Lunch at mine, 21st October

And so the great blog catch up of 2017 continues... thank god I've found my notes at last!

21st October was a Sunday, and D and G joined me at A du V Towers for lunch. That's fellow wine enthusiasts D and G not brother and sister in law D and G.

We commenced with this 1er cru Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot 2012 from Domaine de la Choupette. This was a lovely colour and had a good mouthfeel. The oak was there but it was appropriate and integrated. It was well-balanced and drinking really well now, crisp, classic Chassagne with that slight mushroomy thing going on. There'd be no hurry to drink the rest, if G has any left, and we gave it a 9 on the premier cru scale.

Next up was the red version of the same wine, from the 2008 vintage. This was a relatively light colour and slightly dumb on the nose for me initially, but once it got going it had smokey, leather, redcurrant and red berry compote flavours. We thought it would last another five years.

At this point I remembered that I had the village level Chassagne 2008 from Choupette lurking in my wardrobe, so naturally a horizontal comparison ensued. This was much darker with black cherry fruit and somebody appears to have made the comment "a little bit of sweaty saddle" - I think that must have been G channeling his inner Jilly Goolden. It was drinking perfectly now and was approachable, but we felt the premier cru was more solid and the fruit was riper.

The colour contrast is very clear in this photo.

Moving on, with the cheese course we had some Chapoutier Hermitage La Sizeranne from 1998. This claimed to be 13% but I have my doubts. It was a very dark colour and had a big nose with woody spices including star anise and a hint of rubber. On the palate we found plums, cinnamon and liquorice. It was big but had mellowed down, and reminded me how much I like the Northern Rhone. My notes threw the f word around with abandon and in an entirely positive way. Or, as G put it, more elegantly, "Rhone is offering a lot of pleasure at the moment."

We finished off with a half of Chateau Suduiraut 2001 with our berries, which had a lovely botrytis quality and lemon and lime marmalade flavours. It was light, elegant and floral rather than blowsy, and had good balance and acidity. The finish lasted for minutes. A wonderful end to a very fine lunch!