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Monday 12 October 2009

First thing this morning I showed Adam around the Chai and he could barely recognise it

The last time he was here the building renovations were just about to start. I, JMS and Adam had to taste through all the new wines at the Chai by half ten as we had a meeting at the world famous St. Emilion Grand Cru Classé Chateau Ausone with the owner Alain Vautier.

The Chateau perches on the left hand side of the village of St. Emilion. Mr Vautier showed us around personally and we tasted some of the freshly picked Cabernet Franc and the some 2008 from barrel. At 750 euro a bottle, I must confess I did not spit the wine out on this occasion!

Bernadette had been busy too and a huge paella was awaiting us for lunch when we arrived at La Clarière. JMS opened a La Clarière 1994 and 1995 to try. These were the first wines that he made and they tasted very good indeed.

After lunch I stopped quickly at the Chai before heading off to Sauveterre to do the first blending trials for the Laithwaite Sauvignon with Pascal the winemaker/director. It is always very exciting to finally be able to put your components together for the first time but this is just the beginning of a long series of blending meetings until we finally decide on the perfect blend.

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