Fizz bang!

Saturday, Barbara gave me a bottle of Wyfold Sparkling 2009 … been quietly fermenting away in a corner of Will's brewery (he doesn't charge his mother rent) … to try before all the rest went to be disgorged by the Roberts at Ridgeview. This meant the bottle had to be left outside, upside down overnight because it was still full of sediment from the fizzing-up process.

So then I had to go outside with a bottle opener and flick the cap off with the bottle still upside down … let the sediment out with the first spurt. Just one thing; if you don't then get your thumb over the top v. quickly everything sprays bloody everywhere like you’re some bloody racing driver. Note to self: next time wear your anorak not your new sweater.

But the aroma filled the night air, there was enough left to drink and I couldn't wait to get back inside and drink it.

The wife was nervous. Winemakers always are when they get to try their wine for the first time. It’s worse for sparkling winemakers; this is two and half years old and she - well, no-one - has tasted it yet.

Great first impression; it’s really surging with fine bubbles; wave after wave of creamy froth. No-one's going to complain this baby doesn't bubble enough. And it’s got a lovely fine tinge of colour. The palest possible hint of grey-pink; what the French used to call 'partridge eye'.

Then that rich aroma still … clean fruit. This is a young wine so it’s mostly crisp apple sort of thing. That'll mellow soon and get more complex.

Clean in the mouth. But full. Not a thin wine. Just right weight, I'd say. Anyway the bottle is all soon gone … far too fast. That's its problem; much too drinkable. But having a wife that can make stuff like this … no problem.

After the ball

Leaving the basement dressing room we could hear a distant roaring. Like a wild sea. But it was only our fellow Laithwaites people after two hours at the bar. We knew how gladiators must have felt. We were going to be torn to pieces. It was REALLY scary.

But it went off well. Very well. There is nothing more enjoyable than seeing your bosses make prats of themselves after all.

So a good night was had by all. Much time since has been spent trying to stop images leaking onto the net.

Then what. A backlog of writing.

Big session Monday as one by one the buyers have to come before the great panel of writers designers planners and such. They pour their wines and tell their tales. Must be a bit nerve-wracking for them. But everything was greeted enthusiastically. And many notes were scribbled. Though by late afternoon I'm not sure how much sense we were making. Straight tastings are much easier. You sip and spit automatically. But at these things there's so much chat, so much composing I find I forget to spit. Then I need a taxi to get home.

I joined the Company yoga class on Tuesday. With Sam Rao. Sam's my age. But everyone else is half my age. I've sort of done yoga for years but not at Sam's level. It's a challenge. The loud clicking noises coming from their Chairman as he tries to impersonate a corkscrew must have worried a few.

Then up to London for two days in a hotel for the Great Global Marketing Meet when everyone involved in buying or selling wine for us around the world gets together to present their successes and admit their failures. Four years we've been doing this and the quality of the wine 'finds', and ways of communicating them well goes up almost exponentially every time. This meeting was a blur. Very exciting. And again it's great for someone no longer young to be allowed to spend so much time surrounded by all that youthful energy.

Of which there was even more when Glenn and I finally raced out of the meeting and shot down the M4 to get to the Gloucester Cellar annual party on time. At Cheltenham Racecourse. Now they really are young; those who answer the phones and pack the cases. We don't have to dress up for Panto this time. Just say our words, have a few drinks and get out before it all gets too wild for us.

Good week.

Tony

Panto Time!

Glenn announced great December results for us this morning. Everyone happy. But all overshadowed by this week's big event.

Just before I get my false eyelashes and wig, must jot a few words. The effort going into this Panto production – which will never be seen outside Laithwaites itself – is amazing. Reading Town Hall has never seen such a production. They've been over from the Hexagon theatre to gawp our gorgeous set apparently.

Anna (ex-Wine Advisor, now part of the events team) had this idea: 'Vinderella.' And she is a VERY persuasive girl. So the Managing Directors, I, Gary and other fools said yes.

Anna wrote it and set about directing the motley bunch, some of whom are tone deaf and cannot dance. Shelly and she have made all the costumes and my dress is a wonder!

