Dinner at G's, 17th March

A couple of weeks ago, G hosted dinner at his flat and we were joined by D who showed up with a suitcase full of wine-related treasures.

We started with my penultimate bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru Morgeot from Domaine de la Choupette alongside the first asparagus of 2019 and some fine prosciutto. The Chassagne was a light straw colour and drinking perfectly now. It has been classy, elegant and stylish with deft use of oak, and has a lovely weight. D found it creamy and I got lemon zest - so basically a lemon syllabub in a glass.

Then it was on to a pair of elderly clarets, Lafite 58 and Leoville-Las Cases 1961, provided by G. Possibly not the fairest comparison given the vintages.

The Lafite was significantly paler than the Leoville and was old but drinkable. It had gone a little soft in its old age and I found it somewhat dried out. D said it had fruit but no acid. We drank both of the wines over 45 minutes and it did improve with time, but the Leoville was definitely more my cup of tea. "That's good" said everyone with a sigh of relief. It had all the flavours I'm looking for in a claret - cedar, tobacco, coffee, leather. Proper old school claret at 58 years old. G told me he knew why I liked it. Apparently Leoville-Las Cases is separated from Chateau Latour by a small stream. Wikipedia confirms this - the Juillac tributary to be precise - not that I doubted G for a moment. A discussion of the great claret vintages followed and for the record, D says that 59 is better than 61 so I think some 59 Latour needs to be added to my bucket list...

I amused myself reading Andre Simon's "Wine and Spirits: The Connoisseur's Textbook" which had some unexpected information in it, including the fact that California has a border with Canada. Who knew!

Meanwhile, G produced this unexpected half of sweet wine. It was called Cotnari and was basically the Romanian equivalent of Tokaji. The vintage was 1984 and it was 12% alcohol.

The wine itself was almost exactly the same colour as G's new table. It had a heady nose - I got a big hit of unsulphured dried apricots while D got figs. Orange peel and tinned peaches were also mentioned. The palate was congruent and the wine was very unctuous with lots of glycerin. It was remarkable stuff and really rather excellent. Apparently this has never been on sale in the UK and the label was in French. The score for Roumanie was definitely douze points and I believe G has another half bottle stashed away somewhere for a future occasion!

Finally, D had brought over a lovely half bottle of Dow's 1977 which we had with our cheese. This was a lovely ruby colour, sweet and rich, with figs, prunes and sultanas and an amazing finish. "The 77s are finally ready" said G, and D agreed - it had all come together perfectly and we got it at the right moment. It was impeccable vintage port, and particularly great with a piece of Stichelton. Thanks very much to both of you. If only all Sunday evenings could be like that!

SPNS dinner, 15th March

Last Friday we had another SPNS dinner at the Savile Club and I'm delighted to report that all members of the SPNS were present and correct for once!

My contribution was this Cremant de Bourgogne Blanc de Noirs from Domaine Felettig, which was bought several years ago and had been languishing at the bottom of the wine rack as we had thought it would be interesting to try a bottle with some age on it. G bravely went first and gave a grimace, which I think created an expectation among the group that it was going to be terrible, but actually it wasn't at all. It was definitely on the elderly side with yeastiness and biscuity notes. Some detected a weird finish but overall it was considered drinkable and actually improved as time went on, although of course by that stage we had inevitably drunk it all.

P brought along a 1992 sauvignon blanc from Cloudy Bay which apparently he bought en primeur at the height of the hype. It was remarkably youthful and zingy with the classic elderflower nose, while D detected green olives. G said it was a marvellous survival and I would never have predicted that it would be so youthful. It was very kind of P to share his last bottle with us.

T contributed this Vina Tondonia rose 2008. It was a beautiful colour and had a lovely floral, herbaceous nose. D described it as bright and alive and P found it vibrant and great with goat's cheese, while T thought it was still a bit young. ACC wrote something in the book which apparently I'm not meant to quote but since I can't read his handwriting anyway there's no danger there. I found this wine full of character. T says it's still the world's best rose and he's the expert so I wouldn't dream of disagreeing

ACC had brought along this Pur Jus 2016 from Chateau Landra in the Ventoux and described it as pure and juicy, ha ha. It had what T described as a full bouquet, quite earthy, and on the palate was very fruity and powerful. It's a low sulphur wine and I found it dangerously drinkable but noticed it was 14% so have to be careful with that! It went well with food and T particularly enjoyed it, I think.

D had brought along something very unusual, a 1999 Small Berry Mourvedre from Cline Cellars in Sonoma. This was another 14% wine but less of a surprise in this case! ACC told me that mourvedre is a Rhone grape so it was very interesting to try this alongside the Ventoux. It was a very dark colour and hard to believe it was 20 years old, it seemed so youthful. It was complex and powerful with lots of mint and fruit.

Finally, G stole the show with this magnum of Harvey's Bristol Cream bottled in 1977 to celebrate Her Majesty's Silver Jubilee. This was a dark brown murky colour and quite sweet. I got notes of butterscotch and it went really well with my millionaire's pudding. G described it as coherent, old school sherry, really very pleasant and good fun. We all enjoyed it and polished off the magnum with no difficulty whatsoever. As ACC put it, God Save the Queen!

