Month: November, 2011

Bramaterra, Gattinara and Boca – the Côte Rôtie of Piedmont?

Fanciful thinking maybe, but there’s something compelling about this northern Piemonte hillside that reminds me of the Rhône’s most perfumed expression of Syrah: the combination of predominantly acidic, igneous soils, altitude, steep slopes, handkerchief-sized zones and pocket-book estates (!), the use of other grapes (Vespolina mainly) to give complexity…terroir interpreted this time through the Nebbiolo […]

2010 in the Northern Rhône – A great vintage blessed with balance and complexity

A week spent tasting the 2010 vintage proved to be a joy, despite an inauspicious beginning on Monday morning under leaden skies with the lunar calendar telling us it was a Root Day, not deemed propitious for tasting. After the opulence of the easy-to-read 2009s the growing season in 2010 was more challenging, with less […]

Robert Parker announces his “Magical top 20 Bordeaux from 2009” to 1000 wine lovers in Hong Kong

The BBR HK Team was fortunate enough to attend the Robert Parker tasting at Wine Futures last Tuesday (amazingly most of our rivals did not bother!). As well as being able to taste alongside the great man, this reaffirmed just how spectacular the 2009 vintage is. All of his “Magic 20” showed superbly in one […]

It just goes to show that it’s never too late to discover Nebbiolo!

The following blog is written by Robert Cecil, former (now retired) colleague at Berry Bros. & Rudd and fine wine aficionado (mostly Bordeaux), whom I invited out to the Langhe to show him what was happening; it was his first visit to the region and we visited Giovanni Rosso, Mario Fontana, Manuel Marinacci and Cantina […]