About 100 Brunello fans braved torrential rain to attend our second Brunello Night at Caravan King's Cross (and third overall, since we also held one in 2015 on the roof of Eataly, New York). Last night's sellout event was devoted to the rather promising 2012 vintage about which I will be reporting the week after next. You can see the 44 wines on offer, hand-picked by Walter and assembled and shipped by the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino, here.
Many of last night's tasters are also booked in to our first-ever Sherry Night, also at Caravan, on Sunday 26 April. The last few tickets are still available at £70 each here for a wide range of great, handpicked sherries. See more details of both Brunello Night 2 and Sherry Night.
Last night @LongLiveKingRog (a Federer fan, evidently) tweeted: 'epic Brunello tasting! wish it's 30 mins longer, it's a rush w/ so many bottles/eating/taking a loo break!' @BlindTasters comment was 'At @JancisRobinson's 2012 Brunello night. Hard, unblinded, to pick out favs, but good 2 see old friends, & 2 have the wines sorted by area.' We hope to have cheered @Les_Dubh who tweeted before the doors opened at 6.30pm, 'Boring boring wet end of the afternoon. Hoping #brunellonight2 courtesy of team @JancisRobinson will more than make up for the weather.'
Richard, who did a sterling job organising the nuts and bolts from the UK end, also took all these pictures. Here we see Walter, in charge of things from the Italian end, getting to grips with the bottles as we prepared the 44 wines for the hordes.
In Julia's absence in South America, Jancis tasted through all 44 Brunelli beforehand (tasting notes coming soon) ...
The stage was set, with our Emily Percival in the foreground and Walter and the director of the Brunello Consorzio Giacomo Pondini discussing the advisability of subzones in the back...
... the Riedel glasses were standing by, as was Chris Ammermann of Caravan...
Soon enough, the first arrivals got down to business.
There was a sell-out crowd but three different rows of bottles meant everyone could get to them easily (though Poggio di Sotto, of which only three rather than six bottles were sent, ran out before the end alas).
JR addressed the masses...
... as did the very stylish Giacomo...
... while Walter talked about the vintage, and subzones.
Tim Jackson approached methodically...
Most were more informal, but everyone had plenty of space for notes in their tasting booklets.
Caravan outdid themselves, as usual. The tasting tables suddenly cleared when the food appeared nearby.
The end.
