Chablis and home

I always forget where Chablis is. In my head it is north-east of Burgundy, closer to Champagne. In fact it is more or less in a direct north-westerly direction. Draw a straight line from Beaune to Paris and you will drive through Chablis. I think the problem is rather that I have no idea where Champagne is, and so if I am trying to find Chablis starting from there then inevitably I am going to get lost. Champagne is in fact more or less due east from Paris, but much further west than Burgundy. Where I think Champagne is appears to be somewhere near Nancy. I digress.

Back in our youth Mrs L and I used to stop in Chablis on the way down to Beaune from Paris. Seems it was on the way, who knew.... My parents lived in Paris for a while, and when we came to visit it was our habit to squeeze in visits to Burgundy. Sometimes as part of a longer trip we would leave Paris in the morning and be in Aix for lunch. Anyhow, as all of you bird fiends may know, Chablis is an excellent source of white wine. Chardonnay, so the same as Burgundy - indeed in my head Chablis is in Burgundy - but the wine is very different. I'll spare you the lecture this time, but the soil there is a mixture of chalk, limestone and follisised shells, and this translates directly into the grapes, and subsequently into the glass. STGT as John Livingstone-Learmonth would put it. Chablis is (or can be at any rate, choose wisely) wonderfully chalky, saline and somehow steely.  A sip from a classical bottle can transport to a beach of wet pebbles and salt spray, like licking seaweed. It pairs brilliantly with shellfish as you might expect, and it is a Chateau L favourite. You need to be quite strict with your selection, stricter than the growers often are in fact, as rising temperatures in the region are causing to Chablis to lose its character. With excessive summer heat the wine takes on rich tropical notes, about the last thing you could want in Chablis. If a critic bangs on about yesteryear classicism in a bottle of Chablis that is a good sign. 

Oh dear, another digression. When we used to drive from Paris and back, half a lifetime ago it seems, we had small children. Chablis was an ideal break point for two reasons. 1) see above, and 2) on the banks of the the Serein, sandwiched bewteen the river and the hillside of the Grands Crus, a gently sloping crescent of vineyards, there is a small public park. It has picnic benches, and crucially it also has playground equipment. Slides and swings. We used to stop there just in time for lunch. If we were lucky there would be a Saturday market in full swing in the town, and there we would source baguettes and Chaource, a locally made soft cheese. Laden with fresh goodies we would head to the park and have a feast whilst the children played. Bougros, Les Preuses, Vaudésir, Grenouilles, Valmur, Les Clos, Blanchots - those are the seven Grand Crus north to south. The park is probably between Les Clos and Grenouilles, at the point Valmur spears into a point and meets the road. After lunch had been consumed and the children had rid themselves of excess energy we would head to La Chablisienne, the regional cooperative. We could not afford the Grand Crus at that stage, but if you picked carefully from the Premier Cru, the next level of wines down, you could come away with really lovely wines. The hillside of Grand Crus continues south and starts to curve east and away from the town. That slight change in exposition is all it takes for the downgrade, and Montée de Tonnerre and Mont de Milieu make excellent wines in their own right. If you go the other way you reach Fourchaume - this was always a favourite of ours and I still buy it and the other two today from certain producers. But I have not had any wine from the Chablisienne for many years. Today was the day we would put that right (and they had half bottles of Montmains and Vaulorent, yay!)

We had a late start from Beaune. A bit of a logistical hassle to find somewhere to park the car close enough to the accomodation so that we could bring all the wine we had accumulated down to the street. The back seats were down, but two adult bikes take a lot of space. In the end we created a thin layer of boxes such that the bikes lay on top of the wine, and off we went. Destination, a small park with some swings near a quiet river. It wasn't market day, and we had no small children with us, but we found what we needed for a casual lunch and headed to our favourite bench to relive the old times. It was just as we had left it. Well, maybe the slides were new ones, but you get the picture. Great.

