From my friend Vic Mills:

“Hi Stuart,

I reluctantly (bear with me on this) swap cricket for Copperfield and deep fine leg for Dickens with the following quote from Mr Wilkins Micawber: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

There is more than a little of the Mr Micawber about Project Front Foot at the moment in that, after preparing the annual Income & Expenditure figures for the Charity Commission for year ending 31/3/23 I can report Income of £1665.01 and Expenditure of £2574.57. While this has not left the trustees and volunteers in a state of abject misery, the loss of £909.56 has sent us in search of a solution.

We have not made a fuss of finances since our founding in 2009. Self-funding and the support of friends has kept us afloat and flourishing these past fifteen years. The project sea change from India to Europe, however, moved the goalposts/wickets somewhat. As such, our main expenses now relate to van hire, insurances, fuel, and ferry tickets. All of which continue to rise. Example: from next year, the cost of taking a hire van out of the country will hike from £125 to £300.

We have enough funds in the project bank account to support one more full year of operations after which it gets a bit problematic. So, for the first time in fifteen years, we have gone down the route of a funding site i.e. Go Fund Me. Our target is a modest £5000 which, with a fair financial wind, should add another couple of years to our shelf life. If you would like to donate then please click on the following link …

https://gofund.me/ce746e33

I would be grateful too if you could forward this mail/link to all like-minded cricket lovers in your contact list. Thanks so much.

With all good wishes

Vic”

March 1978 in Bordeaux was the wettest March there since 1870.

But it perked up over the summer: July, August and September were very dry and warm – good for the Cabernet and Merlot grapes for the red wines, not so good for the Sémillon and Sauvignon grapes for the sweet white Sauternes wines (because there was no noble rot).

A few showers in late September limited the effects of what was becoming a drought.

The 1978 Château Latour harvest took place 9th-20th October, only a few weeks before the “Winter of Discontent” – the period between November 1978 and February 1979 in the UK of widespread strikes by private and public sector trade unions demanding pay rises.

Latour ’78 was sold en primeur in the UK in 1980 at £159 for a 12-bottle case. This would now equate to about £640 – which is more or less 1/12th of a 12-bottle case today.

It was one of those so-so Bordeaux vintages when Latour outshone its neighbours and made a rich, tannic, sumptuous wine.

As for the Winter of Discontent, even the gravediggers went on strike, which caused grave problems because nobody could be buried… 🍷

Arguably the definitive Barolo, Giacomo Conterno’s Monfortino Riserva was first made in 1920, at a time when Barolo was generally sold in either cask or demijohn and intended for drinking straightaway – not a wine for ageing.

The “Monfortino” name commemorates Conterno’s home village Monforte d’Alba, the southernmost village in the Barolo wine growing region.

Monfortino Riserva was made from bought-in grapes until the 1974 purchase of 14-hectares of wheat fields in Serralunga d’Alba, at 400 metres above sea level.

Vines were planted and grapes from what was now named the Cascina Francia vineyard were first turned into wine in 1978.

Nowadays Monfortino Riserva is aged for seven years in botti – 30,000-litre (!) Slavonian (note to wine geeks: not Slovenian; Slavonia is a region in east Croatia) oak barrels – before it’s bottled and released.

In the old days, the wine was aged for even longer – perhaps ten years or more – and was dauntingly tannic.

Monfortino Riserva is still made with no attempt – no matter how hot the fermenting grapes are – at temperature control.

As my late friend and former colleague Nick Belfrage MW put it: “the wine displays a complexity of aroma and a breadth and depth of flavour only possible in a wine which has teetered on the very brink of existence and, triumphantly, survived…”

The two-storey 19th century château at Clinet appears on its label. It was built when Clinet belonged to the Arnaud family, who also owned Petrus until the 1920s.

Clinet was subsequently owned by the Audy family, which was more focused on its negociant (merchant) business than on improving Clinet’s underwhelming wine.

From the mid-1970s the Audy family planted more Merlot in the vineyards and used less Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc so that the wine was softer and less astringent.

The real catalyst for change and improvement was Jean-Michel Arcaute – son-in-law of the Audys – assuming control of Clinet in 1986.

He brought in Michel Rolland as winemaking consultant. Rolland encouraged late-harvesting of the grapes for maximum ripeness and lots of new oak barrels to make a rich, concentrated, opulent red wine.

Fast forward to 1992 and a vintage that frankly was a washout. But Clinet outperformed its Pomerol neighbours and made one of the best wines of this difficult vintage.

Chêne Bleu Le Rosé at Arden Fine Wines in Mayfair, London.

Recently we welcomed two of our favourite people to our Mayfair office.

Chantal Coady OBE is “The Chocolate Detective” and was founder of Rococo Chocolates.

