Peppercorns & Potter’s Clay, 2011
Seeing a Pomerol tasting looming near on the calendar, hosted in London by a popular wine merchant, and realising that I would be in the city at a loose end that evening (or at least that could be arranged, if I delayed my return to Edinburgh by a few hours and came back on the sleeper train), I duly made some appropriate enquiries. Of course, I should have known better; I was enquiring a few weeks before the event, and all the available seats at this tasting had long been allocated. But my luck was in it seems; as it turned out, not quite all the seats were taken. A certain eminent and aged London-based writer had just cancelled, as he would instead be cruising the Mediterranean (hopefully on a ship rather than on his trusty bicycle). Would I like to take his place? Yes I would!
The journey to London was nothing short of a challenge; I was initially delayed by snow, and then by a broken-down train, and eventually my train terminated prematurely at Stevenage. My second train eventually rolled into King’s Cross station just under three hours late. Thankfully as I was travelling in the morning I still arrived in plenty of time for the tasting, although my other plans for the day were scuppered.
Roberson Wine
Before long I was one of a small group of tasters gathering in the store-front of Roberson Wine, on Kensington High Street, and over a very decent glass of non-vintage Taittinger I soon espied Neal Martin and Jamie Goode, both familiar faces who have made it big on the back of personal wine sites such as this. As we made or way downstairs Neal whispered conspiratorially – “Guys, with the book coming out soon, don’t write up any of the juicy stuff“. I quickly moved to placate Jamie, who thought he was being forbidden from publishing any tasting notes. That wasn’t Neal’s intention of course; he just didn’t want any of the really scandalous gossip emerging, perhaps to protect sales of his book, or possibly from fear of a mafia-style revenge attack.
