Burgundy Portfolio en primeur tasting, 14th Jan

On Tuesday evening I made my way over to Dukes Hotel in St James's Place, tucked down a little alley beside the Rothschild offices where I used to audit a couple of charities a few years ago. The Rothschild properties can be identified by the five arrows motif which also appears on their wines, and the highlight of those audits was access to the very fine coffee machine which they had for the benefit of the investment gurus working elsewhere in the building.

At Dukes, I was given directions to proceed round the corner and down two flights of stairs where a happy sight greeted my eyes - a room full of wine and people tasting it. There was no Oz Clarke this year but I think I must have arrived just after Tim Atkin as I spent the entire tasting either one step in front of him or one step behind. The tables were as follows:

• a mixed bag of whites from growers not present
• ACC's new discovery Pascal Clement who is based in Savigny-les-Beaune and used to work with Coche-Dury
• Vincent Perrin from Volnay
• Fabrice Bouard-Bonnefoy from Chassagne-Montrachet who I hadn't met before 
• Henri Audiffred from Vosne-Romanee
• Domaine de la Choupette from Santenay
• a table of mixed reds from growers not present
• Florent Garaudet from Monthelie
• Sebastian Odoul-Coquard from Morey-St-Denis

The full offer is on the Burgundy Portfolio's website here. Look out for fabulous Lord of the Rings style maps! It contains wines from a total of 16 growers, and G and I worked out that we've bought wines from 14 of them this year, and have bought wines in previous years from the two we've skipped on this occasion. I'm not going to mention everything I've gone for this year, but will pick out a few of my personal highlights. 

Whites

Chablis 1er cru Mont de Milieu from Nathalie Fevre. This showed exceptionally well and is seriously good value for what it is. We'll never forget our exciting day with Nathalie in September and I still have the fossil of a mussel which she gave me!

Bourgogne Blanc from Sylvie Joly. I filled my boots with the 2010, and the 2012 seemed as good if not better. It's a Puligny in all but name.

Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru En Remilly from Domaine Bouard-Bonnefoy stood out for me, while G went for the 1er cru Les Chenevottes instead, so we'll be able to have a pretentious horizontal tasting in a few years' time!

Reds

Henri Audiffred's Beaune had an extraordinary nose reminiscent of tinned fruit and/or mango, and the Vosne-Romanee "Aux Champs Perdrix" was magnificent - it's hard to believe it's not a premier cru. I adore pretty much everything he makes so it's very difficult to choose. Fortunately G has picked up some of the other appellations too. 

I liked the Bourgogne Rouge from Jean-Claude Rateau very much, it seemed like a mini Beaune to me, while Aloxe-Corton from Maison en Belles Lies also impressed me again. 

Finally, the wines from Odoul-Coquard were sensational. Admittedly I may be slightly biased as ACC kindly invited us for dinner with Sebastian at Chabrot on Sunday night and he produced some Bourgogne Blanc 2012, a Gevrey-Chambertin villages and a Charmes-Chambertin grand cru both from the 2010 vintage, which are still very young but helped us see what these wines are going to be like. 

On this occasion, although dribbling occurred when I tasted the village Gevrey, I went for the Gevrey-Chambertin 1er cru Aux Combottes (influenced by the Dujac 2007 we had at Otto's last Friday) and finally I pushed the boat out with the Clos de Vougeot which will have to be put away for many years. "It has to be had" read my notes. I know I won't regret it!

Charmes-Chambertin, 2010 from Odoul-Coquard

G and I agreed that this was the best en primeur tasting we've been to and possibly the best tasting in general, ever. The quality of the vintage shines through. Congrats to ACC for finding so many delicious things at very reasonable prices considering the circumstances and the competition, and thanks to the growers for making the effort to come over to London and let us taste them. 

Afterwards, G and I grabbed a taxi to Byron on Store Street where we pored over the list and did some amicable horse-trading while consuming posh burger and fries. A fitting end to an amazing evening!

Dinner at Otto's, 10th Jan

After our spectacular evening at the Shiori in November, it was G's turn to take me somewhere nice, and it was decided that we should attempt the Canard a la Presse at Otto's. G discovered this restaurant on the Gray's Inn Road some time ago. It's been going for two years but after the reviewers finally woke up in the summer it's become very difficult to get in and we had a choice of this Friday or some time in late March - I assume they must have had a cancellation on Friday. We grabbed the opportunity, and when we arrived G was greeted by Otto like a long-lost friend.

