Recent drinking round-up!

Time for another catch-up on what's been drunk lately... one has to get through this interminable lockdown somehow! Here we have three blasts from the past and something new.

The other night, G cracked open a couple of wines from Domaine Parent, and it was fascinating to try them side by side.

The 2015 Bourgogne Rouge came in at a mere 12.5% and had a nose of raspberries and a certain earthiness reminiscent of Pommard. It was lighter than I expected, and very drinkable, the kind of wine I think of as being good with lunch. Not what I was necessarily expecting based on the old days when we used to drink a lot of it.

The 2013 Monthelie came in at 13% and had an attractive, slightly musky nose. It was juicy with a high level of acidity and also seemed light, fruity and young. It opened up after a few minutes and with hindsight would have benefited from an hour in decanter. Apparently it was even better the next day!

Yesterday the weather was good enough for ACC and I to have a socially-distanced picnic in the nearby square. ACC had told me he was going to bring along the new gewurztraminer from Romain Chapuis, which was exciting. I wasn't really sure what food would go well with it, but it turned out that my duck and prune terrine was a very good match. It was a beautiful golden colour and had an aromatic gewurz nose but more subtle than some (no granny's handbag here). Apparently it's made from grapes grown in Alsace but Romain declassifies it so it's a Vin de France. I really liked the weight and richness of it, then discovered it clocks in at a whopping 14.5% so not like some of his other unsulphured wines. Definitely a bottle to share with others, and something a little bit different. The wine bars really ought to snap this up, once they're allowed to reopen...

My contribution was this Moulin-a-Vent Cuvee L'Exception 2011 from the Trichards, which we used to enjoy very much back in the day. A case was still lingering in storage and I had it delivered recently. It has matured very nicely and is still a wonderful bottle of Beaujolais, more on the serious side, and best served slightly chilled. As usual, my glass seemed to evaporate. A very pleasant way to spend a sunny afternoon!

SPNS dinner, Tuesday 14th May

On Tuesday night it was another SPNS dinner with everyone in attendance apart from A, who has never actually attended. Hopefully he will one day!

I arrived to find the others guzzling prosecco and was informed that what appeared to be a stray glass was available for me only for T, moments later, to howl with indignation that his had disappeared - fortunately I hadn't started drinking it yet. A fresh glass was poured and all was well. This was Prosecco Extra Dry Baccharetto and was provided by P. It was generally well-received - crisp, pleasant and refreshing, a good summer aperitif. We quickly knocked it back and headed upstairs where we could have more space to ourselves. I broke the club rules by taking photos, but nobody seemed too bothered.

Next up was this Puligny-Montrachet 09 from Jean-Louis Chavy, provided by G. He was given this, so brought it along even though the cost was above that permitted by SPNS rules. Apparently the way to justify bringing something expensive to the SPNS is to pretend it was a gift - I've filed this info away for future reference. We all thought it was ok (drinkable and correct) but nobody raved about it and G said he wouldn't have paid good money for it.

On to the reds. This Chateau Plagnac Cru Bourgeois 1989 was provided by P (at what point did we all start bringing two bottles instead of one? Not that I'm complaining...) It exceeded expectations and went down very well. We all found it drinkable, with good fruit and tannin, and mature but not over the hill. A success.

This red Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru Clos Saint-Jean 1983 from Ramonet came from my own stocks - it was my last bottle of this wine, which I snapped up at auction some time ago. Note the charming clingfilm cover to keep the label on! This was another risk for the SPNS as I have a track record of bring wines which are faulty or have gone off, but this time it paid off. It was fully mature, lovely old Burgundy with a wonderful finish.  "A triumph" wrote G. Hurrah!

To follow, we had this Chorey-les-Beaune Les Beaumonts 2011 from Ludovic Belin, provided by ACC. This vineyard is right by the gite where we usually stay when we go to Burgundy, so it was lovely to drink something from it. It was quite a contrast to the Chassagne, being young, vibrant and fruity - tres Chorey. T declared it the kind of Burgundy he likes to drink, which is high praise coming from him.

A quick photo to compare and contrast the Chassagne - a wonderful mature reddish brown colour - and the Chorey, bright purple.

