Sunday lunch at mine, 17th June

A couple of weeks ago, D and G came round for lunch at mine.

We started off with a bowl of gazpacho (I confess I didn't make it!) and a glass of manzanilla pasada en rama from Barbadillo which hit the spot. I haven't been drinking so much sherry lately as sometimes, but I really should knock off the negronis and get back to it.

G provided this Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru les Champgains 2012 from Michel Niellon. This was a lovely light gold colour and was very Chassagne, with elegance and a nice weight. It was smooth, with honey in the middle, citrus at the end, and a long finish. We thought it was impeccable premier cru Chassagne and gave it a 9. It made a fine accompaniment to our halibut steaks with salsa verde.

D had brought this Hermann J Wiemer Cabernet Franc 2007 over from the US, which we had with the cheese course. This was a very dark colour and had a fruity nose which reminded us of plums with star anise. There was also some mint, and crushed cherries were mentioned. It was complex and both impressive and enjoyable, with a very long finish. "This is a bloody pleasure to drink" said G.

We finished off with the second of G's recent Tokaji acquisitions, again a 4 puttonyos but this time from 1959. This was dark brown but clear rather than murky. I would describe it as sticky toffee pudding in a glass. There was some volatile acidity on the nose while on the palate it had dried fruit, raisins and a certain creaminess. Rum and raisin ice cream sprang to mind. The finish went on for minutes, and it almost reminded me of Madeira. Given than it would have been produced in exactly the same way as the 1967 which we'd had earlier in the week, this was a pure expression of the vintage. Good for Monimplex!

SPNS, Wednesday 13th June

On Wednesday night, I made my way over to the Savile Club for the latest gathering of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society.

Arriving a tactful minute late, I walked into the bar which was deserted apart from three reprobates standing at the bar guzzling Veuve Cliquot 2008. Clearly I was in the right place. My glass was duly filled and while I'm not a great expert on Veuve, I found this relatively light and refreshing. I wouldn't have guessed it was ten years old. G, who has clearly drunk far more of the stuff than me, opined that it had finally come round. It certainly made an excellent aperitif.

We moved upstairs to the dining room where the only question was which white to drink first? My offering was this 2014 Chablis 1er cru Mont de Milieu from Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fevre. This was full-bodied and a little richer than some Chablis with a pleasingly weighty mouthfeel. It was drinking well now but we suspected it might not last in the long term.

Meanwhile, P had stashed away this Trittenheimer Laurenz Spatlese 1957 from the Friedrich Wilhem Gymnasium (thanks G for writing that all down in the book). This was a beautiful golden colour and had the classic old riesling nose but for me had lost most of its fruit although it did have some lychees going on and certainly had an unctuous texture. The assembled company found that it became sweeter as time went on. Fascinating stuff.

Once again, my picanha steak was excellent .

D had brought along this 2007 Cabernet Franc from Red Newt Cellars, which I reported on here. I see that when we visited, I wasn't unduly impressed with their cab franc, but this was an altogether different kettle of fish. G described it as "glorious rich cab franc in impeccable order tonight" and it was vibrant with a lot of fruit, pepper and spice. It went down very easily and we suspected that if it had been in magnum that wouldn't have presented any problem. I thought it was drinking perfectly now but D thought it had the potential to age further.

Finally, with our cheese course, we had this Tokaji 4 puttonyos from 1967 which G picked up at auction. He compared it unfavourably with higher-puttonyos Tokaji but actually I think we all rather enjoyed it. It was a murky brown colour and tasted of fruit cake, with notes of figs and prunes. It had a long finish but D noticed that it was low on acidity.

It also had quite a remarkable amount of sediment in the bottle. Ah, the good old days!

Thanks all for yet another very pleasurable and educational evening. Until next time...

Two recent dinners

And the blog is back, by popular demand! Well, one person said he was missing it, so after a hiatus over the summer it feels like time to get back to it.

First up, a Monday evening dinner at the Hawksmoor Air Street with T, D and G. We were led for what felt like several miles through the restaurant and eventually arrived at a booth, which was very nice and made it easier to hear each other. Deafening noise is one of the major reasons why I prefer to dine at home these days, along with escalating wine prices. But corkage at the Hawksmoor is just £5 on a Monday, compared with £25 on all other days, and this price applies to bottles of every size, so it was a great opportunity to drink some magnums.

