When I asked recently whether I should let you know about interesting opportunities and stories that emerged despite them being as a result of my work (in the wine business), the resounding response was yes, but please disclose it. So here’s the lowdown on the next couple of days.

I first met Fred Siriex, General Manager at Galvin at Windows, through twitter when he was one of the first top London restaurateurs to explore twitter. By coincidence I also began a commercial relationship with his restaurant when he listed the wines from Dinastia Vivanco not long after.

Fred is a mate and he happens to be an incredibly inquisitive guy, looking for new ideas and relationships, so we hit it off early on with LONG discussions about what social media could bring to restaurants and the wine business. We worked on a couple of projects involving food and wine bloggers, but we also discussed the idea of documenting more about the life of a restaurant.

Galvin organises occasional “inspiration trips” to beautiful places in the world to source new ideas for their now Michelin starred menu and restaurant, where the owner, Chris Galvin, chef Andre Garret and some customers have a brief, fun and inspiring road trip for a few days. I agreed to come the most recent trip, a journey to Champagne to visit Pommery, eat at Chateau Les Crayères and generally explore the region.

I hope to learn a little more about the food, wine and history of Champagne, but also understand what inspires Galvin and maybe inspire others to do something similar.

I trust you will enjoy the results, but I have always encouraged others to openness on their blogs, so I thought it worthwhile to make this clear.

Now, I’m off for my breakfast glass of Champagne. A bientot!

(5/2/10: edited for punctuation lost by posting it  from the iPhone orginally)