SPNS dinner, 6th December

I see that another month has passed without any blog posts, largely because I was away from London for 3 weekends in a row. There's a lot to catch up on.

Last night was the December gathering of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society. G and I arrived fashionably late (by two minutes) having braved Oxford Street which was full of people not looking where they were going, while Wannabe by the Spice Girls blared out of Top Shop. Tate Britain is clearly bang on trend with its post-apocalyptic Christmas decorations.

Meanwhile at the Savile Club someone was having a 40th birthday party and the far more melodious sound of a saxophone and double bass greeted us as we walked into the bar. I produced the first wine of the evening, this Delamotte Blancs de Blancs 2002 and the day immediately improved.

This was generally well-received - it was great fizz from a great vintage, fully mature, with some nice autolytic qualities (thanks ACC) otherwise known as the smell of digestive biscuits. It was yeasty, toasty and creamy and we all agreed it would be even better served with some canapes. That wish may be fulfilled next September as I have the remainder of the case set aside for a certain  big day!

We moved upstairs to the dining room and got cracking on this Puligny 1998 from Etienne Sauzet while we perused the menu. This was provided by P who got it at auction. Despite its lack of provenance, it was a beautiful golden colour and again fully mature, quite unctuous (or gooey, to use T's word of choice) and buttery on the palate, with a good finish. I had planned to save some to go with my starter but in the end that proved unnecessary, as T had brought along a rose.

This was Mun, Rosato Marche le Calcinara 2018 from Italy. It was a pleasing deep pink colour, bright and fresh, with red fruits and almost bracing acidity. P got raspberry sorbet on the finish. Perhaps not the most serious wine ever, but enjoyable easy drinking.

With our mains, we had two reds. In the blue corner was this Moulin-a-Vent 1999 from Domaine des Grandes Vignes, provided by ACC. This had a truly remarkable nose! Funky seemed the most polite best word to describe it. T absolutely loved it. It was certainly still alive and kicking, and P went to town on the descriptions - elderberry, liquorice, chestnuts and rose hips all receiving a mention. A fascinating wine with lots to talk about!

In the red corner was something far more traditional, this Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1987 from Robert Mondavi, provided by G. This was a very dark colour, and had a lovely cedary nose. It was fully mature, archetypal cab sauv, probably quite high in alcohol, and nicely mellow now. It reminded me of a good claret and I liked it a lot.

No risk of getting these two mixed up

G had to commandeer a pink corkscrew to keep things moving along

The last wine of the evening, contributed by D, was this 1971 German beerenauslese. I nobly volunteered to write down its name and will attempt to reproduce it here: Hallgartener Jungfer from Weingut Georgshof. It was a remarkable dark amber colour, almost the same colour as the bottle, and for me, relatively dry for a sweet wine. I found it quite grapey while D detected honey. It was 11% alcohol and everyone's notes are enthusiastic. It disappeared remarkably rapidly!

P went off to get some cheese (a remarkable truffled number) and while he was gone, the thought of opening his reserve bottle of white occurred to some people who shall not be named. P was happy to go along with the plan, but sadly the wine itself, a Verget Puligny 2000, turned out to be over the hill, although T said it went quite well with his potted trout savoury.

After that, it was agreed that a bottle of Smith Woodhouse 1980 would be in order to go with the cheese. We'd given up making notes by this stage but G has helpfully supplied some for me. It had a restrained nose but delivered on the palate and was full, thick, sweet, plummy and really quite long. Given that it was "popped and poured", it showed very well and would have been even better with some time in the decanter. I've been feeling fine today - just goes to show it's worth drinking the good stuff. Thanks everyone for another very enjoyable evening!

Trip to Paris, part three

On Sunday morning, we had breakfast at La Coupole again, which was noticeably busier than it had been the day before, and then returned to the hotel to pack and check out. They kindly agreed to look after our suitcases while we went out.

It was raining, so we decided to take the Metro to our destination, Portes Vanves flea market, or "Marché aux Puces". The word "puces" reminds me irresistably of this video... FLEA ATTACK! The market turned out to be an interesting experience - there were lots of little stalls selling all sorts of weird and wonderful things. G told me not to take any photos as the stallholders might not like it, so I behaved myself.

We didn't find anything that we particularly wanted to buy, so after a while mooching around, we returned to Montparnasse - complete with accordionist accompaniment on the Metro, much to G's disdain - and had a pre-prandial Ricard on the terrace of the Select, where the entertainment mostly consisted of watching pedestrians nearly getting run over.

Then it was our turn to cross the road without getting run over, as we had a lunch appointment at Le Dome. This is a brasserie that specialises in fish. I'd lurked outside the day before while G went in to book, and had heard an English couple being given a choice of eating inside or in the conservatory thing at the front - it seems these may have two different menus - but we were definitely inside eating off the serious (= quite expensive) menu. Everyone around us seemed to be French, although occasionally the sound of some loud Americans at a table about half a mile away wafted over.

To drink, we had this bottle of Bienvenues-Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru 2002 from Etienne Sauzet, which was initially rather dumb as it was very cold, but then opened up after some time in the glass and out of the ice bucket, and showed its chops. It was a very fine wine and a great complement to the fish we were eating, but if I had a choice of that or the Coche-Dury Meursault we had at Taillevent, for me the Coche wins hands down every time.

I had a mystery fish to start with which was like large whitebait, while G had sardines. Then it was on to the main event, the bouillabaise for two. This turned out to be quite a piece of theatre, as after a long wait, the waiter came to our table and said "Attention!" and then presented a platter of fish to us. There were four fish and he went through the names which I have of course forgotten (clearly I wasn't actually paying attention after all), but I think red mullet was one of them, and G said something about scorpion fish which apparently you can't get in the UK. Then the platter was whisked off to a side table where the fish were taken off the bone etc and then they were served up to us in bowls, along with a simmering pan of fish soup, a bowl of croutons and a ramekin of rouille.

It was a seriously good fish soup and G had a second helping, while I was quite stuffed by this stage. Which was unfortunate since we had already pre-ordered our puddings! I had this chocolate fondant-type pudding which had the magic words "salted caramel" somewhere in the description on the menu, but I struggled to detect it. It came with a very enjoyable dark chocolate ice cream served on the side, which was great.

We had a Calvados to finish off with, and the waiter clearly approved of this choice. At no point during this trip did we encounter any of the famous rudeness from waiters - everyone was very professional.

After half an hour or so sitting there wondering how on earth we were ever going to move let alone make it home, eventually we heaved ourselves up, collected our suitcases from the hotel, which was fortunately just down the road, and grabbed a taxi to the Gare du Nord. By the time we got there and had queued for what seemed like hours to get through the Eurostar check-in, my stomach was feeling more comfortable. There was certainly no need for dinner, and G and I agreed that if (I should say when) we go back to Le Dome, a starter and the bouillabaisse would be quite sufficient!

This concludes my account of our weekend away, and thanks are due to G for suggesting and arranging it - I had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back to Paris for more.