I am just back (and recovering) from a few days in New York, where I attended the annual tasting of our US importer. It was a bit of a rushed trip owing to the fact that the date of the tasting was so close to the harvest – indeed, if it had been either 2006 or 2007 we would have already started picking.

Of course New York is a shoppers paradise, especially with the Euro being so strong against the Dollar (unfortunately not that great for exporting wine) and so, as you can imagine, Angela was devastated at not being able to fly with me – as winemaker she had to stay behind and ‘hold the fort’. She did however compensate by sending me with a long shopping list, and so my sightseeing on this year’s trip was mainly confined to Fifth Avenue!

Anyway, I am now back in the real world of grapes, pH and acidity, as we wind up towards the start of this year’s campaign. As expected, owing to the late flowering, this years picking will start a little later than the last couple of years, and actually much nearer to the normal start-date for this part of the world.