Les Grand Crus

Nuits-Saint-Georges and the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune

Today we were going north of Beaune into the Côtes de Nuits, Nuits-Saint-Georges is the major village here, sitting just up from the Hill of Corton. We did a tour of the hallowed vineyards around Vosne and Gevrey, gazed at the plots belonging to the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti whose wines are as legendary as they are mythical. I mean they do exist, they are not fictional, but the chances of Mrs L and I ever coinciding with one are virtually nil. I remember them being sold in Waitrose in Canary Wharf in the early 2000s. Would that I had bought some at that point but alas. Instead of ingesting wine we soaked in the scenery, the sense of place - this is genuinely a pilgrimage for some. For my part I wouldn't take it that far, but I adore the entire area and am committed to sampling as many of its wares as I can. Lunch was a picnic at some convenient benches near the Mairie looking out towards Malconsorts and La Tâche. I have two bottles of the former, and zero from the latter for it is a monopole of the DRC. It's not exclusive necessarily, you don't have to be a member of some secret society. I have a credit card and I could go and buy one from Berry Brothers in London this weekend if I so chose. Neither are they especially scarce as something like 20,000 bottles are produced in a normal year. The issue is simply unaffordability for all but a tiny tiny minority of the population. In fact I am not sure that many people actually drink them at all and instead treat them as investment vehicles. Whatever it is that drives demand means that the 2006 is £5,700. That's for a single bottle. Even if money were no object that just seems and outrageous thing to do, to blow such an amount on a few glasses of liquid. Imagine the other things you could do, the places you could go, the good you could do?

Our first visit after lunch was at Domaine Rion, one of two Domaine Rion's on a short stretch of road just south of NSG at Premeaux. I was not sure which it was, and then the dreadful thought occured to me of what if I had booked our visit at the wrong one? It would be easy to do. Such are the laws of succession in France that Domaines have been repeatedly split up, combined through marriage, split up again, a brother takes this, the other brother takes that. Some keep the Domaine whole up the death of the mother or father, it is not uncommon to have one sibling doing the farming and the other doing the vinification for instance. Common family names in Bourgogne include reams of Moreys, Vincents, Colins, Magniens and Bachelets, but I had not been prepared for two Rions right next door to one another. Fortunately the one we wanted, Domaine Michèle et Patrice Rion, was both the one we turned up to and the one we had made an appointment with so all was well.

Great visit with Florence opposite the walled vineyard Clos des Argilliere and tasted through the range of wines, I think from 2023. At one stage Patrice came in, so very nice to meet him. This is what I love about Burgundy, you can actually talk to the people who make the wine. From afar Burgundy might have a reputation of extreme stuffiness and wealth, and it is true that the wines can be obscenely expensive, but almost every single wine-maker I've met at their domaine has been a down to earth farmer more than anything else. M&P Rion is one of my favourite producers, their simple Bourgogne Rouge is from a vineyard near Chambolle called "Les Bons Batons" and produces the kind of tart red-fruited wine I really enjoy. The range of Nuits-Saint-Georges is altogether more serious and will take much longer to come around. Although the prices at the cellar door were excellent versus the UK it made no sense to buy many as storage at home is so limited and these would take up valuable space for years. The way I operate is that the ageing of wine takes place at the merchants I buy it from, and then as the drinking window approaches that is when I get it delivered. But Les Bons Batons doesn't need storing, it is good to go virtually straight away, and so a case of that came back home with us.

Next stop was Le Grappin, recently moved from Savigny to bigger premises in the Hautes-Côtes. This is an up-and-coming area in Burgundy, with climate change a new area that is viable for growing grapes, indeed it does not (yet) suffer the extremes of heat from lower down. Previously grapes wouldn't really ripen, now it is game on and more and more producers are expanding their holdings into this area. As the land is many times cheaper than the Côte d'Or this is also an opportunity for new winemakers to buy land, plant vines or otherwise acquire vineyards and more space. This is what Emma and Andrew at Le Grappin have done. They don't own their own vines but with temperatures in the mid-30s when we visited they were quite happy with that situation. Instead they buy in grapes and manage the process from thereon in. She is English, he South-African, we were introduced by my mate Neil, first to their wines in the UK, and then to Emma herself who he knew as fellow wine nerd when she lived in Kent. Their new premises up in the Haut-Côte are centered around a deep cool cellar of the sort that is hard to find these days, and will be the ideal place for Andrew and Emma to make wine. He is a thoughtful man, entirely unpretentious, a believer in letting the wine do the talking and for the process to be as simple as possible for the land to express itself, working with small parcels of bought-in grapes. It's a double-edged sword of course, and a source of fruit can disappear, as had happened with some of what we tasted. In one instance the vineyard had been pulled up and replanted, in another the owner had died and the descendents had decided to take a different path and so somebody else now gets those grapes. A great shame for what Andrew and Emma make is quite wonderful. We tasted a fair few on top of a barrel - they do not have, nor want, a fancy tasting room. They don't want their name on the gate, and even their online presence is decidedly minimal. It's not an effort to create a cult of mystery; they just want to work hard and make great and expressive wine. That is exactly what they are doing, and it's exciting wine. I detest the word "vibe", but I felt here like I felt at Benda in Montalcino, and that's a good thing.