We then moved on to this Zweigelt-Rebe 2009 from Japan, brought along by D. Unfortunately my Japanese isn't up to deciphering the label! This went down very well. Somebody has written a comment "very forward, like a keen geisha" in the book - disgraceful. G and I both thought that if we had been tasting it blind we might very well have taken it to be an Austrian wine - we've had Blauer Zweigelt before and it's quite distinctive. Kudos to the producers for getting such a good expression of the grape. Very interesting.

We then moved on to a pair of sweet vendange tardive gewurztraminers from Kuentz-Bas, Cuvee Caroline, provided by T. One was from 2001 and the other 2007.

Spot the difference. I found the 2001 big and opulent, while the 2007 bore a resemblance but wasn't quite the finished article just yet. G controversially preferred the 2007 leading some of us to speculate that he had got his glasses mixed up. There were other contradictory remarks in the book (one member thought the 2001 had a poor finish, another said it had a long finish) while T only managed "Good". I guess we were flagging by this stage!

However, there was more to come. This is a visual joke - it was the remaining half bottle of the 1976 Rieussec from the previous evening decanted into the 1983 d'Yquem bottle. We did consider pretending to the others that it was actually d'Yquem and seeing whether any of them would spot that it wasn't, but that wouldn't have been very kind. The Rieussec went down well but for me, it suffered by comparison to the d'Yquem the night before. It tasted more of honey than marmalade. It was well-balanced and long, but it somehow seemed to lack complexity.

Finally, we had this Seifried Nelson "Sweet Agnes" riesling 2011 provided by G. Hmmm. Quite a contrast. I appear to have quoted some lyrics from "Firestarter" in the book which was my way of referring to the petrol-like quality it had. ACC just wrote "Shell". It wasn't my cup of tea at all. Some of the others didn't dislike it, and to be fair, it probably suffered from comparison with the other sweet wines we'd just had - it was a mere nipper by comparison.

All in all, another great dinner and one particularly in the spirit of the SPNS in that there was a wide range of unusual things that we wouldn't normally get to drink. Looking forward to October already!

Odds and sods

Today’s post is going to be completely lacking in narrative structure, but instead will be a meandering ramble taking in the past couple of weeks.

First, I went on a cruise along the Moselle and the Rhine with my mother for four days at the beginning of September. This wasn’t a wine tour but we did have a dinner in Strasbourg beforehand where we had this Riesling from Gustave Lorentz (a whopping 17 euros) and flammekuchen and some rather delicious puddings.

Flammekuchen - spot the difference. One had extra Munster!

My pudding - nom nom nom

Mum's creme caramel - she seemed pretty happy with it!

We got up at the crack of dawn on the Sunday morning and a coach took us from Strasbourg to Cochem on the Moselle, a journey involving some exciting hair-pin bends. Here we got on the boat which travelled the next day to Koblenz and then back down the Rhine to Strasbourg. The Moselle is very pretty and when the boat was moored, I could see fish swimming about in the river. The towns we stopped off at were mostly small places and very touristy so I didn’t buy any booze to bring back.

Cochem, on the Moselle

Steep vineyards by the Moselle

It was nice to see so many vineyards and often they had their name on a big sign visible from the river. I was impressed by how steep they were – sometimes the gradient looked perilously close to 45 degrees. I wouldn’t fancy working in them. The gentle slope of the Cote d’Or is bad enough after a moderate Burgundian lunch.

This cat sensibly stayed in the shade and shunned the strange English women who wanted to talk to it

I got back to A de V Towers last Saturday to find that G had drunk all my marc so he will have to get the next batch in (hint hint). This week we've mostly been drinking my house red and white – the Bourgogne Rouge 2009 from Odoul Coquard and the Bourgogne Blanc 2008 from Anne Parent. Both are showing really well at the moment and are just the ticket after a hard day slogging at the coal face.

"Ne bouillez pas!" the somewhat bossy instruction on the back label

Also, we've been finding that the sherry which I wrote about last time works very well with some soupe de poissons. This stuff, intermittently available from the Waitrose tinned soup section, is amazing and you can feel it doing you good as the Omega 3s work their magic.

