Much of my time at the moment is being spent encouraging wine lovers to participate in Wine Relief, our biennial chance to make a concrete contribution to Comic Relief’s carefully-monitored, life-changing projects in Africa and the UK.

My husband Nick Lander and I had the idea of encouraging wine lovers to help others in 1999 and since then WineRelief has managed to raise a total of almost £4 million, with much of that having come from a 10% donation generated by sales of specially selected wines by the major retailers. But the real spirit of Wine Relief as we envisioned it at the beginning was that it would involve a really wide range of wine people and wine merchants engaged in a variety of activities, schemes and fundraising mechanics. I am thrilled to report that this seems to be happening this year.

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The UK restaurant scene has changed beyond all recognition in the last 5 years. The boom years of the early and mid noughties has been replaced by more stringent times. Faced with the harsh realities of a global economic down turn, weak stirling and rapidly rising food prices restaurateurs in the UK have had to adapt to survive – and adapt they have. Lunchtime set lunches and meal deals (not just in Macdonald’s) have become the norm even in the finest restaurants, and chefs have had to adapt menus to fit the reduced budgets of their existing client base.

In general, smarter ways of working and much improved marketing has worked. There have been far fewer businesses failures in this sector than predicted in the height of the gloom of 2009 and we still have a vibrant and exciting restaurant scene.

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 …Charles de Gaulle, French general & politician (1890–1970).

Thankfully the recent French Wine & French Cheese evening in our Pickering Cellar didn’t quite aim to cover all of the above, but we did get through quite a few…Here at Berrys we have been hosting wine & cheese events with our neighbours Paxton & Whitfield for many years, but it is only recently that we have expanded the series to focus on the wines and cheeses of particular countries, notably Spain, Italy and of course France, a country steeped in a long tradition of both vin and fromage.

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Waking up in Kyoto to a cloudless sky……I could not have enjoyed my visit to Kyoto more. At dinner on the night I arrived, the first guest introduced himself to me with the words ‘I read modern history at Oxford in the late 1970s’ which had a certain familiarity. The title of his recent article “Even a sardine’s head becomes holy: the role of household encyclopedias in sustaining civilisation in pre-industrial Japan” has a classic tongue-in-academic-cheek ring to it.
Kyoto sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains, giving a skyline resembling the Cloudy Bay label whichever way you look. We had an 8.00am start the following morning, not to begin the days tasting, but to visit various temples and gardens: the Kiyomizu temple and the golden Kinkakuji temple, along with the rock garden at Ryoanji stand out. Then the Bullet Train back to Tokyo, keeping time despite a blizzard of snow.

Other highlights included a press lunch accompanied by the exquisite food of Pierre Gagnaire. I suppose this cuisine could be called fusion but it was so brilliantly perceived and executed that it was hard to imagine that France and Japan were not eternally fused in culinary harmony.

There were so many fabulous wine dinners that I am quite glad to have returned in one piece. Dinners at Mosaique and Bulgari stand out, along with a finale at La Belle Epoque in the Hotel Okura where I was staying. I was brilliantly looked after at this lovely Hotel. Sommelier Egawa-san presided over our superb wine dinner on the final night.

This year’s trip was coloured by the incipient Chinese New Year, a festival of much greater magnitude here than 31st December/1st January is in Europe. Mind you it is rash to offer any generalities about Hong Kong because this city changes so fast. I really enjoy seeing so many different phases of life in such a short space of time, and place. One minute was a grand western-style meal in a sought after location with views high over the city – Café Gray for example, or Amuse Bouche, where we had a brilliant dinner with biodynamic wines, the next a street meal – Dai Pai Dong – though we did cheat a bit by washing down our immaculate dumplings with a bottle of Corton-Charlemagne.

Wherever you go in Hong Kong you bump into old friends, also just passing through – Sylvain Pitiot of Clos de Tart broke his journey from Paris tio Auckland with half a day in Hong Kong, nipping in to the city centre to have lunch at Alfie’s.

Appreciation of Burgundy has changed so rapidly in Hong Kong. This is a material city and five years ago the only question seemed to be ‘how does this wine compare to DRC?’ The investment angle is certainly still there, but now there are so many more people who want to find out the story behind, and who appreciate the subtleties of the wines. Burgundy has a great future here.

It seems as though Bordeaux 2009 dominated our thoughts and our business for a large chunk of last year, and it’s hard to believe that in just two months’ time we will be back in that part of the world tasting the highly-regarded 2010s.