That evening we had a dinner reservation at the Maison du Colombier in Beaune. Food good, wine list incredible, but I think we were clocked as foreign and dumped in a room with inconveniently low seating and alongside a group of earnest West-coast Americas who were 'making it' by coming to Burgundy. Deeply irritating people, extremely vocal, highly opinionated, each trying to out-cool the other. Young and hip professionals enjoying their ten days of annual leave. I do not begrudge them this, but the timing was unfortunate from our persepective and it did not make for a fully relaxing evening. For those thinking that two people consumed a bottle each we did not, and at least half the Vosne-Romanée came home to London with us the next day. Restraint is my middle name.

Pootling down the Voie des Vignes

We did not get up especially early, there was no need as we were on holiday, and although the body clock of the working adult kicked in at the expected time we were able to loaf about for a bit. A leisurely breakfast in town and then we walked to the car with what we needed for the day out. Mostly what we needed was in the car, namely our two bicycles. Whereas last time I had brought Mrs L's little fold-up bike, this time we had both brought the real thing. How would we get wine in the car as well? I admit this was troubling me a little but it is a big car and I figured that I could make something work.

We set off around the ringroad and missed our turn immediately. Retracing our steps we found the correct road out and were soon headed into the vines. Unlike November 2021 when it had just been me and the vineyard workers, this visit was in prime season and we were far from alone. Nonetheless it was extremely satisfying to be out and about in the fresh air, amongst familiar fields laden with history. Indeed personal history, I've had many bottles from these specific plots and it is somehow very interesting (to me and me only) that the liquid in my glass came specifically from here.

As I doubtless mentioned five years ago the order of villages south from Beaune is Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Puligny, Chassagne and Santenay. Off to one side, and where better value is to be found, lie, in order, Monthelie, Auxey-Duresses, and Saint Aubin. White wine covers most of the production in all the villages except Pommard and Volnay which are exclusively red. Puligny I think is exclusively white, Meursault virtually all white, but Chassagne and the other villages have a little more red. Red Chassagne can be fabulous, and as the village is so associated with chardonnay can often be a steal (a relative steal) as drinkers and collectors mostly don't know about it.

Despite the heat rising extremely quickly we had a very pleasant ride along the Voie de Vignes. I birded it the whole way, with highlights being Melodious Warbler near the Beaune Tuvilains vineyard and a Hoopoe in Beaune itself. Les Rugiens-bas at Pommard had Cirl Bunting and Black Redstart, both of which were also present around Meursault. 

We glided into Puligny for a late lunch at Maison Olivier Leflaive. The eponymous and debonaire Olivier, now in his 80s, was doing the rounds at the tables. I had missed him in 2021, but was pleased to be able to have a brief conversation, despite being a bit hot and bothered vs his lovely pressed linen - here is a man who knows how to dress in the heat. Mrs L and I have been drinking his wine for what feels like forever so to meet the man who created the Domaine all those years ago after the split was really nice. We drank Lamy with the meal though!

Our afternoon visit was with Ponsard-Chevalier in Santenay. To be honest the very last thing I wanted to do was to leave the cool restaurant and head back into the searing heat, but I got my water bottle filled and off we went. It didn't take too long, and the lovely Coralie was there to meet us in her equally cool tasting room. This was a tip from a buddy of mine called Neil and a very good one it was too - the wines are delicious and very fairly priced. Because they are at the very end of the Côte their holdings are in unfashionable villages like Santenay and Maranges which is good for your wallet. We tasted through the range and placed an order for a fair few that I would subsequently go and collect the following morning in the car. Their white Santenay, Les Daumelles, was particularly good I thought, and I liked the red Cornieres so much I bought a magnum.

