Dinner at the Savile, 16th July

Last night G generously hosted a dinner for me and my family at the Savile, to celebrate my birthday which was last Sunday. We brought the wines ourselves, and spent many enjoyable evenings planning exactly what we would have. In the end, all the wines turned out to be French, what a surprise, but I restrained myself on the burgundies as thought it would be fun to have some different things for a change.

We started off in the bar with a bottle of non-vintage Bolllinger rose, which G acquired from our local Unwins when it was closing down, and got it at about half price I believe. Everyone raved about it, and it had a lovely fruit and weight. The perfect start to the evening.

Then we went upstairs to the restaurant and continued proceedings with this 1976 gewurztraminer from Hugel, part of G's Hugel acquisition back at the beginning of the year. It proved very popular and my mother even asked me what it was. As on previous occasions, we found that its age had given it time to mellow and it had become something really interesting.

We followed up with the Hugel riesling 1969 which prompted some humorous comments as this was the year my brother was born. For me, it was less wondrous than the gewurz, but still lovely mature Alsace, and went very well with my marinated mackerel.

Next was an old favourite, the 1999 Vosne-Romanee Clos de Reas from Michel Gros. I've had several bottles of this and it had never failed to disappoint. So it was inevitable I suppose, that the one we had last night with my family wasn't quite as good as the previous bottles. I don't know if it was coming to it after the Alsace wines or what, but I found some strange appley top-notes going on. They diminished with time and with the accompaniment of red meat. G agreed that it wasn't quite what we'd hoped for. Still, that's burgundy for you, you do get these bottle variations.

After that, we moved on to a bottle of 1996 Hermitage La Chapelle from Paul Jaboulet Aine, an iconic wine of the northern Rhone which I love. I bought this bottle after a tasting held by ACC, for no particular reason except that he was offering a good deal on it, and put it on the rack for a rainy day. My family all loved it as I thought they would, particularly my sister-in-law who has dangerously expensive tastes when it comes to this sort of thing. But it would be hard not to like this wine - powerful yet elegant.

We finished off with this Rivesaltes 1982 which G bought from Waitrose It's a 50cl bottle which is a good size, and everyone got a couple of small glasses. A very pleasing dessert wine, not too sweet, which went well with everyone's various puds.

Then it was back downstairs for coffee and brandy for some, and then a whistlestop tour of the club including a very bad performance by me of the Entertainer on the piano in the ballroom. Memo to self: resist the temptation to play the piano after a bottle of wine!

All in all, a very enjoyable evening.