Welcome to our September edition and this month we are delighted to announce that we have once again been shortlisted to win the Bordeaux and En Primeur specialist awards at the International Wine Challenge ceremony which will be held on 6th September 2011.

This month’s copy also includes a round up from our summer tasting and the standouts of the show, as well as some more information on our Spain / Portugal tasting coming up and our first themed ledbury dinner of this Autumn.

We hope you enjoy the read.

We were delighted to welcome over 100 clients to our tasting room on Monday 18th July to taste and chat their way through 45 wines, accompanied by some wonderful French cheese, cold meats and pate. An interesting mix of Champagnes, soft reds, whites and Rose were prepared for a 6pm start and poured freely over the next two hours. Here are a few of the evening stars.

One of the truly great non vintage Champagnes started the evening; Bollinger Special Cuvee was rich and toasty with real depth gained from the additional bottle age.

Another star was Michel Chapoutiers’ St Joseph Les Granits Blanc 2008. This magical glass of old vine Marsanne, grown on steep granite slopes, offered delicate orange peel and honeysuckle aromas. Truly one of the great value wines of the Rhone Valley.

We are delighted to announce the first of our Autumn 2011 Ledbury dinners, and our first New World offering… Dominus with Edouard Moueix.Dominus is world renowned as the most "old world" in style of all the top Napa wines. Dominus is a different vineyard than others in Napa due to its pedigree as arguably the oldest vineyard site in Napa Valley.

The following wines will be shipped directly from the estate specifically for the event and, as usual, will be matched to a first class menu designed by Brett Graham:

We are delighted to announce that we will be holding a tasting of Spanish and Portugal wines here at 10 Hatton Garden.

The tasting will cover the following regions and producers;

Rioja: Muga, Roda, Murrieta, Rioja Alta, Marques de Riscal

Ribera del Duero: La Horra, Finca Villacreces, Pesquera, Vega Sicilia

Sardon del Duero: Abadia Retuerta

Priorat: Mas Alta, Mas la Mola

Toro: Vetus

Since moving to HK, late Thursday nights have become terribly familiar for me, and the words ‘early hours of the morning’ and ‘den of iniquity’ appear all-too-often in my Friday morning communiqué to London. Thus, it was a refreshing and welcome change last week to sit at a table with some wine buddies, have some great food, enjoy a lot of good wine and go straight home at the end!

The location: Otto e Mezzo, Hong Kong’s mecca for Tasmanian Black Truffles. The food here is seriously good and was matched in a big way with the following bottles:

With the 2010 En-Primeur Campaign winding down, July was beginning to feel more like the wine market of yesteryear as the trade began to trim positions in advance of the holiday season. In contrast with the summer of 2010, the important HK / Asia Market still appeared well supplied and with larger macro-economic concerns over the US debt ceiling and Eurozone periphery, prices remained static albeit on strong turnover.

Whilst the high prices of the EP 2010s resulted in a somewhat muted campaign (particularly for the secondary market) there was very strong demand for the top wines. It’s likely that the experience will have gone a long way to convince the leading Medoc Chateaux to continue to price ‘great’ vintages aggressively in the future