2009 and wine

First of all, happy New Year to all of you and lets hope the 2009 will be a fantastic year for all of us. Mine has not started that well, I got ill on the 1st of January and I am now starting to recover. What the 2009 will bring to us, wine lover? I don't know yet, my rational side tells me a lot less good wine, the emotional side, wants to believe that there will still be plenty of good wine to enjoy.

In the last few months things have made a turn which is not good for first-class, hand produced, good value for money wine, and is making, cheap, mass produced, wine winning: the decrease in value of the sterling. Currently the sterling is nearly equal to the euro which means that European wines have suddenly, without any reason, gone up because of the exchange rate and this has not been counterbalanced by any reduction in duty which was lastly increased on the 1st of December 2008. At the moment, for a £3 bottle of wine we are paying £2 of taxes and with 1 euro/sterling people from the continent cannot get a bottle of wine. In the UK we can, we import all their cheapest wine, how lucky we are

Talking about something more interesting, for the second year in a row, I spent my Christmas holiday in Trentino, last year I went to Alto Adige (the more German part) and I can ensure you it has been another fantastic holiday with plenty of wine discoveries, will tell you a bit more in the coming weeks.

I have also decided to replant my grand dad vineyard in Abruzzo, I am working on the details now and will tell you as soon as I have finished.