Coralie felt so sorry for us having to cycle all the way back to Beaune without a hat that she gave me a cap with a fertliser brand on the brim. My goodness it was hot. We made it back as far as Puligny before deciding we needed a break. Where better than than the Cave de Puligny, a place I'd dropped in at on the last trip. We spent the rest of the afternoon here sampling a few glasses in the cool interior before rousing ourselves for the final leg to Beaune. This last stretch was extremely pleasant, the heat of the day had passed and the large groups of tourists had all gone. We largely had the vineyards to ourselves.

Despite having had a pretty wholesome lunch we decided we were also in the mood for dinner and took a late table at the Relais des Saulx in Beaune. This was fantastic, a small cozy restaurant run by Agnès at front of house and Charles in the kitchen. It was also fully booked but one small table had already become free and they were happy to fit us in. Turns out they knew Andrew and Emma at Le Grappin, our planned visit in the morning, and also introduced us to a new producer called Domaine Chanterêves based in Savigny - another new wave winemaker, I think hailing from Japan. Great food and a great bottle too. I remember sleeping quite well.

Piedmont

OK, so back to 2025. I am determined - just for myself and my sanity - to finish with 2025. There was one last trip in December, the third in a run of consecutive weekends. The one that I think I mentioned that I did not want to go on. The one that was the last thing on earth that I wanted to do at that particular time. The one that I went on anyway and in fact really enjoyed and looking back don't regret for an instant.

I flew to Turin on Friday evening and drove about an hour south to the small town of Carmagnola. Turin is north-west Italy, in Piedmont, where for me the big attractions are the wines of Barolo and Barbaresco. This would be another of those trips combining birding and wine exploration. Carmagnola was chosen for the former, and for being half way towards the latter. 

I'd arrived pretty late so I had a pretty leisurely start, with binoculars deployed only at around 10am. The first location was really as a prelude to the second, which did not open until a little later for some reason. This was the Bosco del Gerbasso, chosen simply because in that area it was the eBird hotspot with the most potential. This is standard practice and it tends to work out. 

The area was one of woods and lakes, with a large (and active) quarry slap bang in the middle of it. There were various paths and trails that generally did loops around the quarry and through the woodland, as well as along the riverbank - in this case the Po, Italy's longest river, which runs nearly all the way across the country to Venice. It was a cool morning but clear, the flat countryside in stark juxtaposition to the backdrop of the Alps, a line of snowy peaks that stretched across the entire horizon. I found the spot without too much difficulty and dropped the car on a stretch of gravel that seemed to function as a small car park. I didn't know exactly where I was going but picked a track that seemed to lead into the reserve, if indeed that is what it was. 

I had an enjoyable walk, a big loop of about three miles, and a lot of good birds seen. I got off to a good start immediately by flushing a Woodcock, and Marsh Tits made themselves apparent nearly from the very start, sneezing in the bushes. I wasn't initially sure what I was hearing, this is a not a species I encounter often, but the marvels of modern technology meant I worked it out quite quickly. Better was yet to come with a Goshawk being pursued by a calling Raven, and happily a Sparrowhawk seen just a few moments later with Collared Dove as if to really reinforce the point. A few Great White Egrets were dotted around, and being a very wooded area lots of small birds too so my list was added to regularly. I have not spent a lot of time in Italy, preferring France as I can speak French, and this means that it is somewhat virgin eBird territory with many common birds being new, which for me as regular readers know is more exciting than for most people. That is changing though, with I think five trips in the last two years. None of them have been dedicated birding excursions, but I always try and make a little time to see what I can add. 

I couldn't get directly back to the car due to a farm being in the way, so ended up on the outskirts of the last village I had driven through and had to walk back along the road, but this added a large group of White Wagtail in a sheep field and a couple of Yellow-legged Gull. My next stop was the real reason I had stayed in this location, the Centro Cicogne di Racconigi. As the name suggests, a Stork haven. In truth half of it was a big aviary, but surrounding this and as I had suspected from the aerial views were a series of pools and hides, and so I had a nice wander around these picking up Green Sandpiper, Common Snipe and Water Rail.  Ducks were less diverse than my online research had suggested, maybe I missed a pool, but I found the line Goldeneye and a pair of Gadwall. Mostly however it was Teal and Mallard. And camotwats, which are apparently a phenomenon in Italy just as they are here. Old and middle-aged white men (mind you, I am probably describing my won age group these days), camo head to toe, all with enormous lenses of varying quality. Every single hide had one in, which meant I mostly couldn't get in as they were almost all little two seater ones, which of course meant one seat for the togger and the other for his immense bag and pile of gear. Some of the larger hides had a whole row of photographers. And big or small all the same nonsense was going on, photographing into the sun, birds miles away, twigs and crap everywhere. I hadn't brought a camera and was glad I had not. Common Crane were heard but not seen somewhere out beyond the boundary, and of course there were good number of White Stork that seemed to be roaming free.