Nicole Rolet is Principal and “Senior Plate-Spinner” at Chêne Bleu, the Ventoux wine estate that released its first vintage in 2006.

Chantal described the lunch thus:

“… grilled fish & tabouleh with the fabulous Nicole Rolet drinking her @chenebleuwine, my absolute favourite rosé… Ashes Test in the background… strawberries & freshly picked nespole/nefres/loquats from the trees below. Finished with a tasting of chocolates selected by me…”

We had Chêne Bleu’s Le Rosé to go with the mackerel.

Le Rosé is a blend of grapes grown at 1,600-feet altitude near Mont Ventoux, the daunting mountain that’s been visited 18 times by the Tour de France since 1951 – most recently in 2021, when the riders ascended the mountain twice.

The 2021 vintage of Le Rosé was made using a short maceration – soaking the red grapes with their skins still on – rather than the saignée method of “bleeding” liquid from a tank of red wine juice. This – with some of the wine aged in oak barrels – gives the wine its nice texture and flavour (rather than just a mouthful of acid and sugar, as too many rosés are guilty of).

Le Rosé is best enjoyed with seafood, shellfish, charcuterie, salad stuff, and good company (including vegans) – as proven by this lunchtime gathering.

The weather in Bordeaux in 1949 was unpredictable and sometimes not even understandable.

On 11 July the thermometers in the Médoc reached 34°C.

But two weeks earlier it had been so cold and miserable that the vineyards experienced some of the worst coulure – grape bunches that haven’t set properly because of up and down weather – in living memory.

July and August were so dry and warm that the grapes began to stop maturing.

On 19th August the Landes Forest, which covered much of the land to the west of Château Latour and other wine producing areas of the Médoc, caught fire, though the fire was restricted to southwest of Bordeaux city, less than ten miles from the wine areas of Pessac and Léognan.

(It didn’t seem to trouble Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion, both of which made exceptional wines in 1949.)

In early September some much-needed rain fell and the harvest was done in the last week of September.

Latour was sold at FF265,000 per tonneau – the traditional unit of pricing and of sale in Bordeaux, with one tonneau equivalent to four 225-litre barriques, or 1,200 bottles in total. In 1947 it was FF130,000.

(Shameless price gouging is not a recent phenomenon in Bordeaux…)

Although the £UK was devalued in 1949 it still bought more francs in 1950 than in 1948. Nonetheless, when Latour 1949 was released it was still more expensive in the UK than the 1947.

Even though the price doubled, it is mind-boggling to see how relatively inexpensive these superlatives wines were. By 1954, Château Latour 1949  was sold at about 19 shillings – 95 pence today! – per bottle “for laying down”.

With 1945 and 1947, this was third of the trio of great post-war vintages that produced fine, rich, and intense red wines – like Latour.

From my friend Vic Mills:

“Hi Stuart,

After all the hype and hoopla of last week’s Ashes Test, it’s time to restore a little order and balance to the game with a refreshingly toxic-free edition of the project’s summer newsletter. The annual kit appeal apart, this is a relatively quiet time for the project. This does allow the opportunity, however, to showcase the clubs who benefitted from project clothing and kit in the spring.

To this end, we’ve gone far afield with pictures from the UK, France, and Germany. In our project rewind we highlight the photogenic nature of young Dharavi cricketers. The newsletter starts and finishes with a heartfelt tribute to the passing of a great friend and supporter of Project Front Foot. As ever, do feel free to forward the attached to any interested friends or colleagues. Hope this finds you well.

With all good wishes

Vic”

1958: A tricky Château d’Yquem vintage and the year of Miles Davis’s Milestones…

The quality of Château d’Yquem’s wine during the 1950s was – shall we say? – irregular.

The 1958 vintage was one of the better-balanced wines made by Yquem in the 1950s, a decade in which two years (1951 and 1952) were so poor that no wine was made.

(Just imagine having a business for which no goods can be made and sold for two consecutive years!)

Spring 1958 was fresh and rainy, which slowed down the grapes’ growth in Yquem’s vineyards, about 1.5 miles from the River Ciron.

A bit of late summer rain got the “noble rot” working – the grapes turn brown, the juice evaporates, and the sugar levels become extremely concentrated.

Great Yquem vintages tend to be early (picked no later than October) and fast. This vintage was late and slow.

There were four goes at picking the grapes – in dry weather 😎 – from 6th to 24th October 1958.

But then it rained again, this time diluting the grapes rather than causing noble rot.

The resulting wine was not as sweet or rich as Yquem can be in other years.

Still, it was a better year in Bordeaux for the sweet white Sauternes wines than for the red wines.

In the context of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, Château d’Yquem 1958 was not as good as 1945, 1947, 1949, 1953, 1955, 1959, 1961, or 1962.

But it’s not as bad as 1963 or 1968!