrutiny’. This new edition has 300 new entries out of a total of 4.104 – the third edition had 3930 entries.

She notes that: ‘Throughout the wine world, the emphasis continues to shift from ‘making’ to ‘growing’ wine, just as we are seeing a step change in the style of wine to which thoughtful producers aspire. In terms of wine structure and alcohol levels, big is no longer as beautiful as it was at the end of the last century. And the range of grape varieties harnessed for serious commercial wine production is wider than it has been for decades. ‘

‘Because the Companion was already very long and heavy (a common complaint which has inspired the publication of a digital version of this fourth edition), our esteemed publishers Oxford University Press were extremely strict with us about the total length of this new edition, which is less than 4% longer than the third edition in terms of the total number of words.’

It is interesting and obviously sensible that there is a digital version of this monumental reference book, whose printed version weighs in at 2.88 kilos. The Companion to Wine was first published in 1994 when printed books were king, kindle meant to start a fire and ‘ebooks’ would have been a ham actor attempting a Yorkshire accent.

I fancy that if the digital version is well publicized it may well out-sell the printed book on the grounds of practicality. The weight of the printed book means that it will stay in one place whereas the digital OCW can be at hand all the time. Add to this the ease of linking and connecting entries with each other and the advantages of the eOCW are clear.

Yet it is good to see that printed books continue to survive. There is something about owning and touching a book in comparison to an ebook even if it may be more practical. More cynically you can also show that you own a copy by displaying the tome on a coffee table or desk.

The list of contributors runs to eight pages with an additional 50 for this new edition. The following from the Circle of Wine Writers have contributed to The Companion to Wine: Tony Aspler, Nicolas Belfrage MW, Beverley Blanning MW, Michael Broadbent MW, Stephen Brook, Bob Campbell MW, Steve Charters MW, Nicholas Faith, Christopher Fielden, Michael Fridjhon, Rosemary George MW, Caroline Gilby MW, Lisa Shara Hall, James Halliday, Hugh Johnson, Michael Karam, Wink Lorch, Richard Mayson, late Edmund Penning-Rowsell, Michael Schuster, Stephen Skelton MW, Joelle Thomson, late Pamela Vandyke Price and José Vouillamoz.

Faces from a conference in Porto – December 2010

Sorting through some photos this evening I came across these from a Wines of Portugal conference held in Porto in December 2010, which stirred memories.

 Robert McIntosh

 

 Willi Klinger (Wines of Austria)

 Alastair Marshall (Adnams)

 Ana Sofia Oliveira 

 André Ribeirinho

 Carrie Jorgensen

 Charles Metcalfe 

 Finkus Bripp

 Cristiano Van Zeller 

 Jancis Robinson MW

Joe Roberts

 Ken Payton, Luiz Alberto and Vasco Magalhaes

 Louise Hurren

 Neal Martin

 Ryan Opaz

The U.K.'s Top Wine Influencers as measured by @WineOwners: in @Number 2!!?

The Top 10 UK Wine Influencers

Scores of the Top 14 influencers  

Over the weekend Nick Martin did tell me that I had done very well in their new UK influence measure but I was astonished but, of course, pleased to see that I was second in their list. No surprise that Team Jancis takes top spot but I would have thought that people, for instance, like Jamie Goode, Fiona Beckett, Tim Atkin, Victoria Moore, Matthew Jukes and William Lyons would be measured as having more influence than myself and my blogs – Jim's Loire and investdrinks.

    

The Gigondas 21-wine dinner@28:50

28:50 – table including Christine Saurel (Montirius), Jancis Robinson MW, 

Louis Barruol (next to Jancis), Matt Wall, Matthieu Perrin (Famille Perrin)

This was a tough event for any of us numerically challenged – 21 wines served@28:50 in Fetter Lane. The dinner was designed to show the ageability of Gigondas wines starting with examples from the 2006 vintage and ending with 1995.

From the 21 wines served my favourite wines from the marathon were (in order of vintage) the 2005 Confidentiel Montirius, 2004 Domaine Saint Gayan, 2000 Château de Saint Cosme, 2000 Domaine la Boussière and the 1999 Domaine les Pallières.

 Matt Wall and Louis Barruol (Château de Saint Cosme)

 Matt and Louis trying out syncronised tasting 

A reflective moment...

Henri-Claude Amadieu

 Christine Saurel (Montirius)

 Christian-Yves Carré de Lusançay (Domaine Saint-Gayan) 

showing early Movember promise!

Anthony Taylor (Maison Gabriel Meffre): 

portrait of an Irishman in the Dentelles

 Louis Barruol in full flow

 25 years and one day after the fall of the Berlin Wall 

–  the Gigondas producers build a glass one!

 Matthieu Perrin, Famille Perrin

Florence Cartier (Domaine Les Goubert)

Thierry Faravel (Domaine la Bouissière)

Sparkling gurus: Michael Edwards and Giles Fallowfield 

#DWCC14: the Jancis & José show – Grand Tasting

José Vouillamoz warming up the audience 

before the start of the tasting

Jancis Robinson MW 

José Vouillamoz

This time last week in Montreux the Jancis and José show otherwise known as the Grand Tasting provided the highlight of the 2015 Digital Wine Comunications Conference. 12 Swiss wines on show – six white, six red.

As one would expect it was an assured and authoritative performance from Jancis Robinson MW and Dr José Vouillamoz. It is fascinating to see how José has blossomed as a speaker and performer over the two years since I first saw him at the 2012 European Wine Bloggers Conference in Izmir. Then, after his starring role in Wine Grapes, he was new to the wine world and understandably less assured than he is now.  

Of the whites I was impressed by three wines : the racy 2013 Petite Arvine AOC Valais L'Orpailleur-Uvrier (Frédéric Dumoulin), the rich and complex 2005 Petite Arvine Maître de Chai Provins Valais (AOC Valais) and the stylish and citric 2002 Château Lichten AOC Valais Domaines Rouvinez-Sierre.  

The remarkable freshness of the 2002 was noted and it was suggested that this might be unusual. However, the 2002 Pouilly-Fumé from Landrat Guyollot that we took to the BYOB event on the Thursday was also wonderfully fresh as a number of the dry Loires are from this fine and beautifully balanced vintage. 

From the reds the smoky, complex 2011 Malanser Blauburgunder Reserva AOC Graubünden from Peter Wegelin was my clear favourite. It also turned out to be the audience's favourite by a narrow margin – 35 votes to 33 – over the 2009 Barbengo Balin AOC Tessin from Kopp von der Crone Visini

•••

 Jancis Robinson MW delivering 

her keynote speech@The Gala Dinner 

           

Later Jancis delivered her keynote speech at the beginning of the DWCC Gala Dinner. This was a decidedly difficult gig – the end of a long day, a lengthy wait in increasingly steamy and uncomfortable conditions before being admitted to the dining room plus it was the end of the conference. A time when most of the delegates were wanting to enjoy some wine, food and chat to friends. Sensibly Jancis opted to deliver a pre-dinner speech rather than a keynote though she did stress the great job Vrazon has done with DWCC (nay EWBC) and the need to keep on evolving in the fast changing world of communicating. She cited the recent update and relaunch of JancisRobinson.com  

Kudos to Jancis for attending and taking part in sessions throughout the Saturday and not just turning up for her gigs.