In the side door

Saturday's going to be fun! We're meeting up with Alain at the Porte d'Orléans in the late morning and crossing over the périphérique to head to Malakoff, a suburb in which I have yet to set foot.

Why on earth go to Malakoff? Because the grand opening of the new warehouse of Châteaux Cash & Carry (yes, that's the name) is taking place, and on inscription à titre strictement personnel, you may enter, place your invitation in the box, and visit the site, with thousands of bottles of grands crus, mostly from Bordeaux, but also Burgundy, Rhône, Alsace...

And, oh, that day, for the grand opening, taste some 1996 Yquem and 1996 Petrus.

So we're going to show up early.

Of course, it'll probably be a mob scene out in Malakoff. And who knows how many bottles of the precious Petrus will be opened (their tasting apparently runs from 10am to 8pm! Zounds!), and as the wise Anne Romillat would say, these are not optimal conditions for tasting.

But since my next purchase of Petrus is likely to be some ways away, I'll take what I can get.

And then later, we might cool down with Lavinia's afternoon champagne tasting. My first Krug.

So I'm dizzy as a child spinning around beside the Christmas tree.

And planning on how to frame things with Arnaud vis-à-vis our wine budget, when I — I can see it already — find some must-have Burgundies at Châteaux Cash & Carry...