The last blog announcing my change of job could have been misread (by the cynics amongst you) to imply that I had taken up life as a ‘gentleman of the road’, as the euphemism would have it, and spending my days in the harrassment of publicans/restauranteurs for free drinks.  I can assure you that:

i) I am not living out of any cardboard boxes…but let’s revisit that issue in 6 months time if I haven’t achieved my sales targets!

ii) I don’t claim to be cuddly but I’m not too scary either.  I can, however, crank out a very creditable impression of ‘Angry Dad’ to any child that’s reckless enough to misbehave when I’m nearby.

iii) if you are going to put temptation in my path in the form of a drink, I’m partial to Rhône reds, Gruner Veltliner and Islay malts, not super-strength cider!

So, have we cleared that up?

Moving on, I am away to Chile on Saturday 21/02 as part of a tour organised by those wonderful people at Wines of Chile.  Sarah in our office actually did all the graft and won the trip to Chile as a ‘prize’ but she decided not to go, mainly because she’s a (cough, choke, splutter) lager drinker!  I leapt at the opportunity to go instead so I am off for a avalanche of tastings (three wineries per day) from Limari in the North down to Curico/Maule in the South.  I don’t go as far South as Bio-Bio, unfortunately, due to the lack of time.  Too many flights, too many long bus journeys!  I am then visiting Valpariso and Leyda for a couple of days before heading back up to Aconcagua to do some extra research into organic wineries.  I’ll be back at work on 02/02, fighting off jet lag, and will start blogging away about what Chile has to offer.  It won’t just be lots of boring stuff about wine either, I promise.  Watch this space!