Anna laughs a lot and dances about but she can be quite steely. We turn up when she says and go through it again and again and again.

All in secret. After hours in a secret room in the warehouse. Nobody knew anything about it until posters appeared just before Xmas with me in a frock. 'See Tony as the Fairy Godmother'. Anna said that would pull them in. But they still don't know who else is in it.

Lots of in-jokes, wine jokes eg. Ugly Sisters Botrytis and Phylloxera. And crudery. All the usual panto elements. Oh Yes There Are!

The fear is beginning to grip. But if I drink any more I'll never manage those stairs in my Big Frock. Would be a hilarious Entrance … but then Exit Stage Left to A & E.

Time to get dressed. Break a Leg. Do many distinguished old wine merchants do this sort of thing.

'You SHALL go to the Ball.'

Winter nights rambling on

Back home, as night falls, from dog walking past the church, round the great turnip field, through the eerie woods where the two French stunt pilots fell to earth last year.

Pale full moon and just enough light to put the birds to bed. The old geese still in foul mood. They know we just murdered their kids. And will again next year. Hens already asleep. Understandable; their light comes on at 3.30am and eggs must be laid, even in winter. The daft ducks still have to be coaxed off the pond and still don't know where their safe place is after all these years.

Dogs fed and unconscious by the stove. Wife asleep over sudoku. Me figuring what to do with the rack of venison and that basket of fresh, damp and dirty garden veg. Despite hours watching the cooking shows, just bung everything in a roasting pan.

Gives me more time to go rummaging in my cellar-chaos.

There's those who have Cellar Books and who range everything in neat order. And then there's us who just lob new bottles in wherever there's space. True, we can rarely find what we are looking for but this is compensated for by finding something else completely different and exciting which we had no idea we still had. So it’s like a gift. From the gods.

Tonight some deep mining finds us a bottle of our very own Château La Clarière Laith. From 1990. Made with my own hands.

Dusted off. Decanted away from its considerable sediment. It was a delight. Old wine is so gentle. Kind to you. Quiet. But just sit with it and listen. It has a lot to say.

In truth, I had always been a little disappointed with this vintage. It produced some marvellous wines around us on the 'Right Bank'. I will never forget the Château Angelus which was so immediately scrummy - hugely fat black and fruity - that I drank the case within 12 months. Greedy boy. But my own wine came out much lighter and not so ripe at all. It was hard to love. And people told me so. But now … time has worked its wonders. It’s a lovely wine today.

Clearly I should say a lovely little wine. It is a much lighter wine than we make today. Understandable because back then we produced the same amount of wine as now … but from half the acreage. Our vines were under ten years old and very vigorous. And we hadn't yet started thinning the crop to concentrate our wine.

But back then all wines from Castillon and 90% of Saint-Emilion were similarly 'little'. And everybody loved them because that's the way they were and always had been.

There is no doubt that the great influx of Big Strong New World wines in the '90s and the way that – to stay in contention – European wines all had to go on bodybuilding courses, changed wine drinking forever. Or perhaps not forever. Perhaps just for a while.

Happy New Year

Big switch off and chill down over the festive period. Blackberry confiscated. Hence no diaries. Hope I was missed.

2012 began with us blown south down the M6 on Tuesday. Lots of work to catch up. Wed, Thurs, Fri so just scribble scribble - at home to avoid interruption. Very quiet; Barbara out at first light, all wrapped up, electric pruners charged, to spend her mornings freezing in Wyfold vineyard.

So belated Happy New Year …

... but not much news just yet. Just that Jancis R (Goddess of Wine) tweeted that Joe Gargery, blacksmith in Great Expectations reminded her of me. So flattered … but better send her a more recent photo.

As we had such good Christmas sales I was worried the Jan Sale might be down, but no, dead on target, thankfully.

Am also busy learning my lines and little dance for the Laithwaites Wine Christmas 'Pantowine' later this week, Reading Town Hall. I am to be the Fairy Godmother in 'Vinderella'. Currently New Aquitaine House is plastered with posters showing me in a frock. The things you have to do, eh? I want to be a serious wine merchant. But it’s Joe Gargery in drag.

Should I attach the poster? I prob look smarter in that than I will on the night.