Small Rant on the Subject of Burgundy

The terroir of the departed, Savigny-lès-Beaune



Burgundy is a magical, mystical place for wine merchant and aficionado alike, source of some of the world's most stunning wines, at best extraordinarily scintillating amalgams of the most beautiful fruit and profound terroir. It's also a place - and a wine - that frustrates the hell out of me.

I think most wine consumers, by now, understand the significance of Burgundy in Planet Wine; its place at the head table; the manner in which it becomes an obsession for those who start out on a journey of burgundian discovery. Yet if the volume of bordeaux we sell in any given vintage can be expressed as x, the volume of burgundy we sell is 10% of x. There are reasons for this phenomenon; reasons, but little sense.

The fact of it is that many consumers avoid burgundy due to them finding it beyond their comprehension. Too complicated to understand, it gets left on the shelf. Many would rather put away a further tranche of bordeaux (on which subject they feel they have some grasp) than visit unknown territory and purchase burgundies that are utterly outwith their ken.

Sad to say, I suspect that this is the legacy of Robert Parker, before the advent of who's publications most consumers were happy to delegate their wine knowledge to a trusted wine merchant. I would suggest that, rather than freeing the tastebuds of the wine collector by the provision of comprehensive and easily-accessible information, many of today's wine writers have done exactly the opposite: they have instilled in the mind of the wine consumer a requirement for understanding. This is a travesty and a great shame. Wine consumers are missing out on some of the world's finest wines...and I am missing out on the bottom line.

Let me say now that my knowledge of Burgundy and burgundy is woefully underdeveloped. A big part of visiting the region every year and tasting the wines on a regular basis is the satisfaction taken in the expansion of that knowledge: identifying the questions and researching the answers; above all, asking questions. I am sorry to report that if you are saving your burgundy buying until such time as you have an opportunity to do some research of your own, you will, most likely, remain under-endowed in the burgundy department.

The answer is to buy burgundy from Bowes Wine. And yes, of course I would say that. But the fact remains, I am under no obligation to buy any of the wines you see on our burgundy offer; indeed, I am not obliged to sell any of the wines we offer at all. My levels of faith in all these wines is 100%. Please feel free to buy with confidence. Should you end up disappointed when you come to drink these wines, we would be happy to make amends...but I consider it extremely unlikely it would ever come to that...

Click here to go to the offer

Mighty Whites and Reds; Heady Views and Fine Food

Looking towards central across the lake in Hong Kong Park

I have just arrived in Singapore, a place which looked bright enough during my taxi ride into town, but the firm splatter of raindrops against my hotel rooom window showed its real intentions re the weather.

Hong Kong was busy, starting with a fine dinner out at Crown Wine Cellars. I was blind tested on a couple of bottles and managed to get really rather close to the first of them:

1989 Chateau Canon
Delicious, fully mature nose. Sweet black fruit of cherry and plum, plus a hint of cold tea, dark chocolate and a hint of mint. Wisp of smoke and raspberry, the whole thing dense in a slightly creamy way. The palate is plush, initially satin-textured. Flavours are cold tea with notes of spice and that lovely plum fruit. Piquant minerals wrap around the finish, where I also found some slightly grainy tannins (which should have given the game away re vintage). Grip increases throughout and it ends freshly. Takes on an aroma of nori when open for a while.

I guessed 1990 Canon, so wasn't too put out.

Next wine, I was nowhere near as clever:

1989 Vega Sicilia Unico
Floral aromas to the really pretty high-toned nose. And there's some sweet fruit nuanced by liquorice: smoked blueberries and plums, as well as some dried fruit. This is a little jammy, although not in any bad sense. Both red and black and tangy with it. A rich, fresh and quite structured palate showing easy and consistent grip. Very long, with a saline minerality along its length. Very little tannin apparent. Dried, savoury leaves.

I will not relate my guesses on this one. We finished with a half bottle of 1997 Chateau de Malle, which was delightful.

I had never been to Otto e Mezzo, that restaurant in Alexandra House where cooks the erstwhile chef of the mighty Toscana in the old Ritz Carlton. We were three diners and I had been instructed to bring a white. I secured a bottle of 2006 Riesling Smaragd Durnsteiner Kellerberg from FX Pichler and it was superb: fresh, dense, citrus and very complex, developing beautifully with air.

