In late January and early February 2009 Tony attended two wine shows in France. The first was in Marseille followed a few days later in Perpignan near the Spanish border. As a result of these visits we will be seeing several new wines in Vintages soon. See our new wines section later.

In April 2009 visited Vinitaly in Verona and in June he attended Vinexpo in Bordeaux, followed by a week in the Rhone Valley. Verona in April is always a pleasant time for Canadians. It is several weeks ahead of us in Spring so we get to have two every year! Nick spent 5 very busy days cementing the relationships we have with our existing suppliers and meeting new ones for us to offer to Vintages and bring into Consignment. Bordeaux in June is very hectic. Not only is it usually very hot there, but the sheer size of the main Vinexpo building – 1 km long by 6 aisles wide – means we have to schedule our appointments very carefully to avoid too much double backing in our walks.

Following Vinexpo Nick went to the south of France to the Rhone where he rented a small house so he could base his daily trips to vineyards in both the South and also the North around the Cote Rotie area. Plenty of tastings in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas and Tavel where Chateau de Trinquevedel agreed to offer the Rose again to Vintages.

In the Fall of 2009 we met Keith Murray of Chateau Routas in Provence. His family not only own that vineyard, but also a Domaine in Burgundy and Glasgow Rangers Football Club.

In late 2009 we agreed to work with another agent and to bring his wines into our portfolio, so we now have a much expanded Consignment list with some superb Beaujolais Crus and a stunning Pinot Grigio from Italy's Alto Adige to highlight just two areas.

In January 2010 Tony attended a very interesting wine show in Puglia and was very impressed with much of what he saw. Puglia is making better and better wines, and it was clear that it is going to be a force to be reckoned with in the Italian wine scene- lower yields, better vineyard management, investments into their cellars and equipment. Particularly impressive was a biodynamic producer who we will be working with either through Vintages, or on Consignment – or even both.

Nick has just completed a 6 weeks marathon visit to Australia and New Zealand, visiting all major wine regions [including Tasmania]. The results of this will be showing themselves over the next 12 months as we bring more wines into Consignment and offer others to Vintages. He even helped work the vintage at Alkoomi!

Future wine shows we will attend are Vinitaly in Verona in April and World Wine Meetings in Chicago in June. Our High Volume Consignment featuring four Les Jamelles wines is still doing very well.