One final stop before Barolo, the Stagni di San Sebastiano, and this was much more satisfying other than the guy in camo hunting with dogs. I made sure he saw me, and to be fair he did seem to be keeping to the edges of the area rather than the large lakes stuffed with ducks. These did not even flinch when his shotgun went off from somewhere in the woods so I presume nobody ever enages them directly. The ducks here were a lot more interesting, with Shoveler, Pochard, Red-crested Pochard and Tufted Duck. On the lower lake, perhaps across the river, was a lone Egyptian Goose which the eBird police subsequently queried so I assume it was quite rare here. It was calling and flying around so not really in doubt - I just said that they bred where I live and were a common sight. A Black Redstart flitted around a ruined house, a Peregrine bombed over, and it was altogether really rather pleasant. And this time I actually got to see some of the Cranes I had been hearing when a group appeared over a distant treeline before dropping down. 

A famous address...

So that concludes the birding for Saturday. Now onto the wine. I was staying in the town of La Morra in the north west of the Barolo region. I popped into the fabulous More e Macine to make a booking for the evening - amazingly they could accomodate me, albeit quite an early table, but that suited me fine as I am not that much into late dining which means you go to bed stuffed. I had a very pleasant wander around the town - more of a village I suppose, buying a few goodies to smuggle home, and popped into a wine bar for a bit of a pick me up. I chose a glass of Verduno Pelaverga. Pelaverga is a grape unique to this region which is only sparsely planted by a few domaines, and is quite distinctive and a far cry from Nebbiolo albeit that is can share some of the same tannic brutality. It was all I wanted it to be - light, peppery and really quite lifted, and not at all a punch in the face. I followed this with a Langhe Nebbiolo from Roccalini which was rather unrefined and coarse. I know, woe is me right?

At More e Macine a little later on I kicked off with a glass of Langhe Favorita from Alessandria which wasn't all that good, a bit rustic I thought, but their 2019 Barolo Monvigliero was a classy number despite its youth. It was outclassed however by Gian Luca Colombo's Ravera - the man is a genius, eveything he makes from the lowliest Langhe seems to turn to gold. He makes a Pelaverga too and it is sensational. However eclipising all of these wines was a broccoli flan of the utmost delicacy and deliciousness. So good I was compelled to take a photograph of it, I am not normally one for this kind of thing, I mean I don't even have an Insta... Incredible, one of the best things I had eaten all year, and something I want to try at home. So light and airy, balanced by a rich pecorino sauce, a divine combination. I still think about it some months later. Tajarin for primi and Tagliati for secondi and I was done, a lovely meal, just a shame there was nobody to share it with. I love virtually everything about travelling solo but dining alone I do not enjoy. That is changing though as Mrs L and I are very nearly empty nesters or whatever the phrase is. When I started this blog our youngest child was two years old. She is now 18 and in Vietnam, and starts university in September. The other two are already at university and so Mrs L and I have a level of freedom that we have not experienced for more than two decades. And this time around we have money. So solo travel will diminish and instead we can go places a deux. Less birding, but better for other reasons, and we have started 2026 as we mean to continue.

Of course this trip to Piedmont was in 2025 and in a few short paragraphs it will be over and I can turn the metaphorical page and start afresh. I cannot remember if I had cheese or not, I expect I did, and fairly rolled back across the street to my accomodation. The next day I did a bit more shopping, wine shop browsing and vineyard exploration before switching back to birding mode. I dipped a Shrike somewhere and then went to some lakes called the Oasi Naturalistica La Madonnina which like the Stork place was absolutely stuffed with camotwats. Amazing. I added a few birds here such as Black-crowned Night Heron and Common Kingfisher, but it was in no way as productive as I had been hoping.

