Allô, allô, Bonjour!

It's about time we stopped moaning about the recession. Just get to work; break a sweat and don't waste time on idle chatter. That's our motto. And thus, with an exuberant gesture, the wineboer placed his X on the sales contract buying him 60 acres of first class vineyard from fellow-wineboer and friend, Mayor Alain.
Even though the wineboer's piggybank was now ready to be dumped, a dream had been realized. Finally the wineboer could begin to bring the ideals of his communist father to life. Read on to find out to what reckless price reductions this will lead!

Allons y!

Vintage 2013

It is a well-known fact that winemakers the world over will tell you that every wine year is a great wine year. But 2013 is going to be a tough nut to crack. Because it is an unmistakably awful year. The early summer hailstorms wreaked havoc among the newly born grapes.

Here, at Château la Tulipe, we were lucky. The downpours of ice mostly hit our neighbours in Saint-Emilion and in the Entre-Deux-Mers. Our grapes did not sustain too much damage. Next week we will get started on the harvest. Using an Equipe locale and a Hi-tech sorting machine, specially designed for these kinds of emergency vintages. Read all about it in the next issue of Slurp!

Every Grand Cru started out as a grape

At the 1855 World Exposition in Paris, the very best wines of Bordeaux were to be exhibited. To facilitate the tasting of these, to the Emperor Napoleon unknown brews, his panel of tasters drew up a shortlist of the best entries. In this way the Empereur could limit himself to the tasty stuff and ignore all the wines that were below par. This is what lead to the 'Grands Crus Classés en 1855', which have become the most expensive wines on this planet.

That shortlist has hardly changed in the past hundred and sixty years. You can allow your vineyard to grow full of nettles, produce a wine with the taste of fermented camel milk and the aroma of an overflowing rubbish bin, your wine will not have to give up the label Grand Cru Classé. As you can never lose the classification of Grand Cru and it is impossible to gain it now. Luckily the same does not apply to humans. In each person lurks a Grand Cru. Only thing is, not everyone brings this part of themselves out of the shadows. But with Willpower, Patience and Focus, even the smallest of grapes can make it to Grand Cru.

Every olive tree started out as an olive

Wine and olive oil have a lot in common. Both are pressed from fruits of plants, both are healthy and delicious. A grape is a tiny wine bomb, an olive a little oil bomb. Grapes and olives are both harvested at the same time of year. Because olives, just like grapes, begin to ferment immediately after the harvest, they need to be sorted, washed and pressed as soon as possible. In both cases you will need to, if you want to produce high quality, be imbued with burning passion. Because an olive too can make it to Grand Cru.

In the case of wine, quality is warranted by protected designations. Bordeaux, Burgundy, Sancerre etc or grape species. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrrah etc. But how does that work with olive oil?

Cliquez ici for the truth behind the olive mystery

Every oak started out as an acorn

"Idiot! Moron! Dickhead!" (FYI: the Dutch word eikel has the dual meaning of 'acorn' and 'dickhead'). Feel free to call yourself every name under the sun after your umpteenth screw-up, but do realise that this latest blunder has added an extra layer of concrete to your personal bedrock. Because making mistakes is never a bad thing. A mistake is a gift: it teaches you how not to do it. And that is, after all the foundation of knowing how to do it.

Trial and error, falling flat on your face and getting up again. As long as you're learning from your experience it's making you wiser. Or, like the boundlessly deep thinker Mike Tyson puts it: 'A bone is the strongest in the spot where it has been broken'.

When you are a child you look up to the odd species of human called 'grownups'. One day, you think, I shall be a grownup too. When I'm twenty, or thirty. It's not until much later that you realize this moment will never come. Personally I have still not grown up. I make mistakes every day. Really stupid ones too. And that whole 'learning-from-it-thing' doesn't always work out too well either.

But the important thing is that you never cease to be amazed. Not only by a bumblebee suckling from a flower bud, the taste of a sip of wine, or the daily rising of the sun, but also by the fact that when you're in the shower and you open the tap, hot water comes out. Don't ever lose your sense of wonder. Because the day you lose that you will have become an old fart.

Every sheep started out as a little lamb

As a result of our recent vineyard acquisition, our turnover will increase and we will be able to draconically reduce the price of our award winning Château la Tulipe de la Garde. Doesn't matter if we have to cut down on our baguette intake a little over here. My dream has come true: my very best wine for under a tenner. At last everyone can drink her.

Franz Lampe, oenologist connected to 'The wine fair': "To publicise this joyous fact we started a special promotion drastically reducing the price of Ilja's top wine from ?16,45 to ?9,95. To our surprise we received a huge amount of acclaim from wine lovers all over the country, and we have decided to extend this record breaking low price for another couple of weeks.

Château la Tulipe de la Garde 2009

Cliquez ici to order at The WineFair in The Netherlands
Cliquez ici to order Sainsbury's Supermarkets, UK