In the meantime, however, Burgundy 2009 has taken centre stage in January, and, gosh, there are some glorious wines here. Visiting the region in October I was particularly taken by the comments of two top producers, neither renowned for hyperbole. Jean-Philippe Fichet in Meursault said that a grower would be lucky to work with this quality of grapes six, maybe seven times in a lifetime. Dominique Lafon, asked at what level he would rate the vintage, reflected for a moment before saying that the reds are really excellent but that some of the whites are truly great.

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Stuck for an original Valentine’s gift? Sifting through the fluffy toys and heart-shaped chocolates can prove trying, so how about impressing the one you love with a ticket to our Schloss Gobelsberg Fine Wine Tutored Tasting on Wednesday 16th February?

We have one pair of tickets worth £150 to give away, just send your address to blog@bbr.com by midnight on Thursday 10th February to be in with a chance of winning a place at this wonderful Austrian wine event*. It’ll certainly make a nice change to the pricey set menu at your local Italian…

In the mean time, why not browse our dedicated selection of gifts online, all of which include free UK delivery? Even if you’re too far from London to enter, a beautiful bottle of Champagne or a case of Bordeaux is bound to go down a storm!

Browse all of Berrys’ wine events.

*The event will be held on Wednesday 16th February 2011 at 6.30pm in Berrys’ Cellars at 3 St James’s Street, London. Winners must arrange their own travel. For full terms, please visit www.bbr.com/terms.

Well, Bordeaux and Burgundy 2009 have both come and gone with appropriate fanfare, a flurry of superlatives and salesmen clamouring for more and more allocations, often unsuccessfully. And now, the third and final Primeur Offer, an increasingly significant part of the BBR calendar…… Rhône 2009. And the news on the vintage is every bit as good as that for these famous neighbours……..we do not engage in hyperbolic excess here, as you know, but we are very happy to pronounce that the wines of the North are the best since 1990 and those from the South in pretty much the same class as the much-lauded 2007.

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You’ve got to laugh at my lamentable linguistic skills as I struggle to piece together a sentence in French; each one originally decorated with Italian! I thank my friends in the region of Berry (no relations sadly) for being so patient! Sit back and squirm as I interview Messrs. Sautereau, Cailbourdin and Dezat…

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Tokyo is a city that moves at a million miles an hour; A thriving hubbub of delectable juxtaposition, from the Gucci’s and Todd’s of Ginza to the Harajuku girls congregating around the Meiji Shrine – a blog such as this will never truly do it justice. Consequently, rather than tell you about the spectacle of live sumo (left. I never thought that watching fat men wrestle could be so hypnotic), the wonders of the Tokyo National Museum, or the greatest Manhattan I have ever tasted (forget ‘Lost in Translation’, Radio Bar serves the city’s best cocktails hands down… ), I have decided to simply tell you of one of my highlights, the Tsukiji Fish Market.  Tokyo has long been a Mecca for foodies, with Japanese chefs now dictating modern dining trends the world over, and so on our first morning we dutifully made the pilgrimage to Tsukijishijo Station, the home of the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world.

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Well no sooner had I stepped off the plane, I was celebrating my one year anniversary in HK on Friday night and I am now officially NOT “fresh off the boat”!

By gee what a year it has been. Needless to say it has gone quicker than Liverpool’s title ambitions and this is by no means down to the quite incredible year we have seen in the wine trade. In truth, Hong Kong is a fairly easy place to settle in, everything as at your doorstep and there is every kind of Western amenity for the unadventurous… oh, and there is more live Premier League football on than back in Blighty! So I was settled in quick as a flash and that was a good thing.

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Burgundy 2009 season is now in full swing. The main events have already taken place in London and I am about to travel to Japan and Hong Kong to talk Burgundy with our enthusiastic teams there. This will be work rather than play, but I shall get a chance to do both when I go to New York in February.

I will be taking part in La Paulée de New York for the first time, leading a panel tasting with Becky and Peter Wasserman (my neighbours in Burgundy) as part of the three days of festivities which make up La Paulée. The Paulée is a traditional Burgundian celebration held at the end of each harvest and, nowadays, the New York event each February is held in very high regard, with some of Burgundy’s most respect winemakers on attendance, as well as many leading American wine collectors. I have heard so much about this event and look forward to taking part.

This will also be my opportunity to launch Inside Burgundy in the USA with a signing session during La Paulée – I am delighted to be working with Sotheby’s who will be distributing the book in the US market.