One more tajarin for the road

Back in wine land I visited the village of Verduno in the north of Barolo. I found the only open restaurant in the village and had another splendid lunch, albeit smaller and with only a tiny sip of wine as I was driving. As with the place in La Morra it was entirely populated with Italian families out for a family meal. Maybe this happens in London more frequently than I think it does, but I fully support it. That said nice food in Italy costs a fraction of what it does here, my meals in Piedmont would have got me mass-market chain food back home. And so that was it. Another stroll around Verduno to look at some of the hallowed slopes and then back to Turin where I could not help but stop at a pasta factory with an attached factory shop in which to fill up any remaining crevices in my luggage.

Ciao 2025!

     

Tuscany

As someone into wine - quite heavily into wine actually, a major interest that confirms me as a total bore - I am amazed that I had not managed to get myself to Tuscany before now. The Benvenuto Montalcino, the annual event that announces the new vintage of Brunello (in this case 2021), was held in the eponymous town last November and I and a few friends of similar ilk (eg fellow wine-nerds) went down for it.

My knowledge of Italian wines is nascent at best. Two decades spent obsessing over a fraction of the wine produced in France blinded me to the merits of Sangiovese. Nebbiolo also blinded me to Sangiovese - my Italian wine journey began and is still centred in Piedmont. But the magic of this country, the food and the wine together, is beginning to take hold. Last month Mrs L and I even went to an Italian cooking class.

But back to November. Four us flew to Florence on a Friday morning. From there it is but a short hop down to Montalcino via Siena. We had an excellent AirBnB in the village, and various members of the team had organised tasting visits and restaurants, with the star attraction being the Benvenuto which was open to the Public at the weekend - we had tickets for the Sunday. I was doing the driving, somewhat of a sacrifice given the theme, but I smelled everything extensively and had some tiny sips on the day that we used the car - it was actually quite easy to remain disciplined during the day when there was so much wine around in the evening.

We arrived in Montalcino late afternoon, just enough time to browse a wine-shop and head for that all-important first glass in a local bar before a fabulous Tuscan feast in a nearby restaurant. The Italian custom of a starter and then primi and secondi never ceases to amaze me, I remember visiting a friend in Puglia many years ago and having lunch at his mother's house. When another course materialised after what I had assumed was the main pasta course I didn't really no what to do. If I lived in Italy I would be even fatter than I am now. The Boulvardier afterwards was an unnecessary indulgence.

The following day our first visit was to Baricci in Montosoli, a famed site in the Brunello appelation that I knew nothing of whatsoever. We had an engaging visit with Federico, grandson of the founder Nello, in the surprisingly small winery situated in the middle of the slope, tasting the most recent Rosso and Brunello. So good was the visit, and so talkative Federico that we were then late to La Ragnaie mid-morning. That was a good visit too, but it had started snowing by then so it was more of a tasting than a tour.

Onto another lovely restaurant for lunch, where we were joined for the main course by Geoff, a late entrant whose work had finished up earlier than expected and which meant he was able to join us. In the afternoon we visited J G Benda for what I can honestly say was the best wine visit ever. A man of singular purpose and vision, of exacting standards coupled with letting the wine do its own thing, John and his wife Zoe are living their dream and were simply a delight to spend time with. We spent the whole afternoon at his small winery and subsequently his house in town in front of a log fire, wonderful people. And such is his cachet that he did not even have any wine to sell us (though Peter did manage to source a case of Rosso once back in London thankfully). That evening rather than gorge ourselves at another restaurant we held an impromptu offline at our accomodation, a shopping trip for light food and each of us contributing a bottle of locally-sourced wine. Good stuff.

Dawn was spectacular from our hilltop location. I should have jumped in the car and sought out that famous curved track of cypress that was not too far way, but instead I made coffee and sat and looked out of the window whilst waiting for Nick and Peter to wake up. Some minor birding occured, nothing out of the ordinary but I take a lot of pleasure from simply knowing what I am listening to.

Today was the main event, the festival itself. Hundreds of growers under one roof, an impossible series of choices. Our tickets bought us entrance and a glass, and we spent the whole day wandering around the stalls sampling the highlights of the appelation. There were some amazing wines, and we eagerly took notes in order to be able to find the wines once back home, the festival of course marking the release of the vintage and sale of wine to merchants for the en primeur campaign. I've been to enough wine tastings now to know the drill - if you drink everything you will be out of the picture extremely rapidly. You use your nose and you spit almost all of it wasteful though that seems. Thus we all walked of there late afternoon in fine shape and raring to go, in fact positively crying out for some wine to actually drink. Thankfully we had another restaurant lined up for one last hurrah and boy was it good - Alla Logge di Piazza.