All in all, it was another very interesting and enjoyable evening and thanks everyone for your contributions and notes in the Book.

Bourbon box 2019 report

In the summer of 2017 I found myself acquiring a bourbon habit and, even better, a friend who shared it and has been leading me happily astray. She's very kindly sent me a bourbon advent calendar two years in a row now which has been quite an eye-opener. Last year I failed to make systematic notes, but this year G and I approached it in a more methodical fashion and I'm now in a position to report back on our findings. I've also been doing some price-checking as my plan is to bring back a bottle of bourbon each time I visit the US.

There were 24 miniatures in the box and our top 10 were as follows:

Elijah Craig Barrel Proof. At 62.1% this needed some dilution to overcome the fieriness but this was high quality stuff and I intend to seek out a bottle next time I'm in the US. It seems to cost $65 over there but £95 over here, so that's got to be worth a look.

Koval 47%. "It's real aromatic," said G, possibly channelling his inner cowboy. I tried to figure out what we were getting on the nose - smoke? honey? It was light and dry, and we liked it. £49 over here, $51 in the booze store.

Few Spirits. 46.5% This was light, dry and clean, with a decent flavour and some interest. £52 over here, $50 over there.

Kentucky Vintage. This was different from your run-of-the-mill bourbon. It was much drier than usual and lacked the usual vanilla notes. It had a kick to it and reminded G of a Highland malt.
Interesting stuff. £46 over here, can't find it in the Pennsylvanian booze store.

Michters US*1 45.7% had a pleasant nose of toasted vanilla and was smooth. It's £54 over here but a mere $38 over there, so I may investigate further in due course.

Distillery 291 single barrel. This is apparently from Colorado. It was on the dry side which we liked. "Worth a detour," said G. I can't find it in the booze store in the US and it's £87 over here, so not sure that detour will be happening any time soon.

Yellowstone Select 46.5%. This was at the light, dry and fruity end and had some grip. I got a hint of beeswax. We liked it. £49 here, $40 in the booze store.

David Nicholson 1843 50%. We thought this was really quite good, more woody and powerful and less bland than some. I brought a bottle back with me on my recent travels - at $28 it seemed a bargain compared to the £40 being charged over here.

Eagle Rare 10 year old, 45%. This had an interesting nose and with some wood shavings going on. It was quite dry, congruent and had some backbone to it, with a really great finish. G compared it to a lowland malt whisky. £36 here, $30 in the booze store, so at the lower end.

Impressive that they managed to find room for all that waffle on the label

Woodford Reserve Masters Collection Sonoma-Cutrer Finish, 45.2%. I found out afterwards that this is finished off in some fancy pinot noir casks from the Sonoma-Cutrer winery. This had a lot of vanilla on the nose and G found it too sweet. I enjoyed it more. Probably not at £130 a bottle though, which is what it costs over here!

The also-rans can be divided into those we'd have again and those we wouldn't bother with.

Would have again:

• Hudson Baby Bourbon. We actually had this in 2017 and I liked it so much then that G got me some for Christmas. We still liked it this time round but it's £50 a pop ($50 in the US) and I'm more interested in the others above right now
• James E Pepper 1776 Bourbon 46%. We found this enjoyable, light and pleasant but not serious. I stated that I wouldn't kick it out of bed. £40 here, $28 over there.
• Makers Mark 46. This was aromatic, decent and had a good finish
• Elijah Craig 47% was at the sweeter and more commercial end, not bad but a little obvious. 
• Old Forester 43% had a bit more going on but still didn't excite us.

Wouldn't bother:

• Bulleit 10 year old. Normal Bulleit is my house bourbon, costs about £25 a bottle and hits the spot. The 10 year old is fine but is £45 and not worth the price differential, in my opinion 
• Buffalo Trace. I've had a bottle of this before (when the price of Bulleit had weirdly gone up by 50%) and it's pleasant enough, but not thrilling. Cheap and cheerful. 

The total duds were:

That Boutique-y Bourbon Company Reservoir Bourbon 2 year old batch 1 46.6%. We were probably already irritated by the cutesy name but this did not go down well. It was a dark colour and very sweet. G didn't like it and I found it rough and obvious. However, it was eclipsed by...

Benchmark Bourbon Old Number 8. "Comfortably the worst we've had" pronounced G. For me, it didn't smell of anything and it didn't taste of anything. (Did I actually pour any onto my ice cubes, I wonder now...) G however detected some synthetic rubbery quality. Oh dear. Looking it up just now, I see it costs £20. I guess you get what you pay for...

And finally, there was an unlabelled mystery bottle! Fortunately it turned out to be unexciting, or I would have been quite annoyed. We'll never know what it was, but it's ok, we don't really care.

Enormous thanks to J for sending me this box - it really has been great fun to work our way through them. I look forward to doing the Kentucky Bourbon Trail together one day...

All gone :(