Next, a couple of fine reds:

1991 Clos de la Roche, Armand Rousseau
Fully tertiary. Notes of mushroom skin and rich red cherry and plum fruit, plus spiced liquorice. Palate is fully resolved, showing gentle grip. There's a hint of mustiness under the flavours of sous bois. Altogether delicious!

Next...the "other" French wine region!:

1994 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild
A fresh nose, crisp and pure. Aromas both red and black and fresh, of currants, with a classic cedar undertow. Black cherry. In the mouth, very cool; just medium weight. A dry wine, deceptively long. Really fresh, cool, subtle and elegant.

And lastly (and very kindly supplied by mein host):

1990 Krug
Not many bubbles, those that are present rising slowly. A profound colour of pronounced gold. Nose is dense and very bready, with a saline minerality. A truly gripping nose, in fact, mature and broad. Sugared almonds and walnuts; white chocolate. Very nutty: almond paste. With breathing, aromas of ginger and fresh mushroom skins. The mousse has a piquancy, although it doesn't come across as terribly fizzy. A highly mineral wine, long and subtly fresh. It develops flavours of mocha and deposits chalky minerals on the tongue. Walnut cordial. The mousse is lost in the wine's mineral concentration. Touch of the finest cheese rind. Later on, it took on a wheaten note.

We were all distraught when the last sip had gone. Towering, immaculate, masculine and utterly lovely wine. I wish I could drink it often.

And then there was my tasting at the Yacht Club. The Gun Room is a fine place for such an event, hanging out, as it does, over the waters of the harbour. The wines were showing brilliantly. What were the stars? The pairing of two 2008 dry white Bordeaux wines was scintillating: Smith-Haut-Lafitte and Domaine de Chevalier, just so different from one another, the first smelling of cat's pee in a herb garden, mightily concentrated, direct, very long, the second a touch closed, but beautiful, rich and blanaced impeccably. I will watch both with interest over the years.

2007s: Domaine de Chevalier red and La Conseillante. These are almost ready and quite delicious. No wonder the prices have started bouncing.

2008s: Vieux-Chateau-Mazerat and Carmes Haut-Brion. The former loam-dense, subtle and quite modern, the latter crisp, curranty, delightfully fresh.

Too many wines to mention! The white Rhones found many friends: 2008s from Clos des Papes and Beaucastel.

The 2008 Grenache de Pierre from Domaine Giraud shows why this variety is well into a rennaissance: intense wine, complex, spicy and delicious.

And the Daily Drinker wines shifted, I think, tasters' views of Portuguese and Greek whites, Romanian red. A few scales fell, I hope, from a few eyes.

Lots more fine food and wine was enjoyed and many excellent people met with. Leaving HK is always something of a wrench. I am still under its spell.

Oh, and for those who have yet to go, I can recommend a trip to the Ozone bar in the new Ritz Carlton on the 118th floor of the ICC building, Kowloon side. The view is unlike anything I have ever experienced...although I mightily disapprove of being told that tables have a minimum spend. Bah!

Fuel Expenditure Gone Wrong; Wines Gone Very Right

A sample of Fixin awaiting our attention outside the Domaine Mortet in Arnaud's absence

I didn't get a chance to pen a post on either my penultimate or final day in Burgundy. Dinner kept me out late for the former, and a woeful collection of misadventures ensured a tardy finish my last night, delivering me back to the gite exhausted in the darkness, fatigued and desperate for a square meal.

Thursday line-up: Digioia-Royer in Chambolle; François Lamarche in Vosne; Jean Chauvenet in Nuits. Pause. Lunch. Camus-Bruchon in Savigny; Tollot-Beaut in Chorey.

Friday line-up: Jean Grivot in Vosne; Rebourgeon-Mure in Pommard. Pause. Lunch. Taupenot-Merme in Morey; Mortet in Gevrey; Rossignol-Trapet in Gevrey; Drouhin-Laroze in Gevrey.

Thursday went off like clockwork and continued to reinforce our belief that 2010 is indeed a very great burgundy vintage. I have never tasted wines so fine at Lamarche nor, perhaps, at Chauvenet, at which domaine a shift in style has taken place. It's a shift which is, one has the impression, occurring all over the commune of Nuits-St-Georges: a move to minimise Nuits' natural toughness and craft liquids more approachable, but that still display clearly that fascinating terroir that makes Nuits such an excellent hunting ground for burgundy enthusiasts. Christophe Drag at Chauvenet showed us a beautiful collection of his 2010s and the change appears to have been effected seamlessly and highly successfully.

