I’m currently on the Stansted Express, on my way to the airport to fly to Piedmont. Unfortunately, I won’t be there for long – I arrive in Bergamo tonight at 10 pm, where I’m staying, and then tomorrow morning I’m driving to Piedmont to deliver a talk on reduction and non-fruit complexity in wines. Then I fly back tomorrow evening, arriving in Stansted at 23 30. So I’m unlikely to be seeing much of Piedmont.

But it’s not all hard work. Had a great game of cricket yesterday playing for the wine trade side against wine service (a wholesaler) at the Bank of England’s sports centre in Roehampton.

We batted first and scored 213-9 from our 30 overs. They had a lively opening bowler who hit a few of our batsmen. I faced just one ball – the last ball of the innings, bowled by this opening bowler – and scored a single from it.

The outfield was the fastest I’ve ever seen, as hard as a rock with no rain in weeks. This made our total look a little below par. They started their innings well, but wickets fell regularly. Then we put the squeeze on the run rate. I came on first change and bowled through my six overs, which went for 33 runs. I took two wickets: one a caught-behind and the other clean bowled. I really enjoyed it, and the hard pitch had a little bounce in it, which meant I could get away bowling a few slightly shorter deliveries outside off (hence the caught behind), as well as my usual full length. The ball didn’t swing much; if anything, it was going the wrong way (away from the right-handed batsmen).

Eventually, they finished 9 wickets down and some 40 runs adrift, so it was a fine victory against quite a strong side.

Now I need to gather my thoughts about non-fruit complexity. It’s vital in fine wines, but what exactly is it?