Recent drinking round-up

First up, these two sweet little miniatures of Madeira which G brought back from his trip in January. One was a Boal and the other was a Malmsey. They cost 3 euros, were bottled in 1973 and he thinks the wines were from the 1950s. The Boal was better than the Malmsey but they were both very interesting. The glass is a standard tasting glass, included in the photo to provide perspective.

On Sunday, I had some friends round for lunch and ACC brought along this 1997 Chambolle-Musigny. It was particularly exciting because the label was hand-written, saying "Beaux Bruns ou Grand Murs", at least that's what we think it says, the writing's a bit tricky. The weird thing is that these two vineyards are some distance from each other. So does the label mean it's either Beaux Bruns or Grand Murs, but the guy in the cellar wasn't sure? Or is it some sort of mish-mash combo of the two? Either way, it was a lovely wine and rated an 8, but sadly does not enable us to tick anything off on the trusty premier cru spreadsheet, dammit!

After lunch we went downstairs to G's flat and sampled a couple of halves from his recent acquisition of Hugels - a Muscat 1979 and a Tokay d'Alsace 1981. By this stage I wasn't making notes (ahem) but these were both quite dry wines and the Muscat was lacking its typical grapey characteristic. They went down a treat - I do love half bottles and the Alsace tall thin shape is very aesthetically pleasing.

Someone took a photo of G's bottles waiting to go to the bottle bank. It confirmed my suspicions that he's been stealing my Domaine Parent Bougogne Rouge 2007, the cheeky so-and-so. I guess it serves me right for leaving it in his flat. Fortunately further stocks have been procured.

And finally:

Last night we were going to drink this pinot noir from Hugel, 1979. Sadly it was way over the hill and had basically turned into sherry, so we ended up chucking it and drinking a bottle of the aforementioned Parent Bourgogne Rouge instead which made a very worthy substitute. G had had one of the Hugel pinots at the weekend while in Rutland, and apparently that bottle was better, and very chaptalised. I think he's got a case of it, so hopefully at some point I'll get to try one which is actually correct (hint hint G...)