And you have to admire the wines at Camus-Bruchon. Largely unknown to all but the most avid burgundy afficionado they nevertheless continue to produce some of the finest wines of Savigny-lès-Beaune, ergo some of the best values in the region.

Dinner that evening was courtesy of a UK importer from whom we secure allocations of a number of very fine wines, including burgundy. Food was extremely palateable, but the wines were luminary. A bottle of 2007 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru les Referts from Louis Carillon was on the go when we arrived and very good it was too: showing its oak in its youthfulness, but rich and mineral and complete. Bottle number two was rather grander: the 2004 Montrachet of Ramonet. Of course, one hopes that one has the chance to drink this wine again when it is at its absolute apogee, but boy is this stuff impressive, seeming to define fineness.

A magnum of '93 Volnay Santenots from Lafon folowed and was deliciously energetic, as are so many wines of that vintage.

Friday was an altogether more complicated day. Late morning found Tasting Buddy and me at a petrol station in some despair. I had squirted 30 litres of unleaded into my diesel car and we were instantly earth-bound. A garage sent a man, but he confirmed that he needed to deal with the problem back at base. We were loaded onto/into a truck and soon delivered.

I placed a call to the UK agent of the wines of our afternoon's domaine visits and she quickly appeared and kindly ferryed us about all afternoon. Best of all, we took a call during our frist appointment to say that the car was all done and ready to collect. I had paid €50 for the petrol, now destroyed or, more likely, residing in the tank of one of the garage's staff cars. The work to empty the tank, including the tow, cost €212. The I refilled the tank with diesel: €118. A pricey day all-in-all!

I had never been to Taupenot-Merme before and sitting in a cosy dining room right by the grand cru vineyard of Clos des Lambrays we had a very good tasting. I will certainly offer some of these...as I will with every other producer at which we tasted. Grivot wines were very exciting; Mortet's one wine of which I can secure an allocation - the Fixin - is outrageously expensive for a Fixin, but is better than many domaine's 1er Crus from terroir considered vastly more senior. At Rossignol-Trapet the wines seems to get better and better. The 2010s are utterly fabulous. And Drouhin-Laroze. What a way to finish. Spoilt rotten, we felt.

Last up, I went to visit Daniel Rebourgeon in Pommard. I have a big soft spot for this domaine. Daniel is a very friendly sort who, after studying wine making in the same class as Jean-Pierre Charlot of the Domaine Joseph Voillot in Pommard, went on to teach wine making for a period before settling into the family domaine. The wines are, as ever, super-pale, yet concentrated, intense and beautiful. They are also ridiculously cheap for what they are. We finished with a 1962 Volnay village wine and it was quite extraordinary: still loaded with fruit, gently mocha-scented and flavoured. What fun.

We cleaned the gite and headed for the Channel tunnel. As we rolled down the ramp and onto the train the screen on the dashboard that shows the range for the remaining fuel ticked down to 0 miles and I then spent the 35 minute journey imagining us being pushed off the train by an irate band of those occupying the cars behind us, but we made it to the fuelling stop UK-side and were more relaxed for the 2.5 hour remainder of our journey home.

By all accounts, the 2011 vintage in Bordeaux is extremely mixed. Without doubt, the 2010 Burgundy vintage has produced stunning, concentrated, fresh and intense wines that are absolutely dripping in terroir. Can I ask those considering giving Bordeaux a miss this year to spend their usual budget for those wines on Burgundy instead? Pretty please?? This just might turn out to be the finest thing in your portfolio.

The Fog Clears to Reveal the Greatness

A modest message in the wall of a Meursault back street, yet to ignore it would be to bypass some of the world's finest Chardonnays

It's been a fine day in Burgundy, starting with thick fog in Corberon. The fog retained its density to the outskirts of Beaune before it lifted, revealing the glowing slopes of the Cotes, mist edging the vines in white.
First stop was Lafarge in Volnay. Tasting Buddy had stayed at home. He cannot secure an allocation of these wines and decided to do the family thing back at the gite instead. It seems to me that, increasingly, this will be the story with burgundy. Global demand for these wines is growing exponentially; Asia is diversifying, as testified by buses full of visitors from South East Asia.