We returned to Florence much heavier but with a fairly modest amount of wine all things considered. Since then of course I have found a few cases of Barrici in the UK, Peter found us some Benda, and I bought a couple of bottle of Ragnaie from one of our wider wine group. When it came to en primeur a few weeks later I was fairly restrained, buying just a case each of Canalicchio di Sopra and Le Potazzine - they had stood out at the Benvenuto and I was pleased to find them. But I have so much red wine that really I need no more for years and years and so these days need to be fairly circumspect. But I needed to have a little, it is so food-friendly, and very different to the grapes I spent the first half of my life getting to know. I know a guy who has around two thousand bottles of wine, all but around twenty of which are Tuscan Sangiovese or blends. This is just what happens, it is an interest severely prone to what I call rabbit holes. I have diversified significantly in the five years since the pandamic, but I am still hugely overweight with just under 70% of the entire cellar being French, and 60% of that being Burgundy. I was about to write that I can't drink it fast enough, but actually I can....

A weekend in Barbaresco

Barbaresco

As a lover of Pinot Noir it should come as no surprise that I am also partial to Nebbiolo. It is a much more powerful grape, very tannic in its youth, strident and long-lived.  In many ways you would think that this is the exact opposite of wispy old Pinot Noir, but it too creates very pale, translucent and ethereal wines that have that divine lightness of touch. The primary growing area within Italy for Nebbiolo is in the northwest, Piedmont. With this area Barolo and Barbaresco stand out, Gattinara barely gets a mention and I'm not sure Ghemme even makes it outside Italy. Certainly I'd never heard of it until a few years ago when I started making a bit of an effort with Italian wines.

Barolo and Barbaresco are almost next to each other, and the sensible place to start would be Turin. I started from Milan which in fact was the result of a complete cock up on my part. My plan had been to go and photograph Tuscan landscapes for the weekend, but I had a geographic abberation and booked the wrong airport. I did not realise this until much later when I started planning where I would stay and realised Milan was in fact hours away from where I wanted to be. Scratch that then, but what else could I do? Well, Piedmont isn't that far.....

I landed late on a Friday, another after work flight, and made it about half way before stopping in a cheap hotel for the night. A most bizarre place, and seemingly constructed expressely for illicit liasons. The rooms were all 'themed' and not in a good way, the only options on the TV were 18+, and you entered your room unseen from the rear where you parked your car, presumably so you could flee when your actual partner turned up. Luckily I was not staying long but I wondered later how I could have got this so wrong, Booking.com had given no clues. Presumably you needed to be 'in the know'. Anyway I survived it and early next morning went birding.

Yes it was a wine trip, but ultimately everywhere I go involves birds in some way, and seeing as my Italy list was pathetic (and still is) I thought I should at least attempt to improve it. Part of the draw of the dodgy hotel had been that it was close to a large lake that was one of the few eBird pins in the area, and although I slept in a bit as I hadn't gone to bed until 1am I was still there bright and early. The weather was a little grim but I toughed it out, walking the entire perimeter in about an hour and a half. The full list is here and contains absolutely nothing special whatsoever, however almost every single bird was new for Italy so clearly all very exciting nonetheless. Mid morning I hung up my bins and drove the further hour towards the town of Alba where I would be staying for the evening. As I approached the town I diverted off the autostrada and crossed the river. Before me lay Barbaresco.

Aldo Vacca, the man behind the success of the modern Produttori

I don't have a great deal of Italian wine, but most of what I do have squirreled away is from this region. There's a bit of Sangiovese from Tuscany, a bit of wine from Puglia and Sicily, but by far the majority is from Piedmont and most of it is Nebbiolo. From Barbaresco I have around seven cases, not a huge amount. Most of this is from the well-regarded local cooperative, the Produttori del Barbaresco, who work with numerous growers to produce regular Barbaresco as well as nine single vineyard wines - known in Italy as MGAs (Menzione Geografica Aggiuntiva). Barbaresco is both an appellation and a village (alongside Neive and Treiso) and it was here I went first. It must get very busy in the summer as there is a one-way system around the hilltop, but at this time of year it was completely dead and I could go wherever I wanted. The Produttori were open though, and so I wandered in for a small tasting and to learn a bit more about them. As it was low season only the front of house was open, no chance for a tour or a look behind the scenes, but it was great to be able to chat to the friendly employee about the wine, the vintages on the counter, the philosophy behind the wine, and the rules that the growers had to abide by. Fascinating stuff, but still behind the wheel at this point I couldn't really get into it!