We started with 2008 Chablis 1er cru Fourchaume-Vaulorent 2008 from Domaine Nathalie & Gilles Fevre, which went down very nicely with some historic scallops. Apologies for lack of detail but I wasn't taking notes.

After that we moved on to steak, accompanied by a magnum of Beaune 1er cru Greves 2005 from Yves Darviot, which I believe belonged to me but had been sitting in G's Rutland cellar for a very long time and I had forgotten all about it. In my opinion, there is still no rush on it - these 2005 reds seem to be built to last. Am now wondering if I have any more stashed away?

With dessert, we drank this 1969 5 puttonyos Tokaji Aszu provided by D, which went particularly well with sticky toffee sauces/puddings. Afterwards we repaired to the bar for a quick post-prandial Calvados kindly supplied by T. Thanks all for a great evening.

Then, last Sunday, D came round to my place for lunch. We kicked off with a bottle of white Corton 2008 from Domaine Parent which recently came out of storage and has been providing much pleasure. It was big and rich with great acidity and a certain honeyed quality. D noted some viscosity, and the finish went on for ages. It has beens even better than the 2007 and went very nicely with our smoked salmon.

Then the main event: two Inglenook 1969s. The one on the left was the main release, whereas the one on the right was from a particular cask. Fortunately I am the proud possessor of multiple Riedel claret glasses so we were able to try them side by side, which proved to be a fascinating comparison.

The estate-bottled wine was very cabernet sauvignon, with mint leaf on the nose, and tasted very pure to me, while the cask wine had greater intensity and an extraordinary finish. At one point I glazed over for a few minutes and was unable to join in the conversation because it needed all my attention.

Both Inglenooks seemed to have a lot of menthol going on and would be great to drink if you had a cold! I was thinking about what made them different from claret and the answer seemed to be that they were lacking the woody, cedar notes that you often find in claret. This train of thought led to a suggestion... get some claret out to compare.

Fortunately I had a bottle of my old favourite, Chateau Montrose 1970, sitting on the wine rack (cue story of the Montrose Moment in Southwold on my 22nd birthday), so this was clearly the bottle to go for.

According to G, the Montrose had some merlot in it. I've just checked, and according to the chateau's website, the 1970 vintage was 65% cab sauv, 25% merlot and 10% cabernet franc. It was certainly much woodier, and held its own against the Inglenooks for the first half hour or so - at that point we thought it ranked in between the two - but then completely fell off a cliff and faded, whereas the Inglenooks kept going and didn't change much over time. It was really interesting to try the three together and thanks to D for the wonderful opportunity to drink old Californian wines which we never see in the UK.

We finished off with a glass of Apostoles, which is a 30 year old palo cortado from Gonzalez Byass, bought from Waitrose during one of their intermittent 25% off deals. This wine also has a spot of Pedro Ximenez in it which makes it slightly sweeter than, say, the Dos Cortados 20 year old palo cortado from Williams & Humbert which is super-dry and definitely an aperitif.

It was a really great lunch, and there were no hangovers the next day, which just goes to show the old stuff is the best!

SPNS dinner, 13th May

On Friday it was time for the next instalment of the Chronicles of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society, and for once we had a full turnout!

I found the others picnicking on quails eggs from P's estate and after some confusion with ice cubes, we commenced with this Gaillac "Gouleyant" from Georges Vigoroux which is made from Loin de l'Oeil and Sauvignon, also provided by P. I certainly hadn't come across Loin de l'Oeil before - apparently it is native to the Gaillac region. It wasn't particularly cold so the ice cubes did in fact come in handy. For me, it was an agreeable, refreshing aperitif and G described it as pleasant quaffing wine. Good with quails eggs.

Then we moved upstairs to the dining room and cracked on with my contribution, this Chablis 1er cru Vaulorent 2008 from Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fevre. I was gushing about this domaine in my post yesterday and this wine was absolutely top-notch. It had a lovely weight and was big and rich by Chablis standards. This was my last bottle but apparently G still has some magnums... there is probably no rush, to be honest. 2008 Chablis 1er cru Vaulorent from N&G Fevre - #nuffsaid read the comment from the Twitter-loving ACC. Absolutely.