The Lafarge cellars are a great place to crack one's cranium with some force. The people who built these chambers cannot have been much bigger than Bilbo and friends. Standing for an hour to taste from the barrels that reside here can result in much stiffness in one's spine. But, my-oh-my, it is worth it. This was a succession of the finest Pinot Noirs: super-sculpted art forms of ravishing fruit.

Tasting over, I stepped into the street and the fog had caught up with me, the sunshine gone. I popped back to Corberon to collect Victoria for her to drop me at my next appointment and the drive across the plain's flatness was surreal in the mist, the pigeons flying over the fields seeming directionless, the bits of landscape coming and going like dreams.

I was asked by a client some years ago why I never talk about the vintages and domaines that do not perform, are unworthy of selection for a Bowes Wine offer. Well, here it is..

Next visit was to a domaine that shall, of course, remain unnamed. And the wines were okay...fine....quite tasty. But premier crus from the 2010 vintage that are low in acidity, lacking intensity, short on concentration are the produce of a wine maker not trying sufficiently hard. And this is a domaine that has, in the past, produced some truly excellent bottles. Sad to say, there's no chance of me offering these for the foreseeable future.

Lunch was in a grill restaurant on the main Dijon road out of Beaune and with all the family/s. We sat and watched the fog finally lift, the sky's greyness change incrementally to blue, the sun return the colour to the extensive and mono-cultural landscape outside the restaurant's window.

Tasting Buddy and I pegged it north to Gevrey and the cellars of Rossignol-Trapet. This domaine is now certified biodynamic and, tasting the wines, one gets the sense of their purity; that one is tasting a purity of Pinot Noir fruit unsullied by human intervention. These are achingly beautiful wines in 2010: super-true to their origins. We sampled exceptionally impressive village, premier cru and grand cru wines, culminating in a properly masculine, smoky and complex Chambertin.

Then it was back to white wine territory: the village of Gamay and the Domaine Marc Colin. Wine making here is impeccable. St Aubin fruit in the hands of someone as talented as Damien Colin can trump many a wine from the more celebrated communes nearby, and at a fraction of the cost at that. Again, the white premier cru En Monceau was the one I'll be picking, intense, super-mineral and age-worthy as it is.

Lastly...a visit of the kind one looks forward to for months; a producer of white wines that could compete with pretty much anything made anywhere and still shine. Lafon, Coche-Dury, Ramonet are names well-known around the world and command prices that put them within reach of the super-rich only. Yet Patrick Essa at the Domaine Buisson-Charles in Meursault crafts Chardonnays that can live at least as long and offer as much pleasure. They are wines I buy every year and the 2010s are quite extraordinary.

We left Meursault with two fine bottles generously donated by Patrick: a 2007 Meursault Vieilles Vignes and a 1995 Meursault Les Tessons and I sit now in Corberon tying this post with a glass of the latter in my hand. It defines Chardonnay's potential to a T. I am tired; I am, happy. And venison terrine has just been placed in front of me, thus I sign off in anticipation of a Good Feed.

Mushroom found growing in a wood near our house in Corberon

We are having an afternoon off, for which I am really quite grateful. Towards the end of our last tasting before lunch today, I was starting to feel in need of forty winks and, indeed, back at the gite after fifteen minutes of grazing on goose rillettes and some rather fine venison terrine, plus a mouthful of cheese or two, I fell soundly asleep on the sofa, despite the fact that the children - all five of them - were engaged in energetic antics nearby.

Thus far, we have visited the following producers: Bachelet-Monnot; Paul Pillot; Morey-Coffinet; Etienne Sauzet; Francois et Antoine Jobard; Joseph Voillot; Louis Boillot; Bouchard Pere et Fils and Remi Rollin. It has made for hard pleasures!

What have we discovered to date? That 2010 is certainly an extremely fine vintage for both red and whites wines in Burgundy. It may well fall firmly into the "great" category. Reds are aromatic, crisp, rich, vivid, energetic and, perhaps most importantly, thoroughly beautiful. Whites are rich 'n' crisp, fresh, lively. Wines of both colours are some of the most terroir-clear liquids I have ever encountered.

And to be frank it's all a bit depressing. The market that is currently suffering is that for wines costing £300 to £500,... but that is exactly where the clever money goes for the really fine burgundy from domaines that haven't been so widely touted by the press that prices have become (perhaps artificially) inflated.