Outside the village I popped my head in at Roagna and La Ca' Nova, the other producers I have a few bottles of, but they both seemed closed. Had I been in France I might have rung the doorbells, a conversation in French more likely to be well received on a Saturday than in English, but alas my Italian is non-existent and so I left them to their weekend and drove into Alba. Appropriately enough I was staying above a wine shop, and once I had dumped the car I went exploring on foot. Not too many of the producers have a presence in the town of Alba, and the obvious one that did, Pio Cesare, had closed about an hour before I got there. Such is life. I did the next most sensible thing and went and had a nice lunch with a glass or two of wine at the Osteria dell'Arco.

I spent the afternoon browsing wine shops and buying small amounts of goodies to take back home, including the local pasta, Tajarin, which I had enjoyed at lunch with ragu. For the wine this was window-shopping only for the time being, I wanted to try a few more producers before filling up precious luggage space. This was achieved by heading to a wine bar early evening and trying a few things by the glass. De Gustibus I think it was called, and it was here that I discovered a producer hitherto unknown to me called Sottimano. It was just their basic Langhe Nebbiolo, declassified Barbaresco, wine from perhaps younger vines and that is not required to be aged for as long before being bottled. In any wine area trying a producer's most basic bottling is always a good place to start, and it's as true in Piedmont as it is Burgundy. And this Sottimano 2021 Langhe was simply sensational, the best Langhe I'd ever had. This would be top of the list on tomorrow's wine-buying expedition. Alongside this I had an Oddero Langhe from the same year, which whilst also top notch wasn't in the same league.

In need of more sustenance I popped into the Prosciutteria Albese for a snack and another glass of wine, this time a local Barbera. In contrast to the pair of Langhe this was inpenetrable, really heavy going and not a good proposition at this time. Best stick with Nebbiolo is my advice. The small plate of ham I had was fantastic though - if I lived in Italy I would be even fatter than I am already.

I had another wander around town to get some air and think about where I might find an evening meal. The place I had my eye on was rammed, with families coming in all the time, but the totally unstressed owner took pity on me and squeezed me in on one side of a table. Perfect. I've had this happen before in Lyon and other places, and provided both you and the other diners are chilled about it, the focus being the food rather than the comfort, then all will be fine. The atmosphere in the Osteria dei Sognatori was off the charts fantastic, organised chaos, raucous chatter, huge extended family groups, and it felt more like being at somebody's house than being at a restaurant and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants both good food and a fantastic experience in Alba. They don't even have menus, just a few bits of hand-written sheets of A4 that are passed around. I had a small portion of Tajarin and ragu just to check that it was as good as I expected it to be, which it was, and then something based on pork that was also fabulous but that I was unable to get through. To accompy this a half bottle of Rocche Costamagna Barolo from the Rocche dell'Annunziata MGA. Although it was the latest vintage but one it was fabulously approachable already. Yum! I fairly rolled back to my hotel.

Osteria dei Sognatori

Unsurprisingly I did not wake up especially early on Sunday. I went for an invigorating walk around Alba in the rain and finished up my shopping at some of the wine shops I had gazed at the previous day. The Enoteca Fracchia & Berchialla is particularly wonderful, an Aladdin's cave of riches, especially downstairs where there were endless bottles of Gaja and loads of magnums. Space was limited to whatever I could fit in hand-luggage, as at that time you could take liquids on board where airports had the new scanning technology in place, which Linate did (I had 100% checked this!). Note that as of June 2024 this has been rolled back across the whole of Europe and we are back to 100ml. But at the time it worked, and this meant that I managed to cram in a magnum of Sottimano Cottá, and then four regular bottles - from memory a couple of Langhe from Produttori and Massolino, another bottle of Sottimano, and a new vintage Pelaverga from Burlotto. My bag weighed a ton but I got it all through and security didn't bat an eyelid! 

After I had packed up and retrieved my car I had another wander around the various hillsides of Barbaresco, getting the lie of the land a bit, and then with time pressing on drove back to Milan very pleased with my weekend adventure. I managed to sneak in a final birding session south of the airport followed by a quick very late lunch at an Osteria on the outskirts of town before dropping the car off and going home with my haul.