Sadly, the Inverse Law of Labels didn't apply in this case

G got adventurous at the weekend and picked up this bottle of red Macon-Serrieres 2008 from the People’s Supermarket down the road in Lamb’s Conduit Street. I wasn’t very familiar with red Macon, but it turned out to be similar to Beaujolais. It didn't wow us. I wasn’t feeling particularly well that evening so that may have influenced my judgement, but we didn't finish the bottle which is very unusual!

During the week I indulged in some cider – this Rekorderlig and some Aspall Lady Jennifer’s.

I bought the Rekorderlig because it was Swedish. It describes itself as “Premium Strawberry-Lime Cider” so really I should have realised what I was letting myself in for. It was sickly and frankly not very nice.

The Lady Jennifer’s was much better and was light and dry as described. However after all the manzanilla we’ve been drinking, I fear I’ve lost my taste for fizzy commercial cider.

Things I’ve enjoyed this week:

1. A meeting with a professor who described a formidable high-level Coca Cola executive with whom he’d had dealings as “the kind of woman who eats a bowl of rusty nails for breakfast, just to get her in the mood”. Not an expression I’d come across before but delightfully pungent.

2. Listening to The Menu, a weekly Monocle podcast presented by a guy with a very weird accent. This turns out to be Markus Hippi who I gather is from Finland, which explains a lot. The programme is mainly a series of interviews with various international food-related people and it seems the whole archive is available! There was a particularly interesting piece on the renaissance of craft beers in London which made me want to investigate further.  

3. Discovering that Bring It On: the Musical is showing on Broadway. This is the kind of news that makes me very excited. Of course everyone will be familiar with the film version of Bring It On, about rival groups of cheerleaders and starring none other than Eliza Dushku of Tru Calling fame (#sarcasm). I’m still working on persuading G to join me on a weekend trip to NYC. He seems strangely reluctant. 

An empty packet - the cheese itself didn't hang around long enough to get a photo

 4. Speaking of Trou de Cru, guess what I found in Waitrose. It’s been rebranded by the mainstream producer of Epoisses as a “Petit Berthaut” but to me it’s a Trou and mighty fine it was too. Still, one baulks slightly at the price differential – this was £3.25 whereas a normal Epoisses is twice that, yet the Epoisses is four times the size. Some sort of equation involving square roots seems in order.

5. While we’re on the subject of cheese, I’ll try not to gush too much about my trip to Pascal Beillevaire yesterday evening but let’s just say that when it came to choosing a goats cheese, the lovely woman who runs the shop decided she wasn't happy with the ones on display, so despite a sudden flurry of customers she took the trouble to go down to the store room to find the perfect goats cheese for me and came back with this.

The cheese of glory!

“Is it a Pouligny Saint-Pierre?” I asked innocently and she was suitably impressed at my powers of cheese-identification. I'm still glowing with self-congratulation, although I know perfectly well that this is a very easy cheese to identify, being such a strange pyramid shape. I also received yet another free chocolate mousse and a brace of natural yoghurts. Apparently they're doing cheese and wine evenings on the first and third Thursdays of the month – am seriously tempted to pop along for one of those some time.

6. A wine tasting held by ACC of the Burgundy Portfolio on Thursday night, which deserves its own separate post and will receive it in the near future. 

7. Finally, the excellent news that Eurostar tickets have been booked for New Year in Burgundy! Can’t wait.

1973 dinner, 21st October

A couple of weeks ago, at the inaugural tasting of the Burgundy Portfolio, a chance conversation revealed that four of us present were born in 1973, and a plan to have a dinner featuring 1973 wines was immediately hatched. Obviously this was an opportunity not to be missed, and so it was that last Friday G and I found ourselves at E's flat where we immediately made the acquaintance of Pinot, a beautiful Bengal cat!

To begin with, E offered us an intriguing-sounding German fizz made from pinot noir by a professor whose name I instantly forgot. I have subsequently learned that it was a Spätburgunder made by Dr Randolf Kauer. It was seriously bubbly and very different from champagne but very enjoyable and refreshing. We had it with some lovely smoked salmon crostini which amazingly, Pinot showed no interest in whatsover. It emerged that he had been fed prawns and rare beef beforehand, a wise precaution on E's part. Also, I mustn't forget to mention the Alsatian cheese and onion tart which N made, which went down very well indeed.

