Well, well, well. Apart from the stresses of the first 24 hours with no wine, no e-mail and therefore, no sense of humour, The Laurel & Hartley show has got off to a very good start.

A decent flight over via Dubai with Emirates to Singapore and Mr Laurel was very excited about flying on a new Airbus A380. A few hours after arriving we had dinner with Nicky Tan and some of his friends at the Crystal Jade Golden Palace where the food was outstanding. The highlight was sharing a Chinese New Year tradition of tossing Yee Sang, a salad made up 27 ingredients including raw fish, shredded vegetables, nuts, sesame seeds, spices, plum sauce which we all stood and mixed with giant chopsticks. Apparently all participants are encouraged to toss enthusiastically as the higher in the air the salad goes the greater your luck in the new year. It was commented that as a result of the MD and Sales Director’s masterful tossing, Corney & Barrow will have an excellent next 12 months! This was followed by two whole suckling pigs and a great deal more. The wines showed well – we had Roc de Cambes 1995, Chambertin Trapet 2001 and the Côte Rôtie René Rostaing 2006 and 2007. The star of the wines was certainly “The Roc” 1995 which was sweet and ripe.

Yesterday was a day full of meetings with customers and an excellent lunch at Desmond Lim’s new Shabu Shabu restaurant. Desmond, aside from being a very successful stockbroker, owns a number of Singapore’s best restaurants including the world famous Les Amis and also one of Asia’s best wine merchants, Vinum. He very kindly gave us a bottle of incredible Bienvenues Bâtard Montrachet, Domaine Leflaive 1989 and a bottle of Le Chambertin Rousseau 2003. The Leflaive was incredible and still manage to match great freshness with richness and a delicate touch – wonderful. Whoever said white burgundy doesn’t last……The Chambertin as excellent and very “03” in that it was ready so early and was so sweet.

The many enemies that I have made over the DRC allocations would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall at dinner last night. ABS (aka Laurel) and myself entertained a very lively group of friends who know me perhaps a little to well and spent most of the evening teasing me mercilessly. We showed four 2001 Burgundies: Le Corton Bonneau du Martray; Chambertin Trapet, Gevrey Chambertin Clos du Meix des Ouches Domaine des Varoilles and Nuits St Georges Clos de l’Arlot Domaine de l’Arlot. The general consensus was that the Corton and the Chambertin were tops, although I thought the Gevrey showed beautifully and is just such amazing value.

Today was the first big event where Adam and I co-hosted a tasting of 2002 Domaine Leflaive wines with Vinum, a sell-out event that was held at Desmond Lim’s Bistro du Vin. Over 60 people attended the event and the wines tasted were Mâcon-Verzé 2006, Bourgogne Blanc 2006 then the 2002s: Puligny-Montrachet Villages, Clavoillon, Pucelles, Bâtard and Chevalier. There were quite a number of familiar faces there who buy from Corney & Barrow including a very enthusiastic James Mead Fan Club. General consensus was that the star of the show was Chevalier (obvious) but also Clavoillon and the Bourgogne Blanc.

More news soon………..

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