We moved on to a pair of pinot noirs. First, this Spatburgunder 2012 Weiler Schlipf from Schneider, contributed by T. This had an interesting nose which for me had earthy and animal elements. It was pretty and definitely a food wine. There was some debate as to whether it was a typical pinot - T compared it to a Gevrey-Chambertin but I couldn't see much resemblance myself!

This Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes de Nuits 2013 from Domaine Felettig, on the other hand, was definitely very Burgundian. It was brought along by ACC. This was already drinking well and reminded me of a baby Chambolle. I found it relatively light, soft and elegant although G described it as rich and powerful! The comments in the book were universally positive and I think we all thought this was our kind of wine.

Next up was this Barolo 1986 from Bruno Giacosa which G got at auction. As with all these things, there was some uncertainty as to whether it would have survived, since the provenance was unknown.

The waitress did a great job of getting the cork out in one piece and it turned out that we needn't have worried - it was fine. The nose was certainly mature and I found it quite sweet, but on the palate it was integrated and supple, and it had a wonderful finish. It was a treat to drink this mature Barolo.

With pudding, we had a 1973 Tokaji 5 puttonyos brought along by D. This was old school, fruity tokaji, with dried fruit and figs going on. I think D made the right choice of sticky toffee pudding to go with it, but it did go well with my frangipane tart too. G made a reference to filthy wine-making but the results were delightful.

I was amused by the back label.

Finally, I'd brought along this 1998 Eiswein which T had left behind last time from Weingut Hafner in Austria, made from pinot noir grapes. After a quick bath in the ice bucket we opened it. For me this had notes of apricot and G described it as pleasant, lightweight Eiswein. I think we all liked it, but it suffered from being served after the Tokaji.

As usual, we repaired to the garden where the heaters took the chill off a surprisingly cold evening, and conversation continued until various cars arrived to whisk people off into the night. Another very enjoyable evening, thanks everyone!

SPNS dinner, 20th October

On Tuesday, it was over to the Savile Club for the next Swiss Pinot Noir Society event. Thanks to the trusty Victoria and Central Lines, I arrived at 7.30 on the dot to find no sign of the other participants. A tour of the sandpit, the bar and the garden revealed no fellow Society members and I was starting to wonder if I had the right day when fortunately P and D appeared - P having been on a similar tour of the building looking for the rest of us. G showed up shortly afterwards and as ACC and T had sent their apologies, proceedings could now commence!

We kicked off with this champagne from Morel Pere & Fils provided by P (NB that website may cause vertigo). None of the rest of us were familiar with it, but it turned out to be quite a hit.

It could only be described as effervescent, although "wild bubbles" was also used. It was generally regarded as very pleasant and well-balanced with some maturity and yeasty notes, and seemed like a steal when P told us what he paid for it.

We went upstairs for dinner and this Meursault-Genevrieres 1er cru 2006 from Michel Bouzereau et Fils was my contribution for the evening - the third of the trio I got at auction. I was delighted to get them, as am a big fan of this domaine, and once again this was top stuff.

It looked wonderful in the glass and was lovely, mature Meursault, not too fleshy but still typique. Another example of how producer trumps vintage when it comes to Burgundy. We thought it was impeccable and G and I agreed that it merited a 10 on the Premier Cru Project scale.

Then it was on to G's offering - a magnum of Chateau La Lagune (probably) 1985. The reason for the doubt over the vintage was that the label had torn off. It was hoped that the cork would reveal all, but sadly this was not to be. However, apparently this magnum came from a case of magnums of 1985 so it seems highly likely that it was also from 1985.

This was proper, mature claret with the classic cedary / cigar box nose - described as "school desk" by one participant. I wonder if Baron McG had been there whether he would have said "library book". It was generally enjoyed by all but there was a lot of it given there were only four of us, and it possibly started to go downhill towards the end.

A brief digression: I had this stuff on my Welsh Rarebit - had never heard of it until a recent episode of Jay Rayner's excellent radio programme the Kitchen Cabinet. Apparently it's a great source of local pride for the citizens of Sheffield. It was certainly good with Welsh Rarebit.

