Things kicked off on Monday when I cunningly put a premier cru Rully in the fridge. This was Rully La Pucelle from the 2007 vintage which is relatively early-drinking, and made by Paul Jacqueson, of whom I'd never heard. I'm pleased to say that we learned our lesson from the Chassagne debacle and decanted it, admittedly just before serving. It was still very cold as it had been in the fridge all day. Sorry about the blurry pic. I think I need to get a new camera or perhaps actually learn how to use the one I already have.
I must admit I didn't have very high expectations since Rully is not in the main bit of Burgundy but is in the south, the Cote Chalonnaise, generally considered to be a bit second rate compared to the Cote d'Or. However, this wine showed us that it can deliver. It was quite rich but was balanced by a zingy acidity, and again G detected lemon wax (this seems to be becoming a recurring theme). It was really quite charming and we thought it was at the beginning of its drinking window. We toyed with giving it a 9, but eventually decided it was a high 8. I was interested to see that Clive Coates in his Bible gives Jacqueson a star and says that he's the best maker in the Cote Chalonnaise. Thanks to ACC for finding this one for us.
Then on Wednesday, my brother and sister-in-law came round which was a great excuse to make gougeres. We had them with some Cremant de Bourgogne from Dufouleur, the second round spiced up a bit with the addition of some unexpectedly sweet Creme de Peche also from Dufouleur, a happy coincidence.
Then we moved on to this wine, La Grola, made by Allegrini who are located in Valpolicella. My father of all people splashed out on a bottle of this and raved about it so I decided to get a couple when it was in a recent bin end sale. It was really rather fabulous, with an incredible dense colour and quite a dry finish. Apparently there's something very special about the micro-climate of this vineyard. Also of note is that it comes in a thunking great big heavy bottle, the sort of bottle where you're sure it can't possibly be empty because it weighs so much, but unfortunately it is.
After that we moved onto the cheese so I wheeled out my Smith Woodhouse 1970 which we had decanted on Monday night (and tasted, just for quality control purposes of course). The bottle doesn't have a label but I trust my wine merchant! There's a splosh of white paint to show which way up it should be kept. As you can see on the left side of the bottle there was a lot of sediment left behind, so the white splosh method clearly works well.
G turned up just as I was serving it and my sister in law complimented him on his port radar. I've had this port before and love it. Smith Woodhouse are not in the premier league of port shippers but that's good news from a pricing point of view. Some of their vintages aren't to my taste but they got this one right and it has a lovely pontefract cake character.
Finally, on Thursday, we had another premier cru which scored a 10. I'm going to write about that next week as I need to procure further supplies before giving the game away...
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