Benvenuto Brunello is a wonderful chance to get a broad view of the new Brunello vintage.  Some one hundred and thirty plus producers exhibit at this annual event, all under one roof. 

This year was the turn of 2013 Brunellos and 2012 Riservas.  The trip also offered me the opportunity to break out and explore the rest of Tuscany and its new vintages. Here’s what I learned: 

Brunello 2013 – is a highly promising vintage, a potentially great one, and at its best better than the higher five-star rated 2012 vintage.  Montalcino wines rarely struggle for power or density, so these cooler rainier vintages, when handled correctly, can produce excellent results – adding a rare finesse and vibrancy to these naturally well-built wines.  It was no wash out, either, good weather dominating the latter part of summer from end of July onwards. The 2013s show good intensity and great balance, suggesting excellent ageing potential. Of course not everything will be great, many producers still pick too late, extract too much or, a new trend, pick very early. In the latter case, when taken to the extreme, this can yield rather lean, mean wines with aggressive tannins, tart fruit and hollow middles.  There were more of these in evidence than I can remember.  But back to good examples, though, which are in a majority, they are complete and want for nothing.  More discrete than the blockbuster but well-formed 2010s, but don’t miss them – allow them time  and aeration and they become hugely rewarding.  As ethereal as Brunello gets.

Not even the ‘Beast from the East’ could dampen spirits at our annual Bordeaux tasting. Our stoic growers packed their finest winter woollies and put on another great show.

The Royal Society of Chemistry in Burlington House played host for the 2015s, and for those, and there were many, who braved the snow, were treated to a spectacular selection from this luxurious vintage. There were star wines wherever you looked, the sumptuous Calon Segur proved that those who wrote off St Estephe were a little hasty – this was packed with charming sweet fruit and rippled with muscle. Domaine de Chevalier was gloriously decadent and polished, the Mouton brace of d’Armailhac and Clerc Milon were a sheer joy, brimming with lavish fruit, they are glorious expressions of this vintage.

We all have our romantic image of ‘Winemaker’ – stood proud on rolling hillside, in worn Timberland boots, jeans, slightly crumpled shirt and hardy jacket – and most of the time that image is male. 

As the riddle goes, a boy and his father are out for a drive when they are involved in a car accident. The father dies at the scene, his son is alive but in critical condition, and is rushed to hospital for surgery. When the boy arrives in A&E, the doctor takes one look at him and says, “I can’t operate on my son.” How is this possible? Of course, the doctor is his mother. 

We are all guilty of our assumptions, our “single stories” and gender biases, and it doesn’t stop at doctors, firefighters, and military pilots. When I show customers our portfolio, they will often stop at a winery and exclaim, “Oh, I love his wines!” leaving me to gently agree that yes, her wines are indeed fantastic. 

Historically this may ring true. Wine-making is a gruelling, physical job – crushing grapes is hard work! There are many winemaking regions where land ownership would have been passed to the sons and not the daughters. But there are electric crushers, and laws have changed. However, as any woman in wine will tell you, changes in technology and law are only the beginning. Attitudes too must change. Here are some of our favourite winemakers who are doing just that.

The snow-capped Langhe region provided a perfect live map of Barolo & Barbaresco’s finest vineyards during my visit to Piedmont last week.  

Bare, melted patches amidst the vast blanket of white revealed exactly where lay the vineyards with the best exposures and warmest micro climates.  In the old days this is how entrepreneurial growers decided on which plots to expand into next, where to do their deals.  These very patches yielded some superb wines in the newly-released 2014 vintage, a year that had its challenges but one that, in the end, proved well-suited to the late-ripening Nebbiolo vines when grown on hillside sites.  For the vintage’s greats, think Brunate, Cerequio, Cannubi, Monvigliero and right across Barbaresco… to call out just a few