Free Run 
- The not so secret diary of a master of wine

Thursday 22^nd May at London Wine Fair
So much to see, so little time. Decide to start tasting at opposite end of hall. Only way I’ll ever see that half of exhibition. Start with several Ports. Seems odd to be sipping port so early in the day. Curiously Cockburns' are showing their ‘undeclared’ 1977. Not declaring was a mistake and they admit it. They're also thrilled that Porto beat Celtic. Can only imagine the depression and hangovers of some of the Irish wine trade I know who went to Seville.

Visit Gallo stand to discover that new events promotion team have ditched last year’s stunning blonde female sample pourers. Still it does mean I get to have an intelligent conversation about wine-making styles with a couple of the people who actually make the stuff, which is why we’re all here. They’ve obviously studied Australian show tactics. No doubt they’ll be offering cold beer too next year: just hope it isn’t Budweiser.  Meet Kerri, Leasingham’s glamorous winemaker and explain how a few days previously I’d found it impossible to remove the screw cap on one of her Rieslings and had resorted to stabbing a hole in the top. She’s suitably mortified, but I reassure her that the wine inside was excellent and absolutely untainted by cork or repeated stabbing. 

Move on to find myself tasting wine with Sophia Berqvist of Quinta de la Rosa. She offers, tongue firmly in cheek, the oddest boast I’ve ever heard. Following sale of a pallet of their ruby port to Peru they now have the Peruvian market’s leading A grade vineyard, foot trodden ruby port. Guess that honour has to fall to someone. No doubt the Symington family’s stricken wailing and gnashing of teeth in Oporto can be heard all the way to South America. 

Time is pressing, but despite rushing, am stopped in tracks by picture of Jilly Goolden on her own label wines on Western Wines stand. Most people loved or hated the way she did the BBC Food & Drink programme. Despite fact that she’s probably perfectly nice in real life, I was in the later camp and was praying that the wine's would be dreadful and sales pitiful. Sadly they were mostly OK and they’re flying in UK multiples with the first run of 60,000 cases a sell out. Nice work if you can get it. As you’d expect the tasting notes on the back label are typically over the top. Oh well, there’s no accounting for taste.  

Mills Reef Syrah from New Zealand provides biggest shock of show, in that it’s really very good. They really shouldn’t be able to ripen Syrah there but that can it seems, because of swath of gravel called Gimblett gravel in Hawkes Bay that gives a warmer micro climate.  

Show closes and head for Australian section and the inevitable ‘cleansing ale’ . Plane back to Dublin is full of Irish wine trade and find myself sitting next to Peter Roycroft of Liberty, which was where I came in.

Wednesday 21^st at London Wine Fair
Taste Australian wines from people out with night before including Chris Pfeiffer who asks me if I’d like to be a judge at the Rutherglen wine show this year. Is the pope a Catholic? Hope I can sort out time and dates. Can’t wait to get a white coat and clipboard and see these fiercely technocratic Aussie judges up close denouncing Brett, VA and DMS at every turn. 

Move on grinning to Southcorp stand to complain about not having received invite to annual party. Seems I am actually on the guest list after all. Taste Lindeman’s wines with winemaker Emma Woods. Have one of those ‘aren’t policeman getting younger type moments’, which means you’re getting older yourself. She looks like she’s have trouble getting into a bar in America, but clearly she’s doing a good job as the wines are in fine shape. Ask her is she came from the Rosemount side of the business prior to the merger. Says yes, and adds that she reckons they should have T-shirts made up saying “I survived the merger” made up, as so many winemakers were made redundant. Taste Rosemount range too. GSM is their best value wine by a mile. 

Meet Siobhan Gibney and Anne Moran from Malahide, who tell me they are heading for an Austrian stand where there’s rumoured be an Irish trade gathering. Show ends and I realise, once again, there are huge parts of it I haven’t visited. It’s too big. Drinking the inevitable cleansing Cooper's Ale at the Buller's of Rutherglen stand when a BA person asks Phil Goodman of Bullers if he has a spare beer. Quick as a shot he says "it'll cost an upgrade", as he's flying home via BA. "Give us your details , I'll see what I can do" comes the reply. A tactic I must remember and try to employ. Meet Irish trade crowd outside bar on way to station. Just a quick one then.  

Tuesday 20^th  May at London Wine Fair
Get early phone call from Adam Dakin, former Oddbins colleague now selling vineyards in Southern France whom scheduled to meet at lunch, to say he has just landed in Frankfurt rather than Stansted, so he’ll be late. Seems he got on the wrong plane during the usual mad Ryanair scramble across the tarmac at Montpelier. Meet up with Martin McCaffrey for tasting with Peter Roycroft of Liberty. Martin has bought Ryan’s of Parkgate St and says they’re about to spend an entire month French polishing the place. That’s a lot of wood.

Fair is unfeasibly big. Realise that by end of day I’ve only done small corner of it. Never made it as far as the press office and the free coffee. Go to dinner with several Australians and crowd from Loeb’s wine merchants at Brinkley’s in Chelsea. Amazed to find house Champagne is £15 per bottle and Pouilly Fumé at £11! Wines are sold at just above retail prices in the restaurant plus 12 ½% service charge. Dublin bistros please copy.

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