The famous duck press

The room is decorated in a bohemian style with vintage French movie posters, Victorian lampshades, some quite weird furniture and a big stone horse's head looking over the room. We had a table near the kitchen so I could see the chefs at work and also the duck press. The Canard a la Presse is a famous dish served at La Tour D'Argent in Paris, which I've never visited but G has. Apparently they no longer prepare it in front of you there, but Otto does. On the menu, it says "The Canard à la Rouenaise is an antique and sophisticated art form you need to see prepared and taste at least once in your life." There were other appealing things on the menu too (including a fillet of wild boar with a crust of pain d'epices) so it's not compulsory to have the duck, but on this occasion, that was what we wanted.

The duck was brought out from the kitchen and shown to us. It was enormous. These are very special ducks, and later on the waitress told us that they are bigger at this time of year. I believe it was over 3 kg, and it looked nothing like the sort of duck you find in the shops.

Otto started by making the sauce with butter, some hefty sloshes of madeira, port and red wine, and stock made from previous ducks. Meanwhile we had a dilemma as to whether to have a starter - but since the duck takes over an hour to prepare, and we were already ravenous, we went ahead. Otto advised a light starter and "not too much bread". We followed this advice and G had crayfish on a pike mousse while I had scallop carpaccio. Both went down very well. Mine was refreshing and pure, and certainly left space for the duck. With our starters we had a bottle of white Beaune 1er cru Aigrots from Domaine de Montille. We had hoped it would be the 2007 vintage but it turned out they had moved on to the 2009. Nevertheless it was very pleasurable and went well with the food.

Once the duck was cooked, Otto carved it beside our table and then we all crowded round the duck press (usually a two man job, but three of them were operating it on our evening) which is screwed down to extract the juices from the carcass which are then incorporated into the sauce. It was exciting to see this being done, and some people at another table came over to see what was going on.

I knew that the duck was served "en deux services" so when we were presented with the chopped-up liver on toast, with a little cup of 15 year old Henriques & Henriques madeira, I assumed that this was the first of the two. That duck liver was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, and the madeira went very well with it. But it turned out I was wrong - this was really just an amuse gueule and apparently at La Tour d'Argent they don't give you the liver. I shan't bother going there then!

The actual first service was the breast, which had had its skins removed and been carved into slices, served with the delicious sauce and some "pommes soufflees" which I'd never encountered before - they were like little pillows of potato - and some green beans. It was all excellent, as was the wine G chose, a Gevrey-Chambertin 1er cru "Aux Combottes" 2007 from Domaine Dujac. I haven't had the privilege to drink much Dujac but may need to reassess as this was wonderful. It jumped out of the glass with lively aromas and was very complex and interesting, and much lighter than I'd expected it to be, not heavy at all. Every mouthful was fantastic.

It's worth noting that the wine list is extremely reasonable, as he applies a fixed margin to drink the good stuff. BBR are selling the Dujac for £810 for 6 which works out at £135 a bottle, although I found it somewhere else for just under £100. On Otto's wine list, it's £147. You can't argue with that!

Blurry Soft focus photo of pommes soufflees

Once we'd finished the first service, we had a short pause before the second, and Otto came over and chatted with us. G has been to lots of Parisian restaurants and they spent some time talking about Maxim's where Otto used to work. He also told us that he was in a very good mood as he'd had a big party in for lunch the previous day and they had eaten three ducks (!) as well as various other things. It was clearly a VIP but he didn't tell us who - very discreet. Apparently Otto wouldn't normally do three ducks for a table, he did it for them as a special favour, but two ducks is not out of the ordinary so if there are four of you, that's an option...

Then the legs were served. It seems he has been tweaking how they are presented, and for us, they had been deconstructed so we had a bowl of what I can only describe as leg morsels. This worked for me, as I suspect hacking our way through a duck leg at this stage in the evening would have been quite hard work. Accompanying this was a bowl of tiny little pieces of duck skin which had curled up (Otto had removed the skin using the back of a spoon), and croutons. Again it was absolutely amazing, but this time we were defeated early on.

