Andrew Duff

Had a great weekend with Charles and Ruth on their vineyard just north of Beziers about a month ago. They have had a relatively successful harvest so far, despite the weather for the Vendages in the French South being generally awful. We had lunch with James Herrick, who I think I can embarrass by dredging up this review of his Chardonnay where he is pimped as “a very sexy, attractive Englishman”. Hahaha. When Charles asked what he should do if the rain started to cause problems for the harvest, James’ sage advice came back “Drink!”. Wise words from a man who knows. Here’s a picture of Charles pontificating about wine in his kitchen….

Click here for an interesting interview with Herrick (possibly a bit of an old interview!), a.k.a. “The Wine Prophet” (name of his consultancy company in Languedoc), and click here to buy some of Charles and Ruth’s first vintage.

For a classy wine site on the Internet, you can’t do much better than Jancis Robinson’s site – she’s the wine critic for the FT.

Some pictures from a trip up to see my brother, his wife and their two boys in Stirlingshire. The wee one is none too interactive yet, but the elder one Hamish is a right little tearaway. We’ll have him down to the fleshpots of London in no time….

Ballyjim and his two boys

The latest addition to the family

Hamish guarding his gear

Hamish after I slipped him the Glenfiddich

Family Ballyjimduff

I took a bunch of photos of my dad’s rhododendrons up at the cottage he has in Glenisla. It’s at 900 feet and can get frosts from November through May, so they have to be quite hardy. He has around 300 planted now, mostly in woodland, and over 200 different species and hybrids. I’ve lost the list of the names, but once I get them I will update.

For the moment, you can see them (unnamed) here