Example: the wines of Jean-Pierre Charlot at the Domaine Joseph Voillot should really be bought by burgundy lovers year in year out. They are always stunningly fine (as a bottle of 1992 Pommard Rugiens, donated by Jean-Pierre, proved at dinner last evening. It was an extremely tricky vintage and many of the wines have, by now, fallen over. This Pommard, on the other hand, was bright ruby in colour, complex, fresh and fascinating).

Jean-Pierre's 2010s are very great wines: glittering, rich, heavenly-scented beauties that combine elegance, gorgeous aromatics and excellent potential for cellar age. Yet already I baulk slightly at trying to sell £450 a case Cote de Beaune red. As one who has tasted these wines and feels utterly duty bound to bring them to Bowes Wine clients, I find myself slightly concerned by the response with which an offer might be met. It seems to be that wine collectors currently either want to buy the budget values at £120 to £200, or the creamy top at £750 plus.

Add to all these ruminations the fact that we sell 10% of the value of our annual Bordeaux offer in burgundy wine each year and one ends up feeling a tad blue. What's happened to all the true wine lovers that are looking for super-fine wines that offer great value regardless of where that wine is grown? And what happened to trusting one's wine merchant when he says he/she has found something spectacular? I reckon the answer to this second question is "Parker happened". The Amercan's publications have presented the consumer with a great deal of information; more than the average consumer could ever assimilate. Yet rather than freeing up the consumer and broadening his/her tastes and, ultimately, wine portfolios, it seems to have created a desire for the familiar, areas of ignorance being avoided like the plague. And even as a wine merchant who comes to the region every year for a week and one who drinks and tastes the wines with great frequency, I often find myself wondering whether there are more questions than answers in this extraordinary wine growing place. Familiarity is quite possibly an erroneous and ephemeral state when it comes to Burgundy and, indeed, burgundy. Please do not fear ignorance in this regard. Cherish it...and dive in with both feet!

Arrival in Burgundy; Sunshine and a Few Bottles

Corberon, where lizards are still enjoying the late autumn sunshine






We undertook the long drive to Burgundy yesterday and enjoyed brilliant sunshine the entire way.

It was cold last night; cold enough to leave stubborn ice on the windscreens of the cars.

Tasting Buddy and I have been accompanied by our families and we've taken a house in a village called Corberon situated on the plain outside Beaune. The house is big and sits in its own park-like garden and is accessed down a winding drive. The swimming pool is closed up for winter, alas; the children would have enjoyed it this afternoon as it has been unseasonably warm. We took lunch outside and had all removed our jumpers by the time the first cheese was cut.

I felt in need of a glass of wine last evening following the long car journey that brought us here and, on arrival, had that desire fulfilled on being handed a glass of 2007 Chassagne Vergers from Guy Amiot. It's a lovely rich wine, wearing an oaky nuance at the moment, finishing with a saline lick of minerality.

The red that followed was the 2003 Nuits Vaucrains of Robert Chevillon, which started remarkably pure and wholly burgundian, not something one can bet on with the wines of this vintage. From its uncorking it did, however, display some hard and slightly bitter tannins and after an hour-and-a-half, the fruit started leaching away, leaving something altogether less pleasureable.

1995 Hermitage Blanc from the Domaine Remizieres is now drinking beautifully and offers a lime-y experience on both nose and palate. This is one rich, wonderfully textured white.

Tomorrow the tasting starts and we are straight in at the deep end, with appointments from 08h30 through to supper time. I anticipate a tiring yet rewarding day. The word is that these '10s are something pretty special.

A Charity Do; a Caffeine-Fuelled Dash North; Late to the Convivium

Watching rising waters pouring over the weir at Chollerford




I have been intending to pen a post for some time, but have found the path to the blogosphere paved with distractions.

We recently helped in the organisation and hosting of a wine tasting at Vintners Hall in London for a fantastic charity of which my brother-in-law is chairman: EMpower, an organisation that seeks to turn around the lives of children growing up in the emerging markets, giving them the opportunity to lead productive lives, thereby contributing to the communities from which they come.

And believe me when I say that it did take quite some organisation! Jonathan (the b-in-l) first called me to discuss such an event pretty much a year ago, shortly afterwards suggesting that the evening take the form of a tasting of wines from the BRICS countries. I must have been in an especially chipper mood that day, as I agreed. What an excellent idea!

Well, the reality was rather trickier than the agreeing. Prising wine out of a Russian winery proved to be exceptionally hard, local laws stipulating thaht no more than five bottles of samples of any one wine can be shipped in a single shipment. DHL were scratching their heads; we were simply pulling the hair from ours (and those who know me will understand that I do not have that many left to pull).