After the indulgences of Christmas, most of us will be feeling the pinch a bit, but there’s no need to give up one of life’s pleasures to get the bank balance back into the black. We’ve come up with a few handy tips and ideas to help you choose wines that offer great value and that also match simple, everyday meals like sausages and Shepherd’s Pie.

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Assuming I come out of this one okay – cough! – I’ve always tried to put a positive spin on the annual bout of flu. It’s the body’s way of telling you to slow down (cowboy) or risk coming a cropper. Flu and other such afflictions (losing one’s Ashes for example) provide a natural boost to the immune system. Ah! So that’s why the flu jab’s  foistered upon us from the moment we graduate from crawling to walking (or running if you were one of those). The old double-bluff, very good! 

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There’s been quite a lot to stomach of late, and I’m not just referring to the festive roll of cotechino e lenticchie (sausage and lentils), cappone (capon), marron glaces, and panettone. No, at the turn it’s perhaps worth reflecting on what’s been served up wine wise from Italia over the past 12 months, and what’s in store for 2011.

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The Wall Street Journal’s wine columnist, William Lyons, talks about the Lafite phenomenon and shares how you can drink like a King on the wage of a pauper.

He is also joined by Director of Ch. Gruaud Larose, David Launay, to taste Ch. Gruaud Larose and Sarget de Gruaud Larose.

If You Ask My Advice, Chapter 5, Absolute Corkers – A Wine Buff’s Bedside Book of Anecdotes and Funny Stories by Ned Halley

Can wine merchants be trusted to give good advice? Some. Berry Bros. & Rudd, in my own happy experience, is among them. The firm is often called ‘the Queen’s wine merchant’ because it has a royal warrant from Her Majesty and has its shop just across the road from St James’s Palace in London. Buck House is just around the corner in the big park. But this is not why I have such a soft spot for Berrys.

I have been an occasional customer for ever, and once took my two children, when they were quite little, to visit the shop. I thought they might be thrilled by the antiquated interior, which looks like something out of a Hogarth cartoon, and features a weighing machine from the days when Berrys was a general grocer. This contraption was retained when Berrys became a full-time wine merchant centuries ago, because their customers liked to be weighed on it. The firm has nine volumes from 1765 recording and avoirdupois of the good, the bad and the odious. Included are Beau Brummell and Lord Byron, William Pitt and Charles James Fox, Napoleon III and very much later, famous figures such as Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, not to mention more contemporary celebrities.

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Stewart Turner, Head Chef at Berry Bros. & Rudd, reveals his secrets for the perfect turkey and fabulous stuffing.

Top tips for turkey

To keep your turkey lovely and moist, pipe a herb and garlic butter under the skin. Add some truffle oil and chopped truffle to the butter for a touch of class. Periodically drain off any fat and juices as it cooks and put in a bowl in the fridge. The fat will rise to the top and solidify, ideal for your roast potatoes. Add the juices beneath to the gravy for a real depth of flavour.

Fabulous stuffing

3 or 4 good quality, thick sausages, skins removed
25g butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 large sprig of thyme and rosemary, chopped leaves only
6 fresh sages leaves, chopped
Zest of 1 lemon
50g chestnuts, peeled and roughly chopped
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced
100g fresh white breadcrumbs

Heat the butter in a pan. Add the onions and soften over a low heat without colouring. Stir in the apples and cook until they are just losing their shape.
Add the herbs and lemon zest. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Once cool add mixture to the sausage meat. Stir in the breadcrumbs and chestnuts.
Beat well to blend everything together. Roll in greaseproof paper and tin foil and bake at 180c/gas 4 for about 25 minutes. Unwrap and serve.

Stewart Turner

I love this time of year. Christmas is just around the corner and shining like a beacon of warmth and cheer in the deepening darkness of winter. The food, the wine, the company and the fun – what better reward at the end of a long, hard year?

Throughout St James’s the window displays offer an enticing picture of festive life: cheeses from Paxtons, cigars from Foxs, hats from Locks, country clothing from William Evans. I wonder what will be under the tree for me…

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Against the backdrop of Berlusconi’s Houdini escape and subsequent civilian unrest along Rome’s ancient streets, there’s marked discontent in the Langhe hills at the way another such imprenditore (businessman), Oscar Farinetti, is conducting his affairs. As managing director and transitory custodian of Fontanafredda, the historic cantina/institution once belonging to Italy’s royal Savoia family he has recently overseen the launch of a Beaujolais Nouveau-like product ‘Già’; one that was released within two months of the harvest.

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