Vignettes from London

I will return to more vignettes from Burgundy next week, but in the meantime here are just a few vignettes from this week in London.

My favourite was at J&B's burgundy 2011 tasting on Monday evening pictured here, bravely postponed to the second full week in January – so a full week after those of their main rivals. J&B's Hew Blair claimed that even before the tasting they had had as many orders as before their much earlier tasting the year before.

Hordes of wine lovers streamed in to the giant room of the Institute of Civil Engineers (where arch-rivals...