I should point out that 1973 is a notoriously rubbish vintage for wine so it was important to have low expectations. Actually, I have just checked an online vintage chart which suggests that it's not universally bad - white burgundy, Alsace and Champagne all get 8s - but also Ds, i.e. danger that they may be past it.

Which brings us to the first 1973 wine of the evening, an Alsace "Pinot" provided by N, made by Gustave Lorentz, who are still going and have been since 1836 according to their website. There are several types of pinot, both feline and vinous, and these days they are more specific in calling it pinot gris (but they still have the fabulous Gothic script). Sadly, it turned out to be over the hill. It's hard to describe but it was just sort of washed-out and not what you'd expect it to be. A shame, but maybe not a total surprise.

My fingers were firmly crossed when it came to my turn, especially after my disastrous offering the previous evening. I have to confess that I did not have any 1973 in my cellar beforehand, so when this dinner was arranged I went online and got a bottle of Chateauneuf from Chateau de la Gardine from Underwoods, with whom I was not previously familiar, but G told me they were kosher and they seem to have some interesting weird stuff. I was rather thrilled when the bottle arrived, because it was the most amazing strange bulbous shape! I've never seen anything like it.

It turned out to be surprisingly good, to my relief. It reminded us all of old burgundy, which lends credence to the view that back in those days, a lot of burgundy had more than a dollop of Rhone added to it. So that was a good thing.

Time for another photo of Pinot.

With dinner, we drank two premier cru burgundies from 2002 - a Nuits St Georges Les Vaucrains 2002 from Bertrand Ambroise and a Gevrey-Chambertin Estournelles Saint-Jacques from Frédéric Esmonin. They were both at the beginning of their drinking windows and the Gevrey needed time to open up, but were hearty and complex red wines.

Then we moved on to E's 1973, a half bottle of Kreuznacher St Martin Eiswein Trockenbeerenauslese made by Paul Anheuser, who are in the Nahe region of Germany. I have to say this was the wine of the evening. It was amazing, with a concentrated mouth-filling sweetness, but not in the least bit cloying. It's very unusual to get such an old eiswein so this was very exciting.

To round off, we had G's contribution, which was a 1937 Sercial madeira from D'Oliveiras. Bit of a transposition error going on here! I had the privilege to drink this relatively recently when I found it quite sharp and walnutty. Maybe drinking at the end, as opposed to the beginning of the evening made a difference, but this time I found it a bit sweeter. It was still incredibly fine and long.

So here's the final line-up of 1973s and the 1937...

and a final photo of Pinot!

Thanks very much to E for an excellent evening!

Recent drinking round-up!

In no particular order...


I recently got some wine out of storage including this white St Romain 2008 from Vincent Perrin. I bought a case after tasting it at the domaine in January 2010 which I blogged about here. I was interested to see that my case was actually 2 boxes of 6. Still, je ne regrette buying 12! It was exactly how I remembered, with a fruity, floral quality that a lot of chardonnay doesn't have. Refreshing and zingy.

Also coming out of storage was this old friend, Yves Darviot's Beaune Greves 2002 (and magnums of 2005, which are waiting for a special occasion...). This is one of my desert island wines and it was great to try this vintage at last. It didn't disappoint.

This was a Cote de Brouilly which ACC brought round one night. Cuvee Zacharie, by Chateau Thivin. I foolishly chucked the bottle without noting the year, but it gets points just for that label, what a horror! It was fruity and rich, and quite gamey. Serious beaujolais.

Thanks are also due to ACC for bringing me back this bottle of marc from his travels. I can only apologise that it did not last long enough for him to try it... Made at Domaine Morot, it was enjoyable, with a good nuts-and-raisins thing going on, but I have to say it was no match for the Felettig which remains the gold standard of all things marc.

A double-bill of Odoul-Coquard... first the 2008 Bourgogne Rouge which is really quite delicious. G bought it, not me, and I'm kicking myself. Shall be looking out for it in 2010. And then the 2007 Vosne-Romanee which I was expecting to be good. It had lovely sweet, warm fruit on the nose, blackcurrants and chocolate, and on the palate was very soft and supple, quite light for a Vosne. "Lovely", "beautiful" and "pretty" were all used to describe it. This is only a village wine, but we decided that if it had been a premier cru, it would have scored a 9. Praise indeed. We felt it was drinking now but had a good future ahead of it too, no rush.

