Busy day

I woke up early after going to bed late, is that sensible?
I spent time with a group of highly motivated PR agents and journalists talking about various subjects on ways to communicate. I am certainly one of the hardest person to convince to spend money to advertise my “product”. It is for me simply inconceivable, maybe because I am too stingy. I was saying that if a media was capable of selling our wine “immediately”, it would not be necessary to send sales people fishing for budgets, but that we, winemakers, would contact these medias constantly. As it is the case for Christophe Château, director of the 5 Côtes de Bordeaux association, I think that what we miss the most is motivated sales reps, able to tour the world to convince our customers, for now, except around fifty ultra-luxurious and expensive wines, many, many Bordeaux are, after all our handicaps (the Euro, legislation, etc.), real value for money.

I spent a great evening which started at Kinette and Michel Gautier’s for fun appetizers , then we ate dinner at our friend Jean-Pierre Xiradakis, La Tupina. We arrived at 9 pm and left at midnight. Tough for me who lives on the same time schedule as my roosters… In bed at 1am awake at 6am!

During this meal shared with Jean Guyon (Rollan de By), we drank with pleasure a Haut Condissas 2001 despite the unbelievable number of wines we tasted, including an astonishing Marginal 2003, an American wine I forgot the name (in a Amarone style). Part of this very professional dinner was spent preparing an important event in Hong Kong.

To go back to one of Patrick’s remarks: in fact, this is a strange vintage. In our vineyards, I saw the Cabernet Sauvignon start changing color before the Merlots. Go figure!

As for the rest of the remarks, of course, I always imagine that each vine gets precise and specific attention: you just have to wander around Saint Emilion vineyards or Pomerol to notice, at least with the best winemakers. In fact, perfect analysis are not sufficient to produce a good wine (it is bit like the story of Camembert made with raw milk versus pasteurized, isn’t it?)