A happy New Year to everyone, may 2005 be more peaceful than 2004.

The Christmas rush is over and for this business January and February are relatively quiet. A time to reorganize the warehouse and catch up on the accounts. A trip to France is planned for late January to attend the Loire Valley Wine Fair in Angers. This event brings together hundreds of Loire Valley producers and after 2 very good vintages (2002 and 2003) it should be fun to sample their wines. As I have explained in previous newsletters I am a great admirer of Chinon wines - in good vintages - and hope to import the wines of several new producers from this appellation.

Last year I organized a series of wine dinners at Bistro J. I have been less ambitious this year but plan to have at least two in February and April (of which more later).

The February dinner will be held at Silks, the new Thai restaurant in Hamilton on Saturday, 19th February commencing at 7:15 for 7:45 pm. It will feature four courses of specially selected Thai dishes matched with the wines from Cave Spring Cellars of Niagara, Ontario. We will feature five wines including their excellent Rieslings, Cabernet Merlots and dessert wines. Angelo Pavan, the winemaker at Cave Spring Cellars, will be present to talk about the wines and the winery which is one of Niagara’s most prestigious.

The cost of the dinner will be $75 per person, inclusive of gratuities. Seating will be limited to sixty in total with a variety of table sizes available.

It should be an excellent evening and as usual please contact me for tickets (email: nww@bermudawine.com). I look forward to seeing many of you there.

John M. Sharpe
January 2005