Someone told me the other day that after wine, stamps have been the second best performing asset class over the last ten years. Rummaging around a couple of trunks which Sophie was getting me to lug about from room to room in the never ending search for interior design perfection I’d stumbled across a stamp album that I’d compiled at whilst at prep school in Scotland. Well that was more than 40 years ago so I suppose, packed as it is with all sorts of classics from countries including the Gold Coast, Ceylon and a load of them behind the Iron Curtain, my album is probably worth a small fortune by now. And I need the cash.
What happened was this. It’ll sound like I’m showing off, but I was invited to dinner last night at J&B to meet the owners of Chateau Lafleur. Oh wow. Such a treat. I had a nice chat at the start of the evening with Baptiste Guinaudeau. He has a pony tail and calls himself a farmer. I discussed vine pruning techniques with him at length, and although it may smack a little of nepotism, there’s a job at Lafleur for Hen if she wants it. Oh drat. I should have told him I’ve just planted a Black Hamburgh vine at home in my greenhouse. That would have been good. Sorry. I’m rambling. At the risk of boring you further, after starting the evening with a glass or two of Krug we drank two different vintages of the Chateau’s “second” wine, Pensees de LaFleur. The 2009 was astonishing. Then on we went to drink Lafleur 2007 ( a cool year ) comparing it with the 2003 ( a hot one ) and finally, the hugely acclaimed 1995 vintage and the spectacular 1989. I know. I’m a spoilt brat. The highlight of the evening though was a white wine which was served right at the outset of dinner to go with the crab and gruyere gratin. It’s called Les Champs Libres and made by my new best friend Baptiste and his wife Julie. It’s a complete side line and not what Lafleur is about at all, but it blew me away. Do you know that poem about Stout Cortez and his chappies discovering the Pacific and looking at each other with a wild surmise? Well, that’s what I felt when I tasted this. If I could stock my cellar up with this I’d happily never drink a different white wine for the rest of my life. Alas, I thought to myself, side line though it might be, it was bound to be well out of my price range.
Much too late in the evening, bearing in mind I had all you lot to look after this morning, I headed out of J&B onto St James’s Street, slipped a guy sleeping on the pavement a tenner out of a total sense of guilt, and headed up to Kings Cross and round to Old Street where a TravelLodge room at the princely sum of £69 awaited me. £69!! 20 minutes walk from the office. Much more my league. Unfortunately, as I perused my emails, trudging down Moorgate there was one from J&B and I vaguely recalled browsing their website before I’d turned the lights out. It informed me that I’d bought a magnum of Les Champs and you don’t even want to know what that set me back. My frugality in the choice of hotel, coupled with an excess of claret, had clearly given me a rush of bravado. I’ve spent the day thinking how am I going to look Mrs S in the eyes this evening.
The stamp album has to go. Photo attached. Any bidders??
Happy days they were. Anyway, I’m going to beat the Beast and head off sharpish today if that’s OK with you. Snow bucketing down in Newmarket apparently.
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