Week in pics

The Pol Roger team prepare to board their new company cars (they wish) as they leave Corney & Barrow’s Scottish HQ at Oxenfoord Castle on the final leg to Edinburgh in the new Jaguar XKR (5 litre V8 and 510 bhp for all the petrolheads out there), to launch the 2002 vintage.

National sales manager Paul Graham, cracks into a bottle of the new vintage at C&B’s tasting room at Oxenfoord Castle.

Sales manager Jonathan Smailes gives the thumbs up to a combination of a fast car and the prospect of lots of Champagne later that evening. Meanwhile, inside the car, new marketing guru Freya Miller tries to hide her embarassment at the antics of her colleagues.

Alberto Arizu of Luigi Bosca (second left) holds court at Gaucho in Piccadilly, with a sleepy Tim Atkin MW fresh from ProWein, Gaucho wine buyer Phil Crozier and Bancroft Wines’ MD Neil McAndrew

db struck upon this surreal giant shoe at the Saatchi Gallery in Chelsea while en route to the Pernod Ricard premium brands presentation

Lucy Britner of Drinks International and Lottie West of Phipps PR get stuck into the feast at Browns hotel at the launch of Dom Ruinart 2002

Only the 22nd vintage of Dom Ruinart ever released, winemaker Frédéric Panaiotis describes it as having a wet stone and oyster shell minerality, with notes of hazenut and almonds – db can tesfity to its deliciousness.

Flanked by wine writer Giles Fallowfield and World of Fine Wine editor Neil Beckett, Ruinart winemaker Frédéric Panaiotis introduces the 2002 vintage of Dom Ruinart at Browns hotel

(l-r) Stephen Brook, Adam Brett-Smith, Alison Buchanan, Hew Blair and Jancis Robinson MW look studious as they smaple the 2010 vintage from Domaine Marquis d’Angerville in the wine cellars of The Connaught.

db got its fill of the very best Bordeaux has to offer at Bordeaux Index’s 10-year retrospective of 2002. Here Pétrus and Latour, which stood out in a vintage that is rather disappointing.

Vieux-Château-Certan and l’Eglise-Clinet, two more Right Bank stand-outs from the 2002 vintage.

John and Ishbel Grant (left) present Balthazar King’s connections with their
prize for winning the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase on the first day of
Cheltenham Festival.

This little piggy went to market, providing porcine treats at newly-launched gastropub Jugged Hare in the City

And finally, db stumbled upon this stunned-looking creature at the newly-relaunched Indian tapas restaurant Carom above Floridita in Soho – easy tiger!