A double-bill of Alsace wines from Hugel, both en demi. 1973 Gewurtz and 1979 Muscat. You would not have guessed they were that age. Still absolutely singing.

And finally, this little number which I picked up in Selfridges on Friday: Gutierrez Colosia Fino. This is also a half bottle and wasn't cheap at £11.90 but I fancied trying it to see if it was worth it. It does seem I paid through the nose (Selfridges' pricing policy: think of a number and double it) as these people have it for £8.75 a half. Also, I had been suffering due to the lack of La Goya which spookily became unavailable from Corneys just after I bought a case. Have just checked and see that it's back, hurrah!, but seems to have gone up to £6.29 a half - even at that price, it's worth it. Anyway, the Gutierrez stuff was a fantastic pale colour, and clean as a whistle. It really was very good and went very well with the excellent nuts from the Middle Eastern counter but I don't think I'll be rushing to buy it again.

SPNS summer dinner, 8th July

A de V has been on an extended break but is now back with a vengeance and with some catching up to do!

Back in July, G organised a Swiss Pinot Noir Society dinner which was held at the Perseverance on Shroton Street just round the corner from Marylebone Station. We'd heard good things about this place from ACC and also the Dos Hermanos blog, and it was felt that a change from the Savile was in order.

It took me longer to walk there than I'd expected, so I was a little hot and bothered when I arrived, but things rapidly improved as I joined ACC and T in the downstairs bar and ordered a Prosecco cocktail from the blackboard of tempting goodies. We also got a bowl of hand-made crinkle-cut crisps, which were excellent. Eventually G turned up which completed the quartet for the evening, as sadly our fellow-members P and D were unable to attend on this occasion.

Suitably restored, we went upstairs to the dining room, which is a beautiful room with lovely Georgian windows facing south down towards the Marylebone Road.

Proceedings commenced with my contribution, a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Rose 1985. I'd been saving this up for a special occasion, and since it was my birthday 3 days later this felt like a good time. I got it at an auction, so there was an element of doubt about whether it would be ok or not. It was!

It was a beautiful dark salmon colour, with slow bubbles. Mature and wonderful. Everybody liked it.


Next up was G's bottle, a 1983 gewurztraminer from Rolly Gassman, which was also well-received. It was medium-sweet and aromatic with lychees and rose on the nose. T also detected citrus peel and ACC noted that it was not "too grandmother's handbag", always a good thing.

Third was ACC's offering, a 2007 Chassagne-Montrachet from Ramonet. I was very excited about this as a) I love red Chassagne, b) I love 2007 and c) I love Ramonet! I raved about it in the Book - wonderful colour, beautiful perfume, lovely mouthfeel, quite velvety. Very sensuous and an excellent expression of pinot noir. T agreed - lovely Burgundy, ACC wrote something boastful which I can't read (except to tell that it's boastful) and G was the sole voice of dissent saying it was "good, but no more than usually sensational". Some people are hard to please. Just look at it!

A quick honorable mention of the food at this point, which was excellent - the menu tends towards the meaty and offally which works for me, and is of the school of proper ingredients not messed about. For my main course I had calves liver which came with potatoes and sage. Mmmm. I'm amazed that I managed to take the time to take a photo of it instead of digging straight in!

Finally, we had Trevor's wine which had a very unusual label. The photo has come out rather blurred, but even in focus it was hard to work out what this was. It described itself as a Vin de France by Pascal Simonutti, who is based in the Loire Valley.

G detected rancio on the nose and found it an acquired taste. Was it really good or really terrible, he asked tactfully? My response was "Jesus Christ!" It was a brown murky colour and I found that it smelled of old socks and/or potting shed - T suggested turps. The palate was consistent with the nose i.e. horrible. All in all, very interesting, but not my cup of tea.

Moving swiftly on, this was an excellent dinner and I have already been back to the Perseverance where I had another wonderful meal and some very keen value vieille prune. This is the sort of pub I wish was just round the corner.