To finish, D had brought along this bottle of 1976 Tokaji Essencia. This was amazing. It had a heady, slightly volatile nose reminding some of pedro ximinez and others (me) of Turkish delight. Raisins, figs, prunes and toffee were all present and correct, and it was the perfect complement to our dessert of figs in a red wine sauce. It was very sweet - diabetes in a glass! - but there was no doubt that this was something very special indeed, and it walloped the competition to win the Wine of the Evening award. But there were no duffers on this occasion. Thanks to everyone for your contributions - another splendid evening.

Lunch at mine, Sunday 28th Sept

On Sunday, we had the honour of a visit from T, who had ventured down from the sticks especially for the occasion. It was a good opportunity to drink some nice things that had been lurking in my wardrobe!

First up was this Chablis 1er cru Vaulorent 2008 from Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fevre. I (and my mother!) have been drinking a lot of the 2010 vintage lately which is arguably infanticide. The 2008 is more mature and drinking very nicely now. T got a whiff of something which G identified as mushrooms, while I found it completely beguiling, perfect mature Chablis. We had it with some smoked trout which G had obtained from Borough Market - a rather complicated filleting process took place before we could eat it, but it was worth it, a great combo.

Next up was this bottle of Chateau Latour 1960 to accompany our lamb shanks and gratin dauphinoise. T made the shocking revelation that he'd never drunk Latour before! Better late than never, I suppose...

Although the level was mid-shoulder, with a bottle of this age that wasn't a particular cause for concern and it turned out to be intense, majestic claret. Latour does seem to be wonderfully consistent and to produce great wines even in lesser vintages. G drew our attention to the minty overtones of the cabernet sauvignon in the mix. A wine to savour.

Finally, with our poached pears, we drank two petite (250 ml) bottles of 2005 Royal Tokaji 5 puttonyos provided by T. This was a beautiful amber colour, complemented the pears very nicely and the finish went on forever, with distinct flavours of apricots. We all agreed that it was more interesting than most Sauternes.

Coffee, a spot of marc de bourgogne and much irreverent conversation completed the picture. I can think of worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon! Thanks T for coming all the way to join us and for not bringing the Thai pink the Tokaji!

Lunch at mine, 11th May

And so normal service tentatively resumes.

I arrived back in London after a weekend away a couple of weeks ago, very much looking forward to having lunch with G and D who was over for one of his biannual visits. I wasn't disappointed.

We kicked off with a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet 1er cru Folatieres 2008 from Domaine Bzikot, provided by G. This continues to be a great example of the genre and is drinking perfectly now. We had a bottle back in March when G voiced doubts, but he seems to be converted now.

Then it was on to the main event. D had informed us that he'd be bringing "a couple of reds". It turned out that he meant two different vintages of Chateau Lafite. I couldn't believe it!

In particular, a bottle of 1966 and a bottle of 1975. It would have been a privilege to drink either, let alone both!

We started with the 1975 which was drinking extremely well. It was very smooth and the tannins had softened. The finish was amazing and I got some heat which I eventually worked out reminded me of black pepper. There were also notes of liquorice, chocolate and leather. It was supple and complex, not majestic like Latour, but more feminine.

The 1966 had a more classic "claretty" nose - that cedar, lead pencil, cigar box thing going on. Again it was very smooth and was more classic all round. G thought it was richer than the 1975 and to me it felt like there was more cabernet sauvignon in the mix. Again, it had a great structure and finish. We loved the $29.95 price tag. Those were the days...

Here you can see the difference in the colour - the 1975 is on the right and the 1966 on the left.

If we had to choose between them, I have to admit the 1966 was my favourite, but it has a price differential to match. It was great to be able to compare them and both went very nicely with G's shepherd's pie.

With our cheese course, we had a bottle of 6 puttonyos Tokaji from 1996. This had a heady nose of dried apricots and figs, and extraordinary exotic, tropical fruits on the palate - pineapple and mango. It had a lovely gloopy mouthfeel. I enjoyed it very much.

Finally, we had some of G's latest acquisition, some old navy rum in a terrible wicker basket! My shoes are included in the photo to show the scale of the thing.

This rum dates back to the 1950s and has acquired the smooth characteristics of an old spirit, but is nevertheless immediately identifiable as rum. Like whisky, it benefits from the addition of a little water. An animated conversation ensued about the possibility of doing an old spirits tasting, which is a great idea.

Lunch lasted 6 hours, a new record, I think. Thanks very much to D for providing such amazing goodies from his cellar, and to G for the others and for doing the cooking.