We had managed to land the tasting in a small window in the exceptionally hectic diary of Jancis Robinson, who very kindly agreed to come along and be our guest of honour.

As it turned out, it was a fabulous event: 160-or-so people assembled for a blind tasting of the BRICS wines, followed by an "open" tasting of a range of Daily Drinker bottles.

We had offered up a couple of Daily Drinker memberships as prizes for the blind part of the tasting, assuming that someone would (whether by luck or judgement) manage to guess the origins of all five pairs of wines (grouped together in couples, one red, one white). And no one did. Not a single person. When sheets had been marked, the details of those who had come closest were dropped into a "hat" and two names were duly pulled by Jancis.

Jancis gave a very well-received speech decorated with anecdotes about her time as a wine writer and a very jolly time was had by all. Jancis's write-up of the event can be viewed here.

I had intended to stay the night in one of the Vintners' bedrooms, but the call of the John Buchan Food and Wine Society was too strong. I had spat assiduously all evening and the moment the Hall was clear, I hopped into my car and, fuelled by regular doses of high octane energy drinks, made it to our lodging in Northumberland at 02h50.

I should explain. By a supremely shoddy piece of organisation on my part, I had managed to merge the dates for the second evening of the JBFWS with the BRICS tasting. By the time I arrived, the three regulars had enjoyed two evenings of Henry's extraordinary cooking and, if not an ocean, then a sizeable sea of fine wine. Luke had even caught a 17lb salmon. Clearly, I was playing catch-up on a montrous scale.

I cannot remember eating breakfast the next morning, but we were happily met and proceeded to the banks of the North Tyne reasonably sharpish. The water was in fine fettle: high and dark (dark being the Tyne's usual state), but clear and distinctly fishy looking.

Two fish I lost one in the morning, one shortly after lunch. The second was met with a reaction bordering on despair. I heaved myself heavily from the water and went to find sympathy from the rest of the crew. What I found instead was a wide-eyed Luke standing on the bank with a 20lb salmon at his feet. Very kindly, he suggested that I slip into the water just where he'd left off. I didn't need a second asking...

It was but 10 minutes thereafter that my fly stopped and a raising of the rod to lift the fly from the rock I thought perhaps had intercepted it was met with the crazed run of what turned out to be a 15lb fish. It was a spirited fight. At one stage, she flew upstream towards me and, reeling hard, I was sure for a moment that she was off.

Henry confited a part of the fillet that evening and it was absolutely spectacular. Hand-chopped steak tartare was also scintillating and we poured 1982 Lynch-Bages after it (pure, resolved, with mild, silk-like tannin and beautiful blackcurrant flavour), as well as the 2002 Vosne Brûlées from the defunct Domaine René Engel (soft, airy, elegant), the 1966 Château Calon-Ségur (streets ahead of another bottle from the same source: cedary, red-fruited, delicious), the 2003 Valbuena Vega Sicilia (muscular in this company; complex; very fine).

Earlier, we had enjoyed bottles of 2001 Chassagne 1er Cru Les Champgains from Guy Amiot (perfectly à point; nutty and terroir-laden) and my last 1999 Beaucastel Blanc (a wine I thought had finally perhaps become a bit cidery...but then, after all the Red Bull I had consumed the night before, it is possible that my taste buds weren't 100% in order!

We finished with a half of 1990 Doisy-Dubroca, a half that wasn't quite right as it gave something of a loud pop when opened. The 2005 Banyuls Cuvée Leon Parcé from Domaine de la Rectorie was quite brilliant with the steak tartare.

But whlist we ate, we could hear the rain falling on the roof and windows, rain that persisted for much of the night. In the morning, two of our party of four set sail in a hire car for Abergavenny and a food festival. Luke and I, having thought we would be in the money, with the river to ourselves and stuffed with fat fish, arrived on the bank to discover a swollen flood.

The river grew through to lunchtime. We barbecued some fillet steak and had a couple of glasses of wine. Weary, we nodded off, me in the hut, Luke on the grass outside. On waking we found the river still rising. It was as the blowing of the final whistle. We packed away what gear we had and set off for home.

Could we host the JBFWS more than once a year? Indeed, should we? Would it be wise? (Many levels to this last question, including medical!) Not sure. What I do know is that I miss it when it's gone.