I cheekily suggested to G that we might request a doggy bag, and they were very happy to do this, so the leg, skin and sauce were all put in individual cartons for us to take home and we ate them along with a salad last night. Otto advised spreading the sauce on toast (he initially suggested brioche, but agreed that Poilane would work) which went down a treat.

Legs etc. being cooked up for dinner the next evening

We opted out of pudding, but nevertheless were given a scoop of ice cream and a glass of 30 year old Hidalgo Pedro Ximenez to go with. The PX was fantastic, very smooth, and not sickly sweet like most PX. I don't know whether all this generosity is normal or because we were spending a lot that evening or because G was a supporter from the early days. Anyway, it was very kind of them.

All in all, this was a wonderful evening with an unusual combination of formality and informality, atmosphere, theatre, extraordinary food and first rate wine. It's not something you'd want to do every night, but perhaps once a year... Thanks G!

Happy New Year!

Just a quick one today - more to follow soon. G and I spent New Year's Eve at A de V Towers; no performing seals for us this year, but we did have some great food and drink. We kicked things off with this 2002 blancs de blancs champagne from Jean Comyn. It had really come on since the last time we tasted it, which was at an SPNS dinner back in May 2010. The general verdict on that occasion was that it needed another 5 years. We didn't quite manage to give it that, but found it much improved. It was light, attractive, and fully mature.

We discussed comparisons and agreed that it was similar to Delamotte. I can't remember exactly how much it cost but seem to recall that it was quite good value for a vintage champagne, so it wasn't really fair to compare it to Krug, Dom Perignon etc. It wasn't "Great Champagne" and wasn't particularly complex, but I enjoyed it and it got the evening off to a suitably festive good start.

In the background you can see Clive Coates's new book, My Favorite Burgundies, which kept G out of mischief all evening spotting typos. I was given this by my parents for Christmas, and it's yet another treasure trove of information. I had thought it was going to be a revised edition of the Bible aka his 2008 book on Burgundy, but this isn't the case - it doesn't attempt to cover everyone but goes into more detail on the finer vineyards, producers, and vintages. I'm sure it will be very useful as we head towards en primeur season, and also for the Premier Cru Project.

White Beaune and 1970 vintage port

New Year's Eve has come upon us but there's time for one more post before Big Ben chimes the year out! This evening I'll be thinking of Paul who so kindly gave us the tour of the clock tower back in October, one of the highlights of 2013. The Torygraph has an interview with him today which is well worth a read.

I'm struggling to think of a theme for this post except that it's the second "white burg and port" report of the year as there was that rather interesting tasting at the Bakers' Hall earlier in the year.

The white burg we drank last night was a Beaune 1er cru Clos des Mouches 2006 from Yves Darviot. This was G's penultimate bottle and we drank it with some wild sea bass which I'd foraged from Selfridges food hall.

I adore white Beaune and this was no exception. It was a pleasing mid-pale gold colour and looked inviting. On the nose I found vanilla while G thought there was something floral going on, possibly heather honey. On the palate, it was dry, rich and full, but not blowsy. It was fully mature and in excellent condition. Possibly inspired by G's reference to honey, I detected a hint of beeswax, both in terms of texture and taste, but it wasn't unpleasant.

On a previous occasion, back in April 2010, we had a horizontal tasting and gave this a 9 while the 2005 received a 10. This time again we felt the 2006 scored 9 points and spent some time debating why this was. The best reason we could come up with was that it was lacking the narrow core of acidity that the best whites have - "the blade of Damascus" G said -  its backbone could have been firmer. Still, it was very pleasing and went down a treat, and it's sad that Yves has retired. I'll certainly be looking out for some white Beaune from Audiffred and Rateau at the Burgundy Portfolio en primeur tasting in January.

The vintage port was an old favourite, Smith Woodhouse 1970. We decanted this for lunch with friends on Sunday, but there was some left over so I had a cheeky glass last night and we'll be polishing it off tonight. It had flavours of prune and liquorice, and G thought there was a car tyre thing going on. This particular bottle was bottled in Oporto, whereas previously I've had it bottled in the UK - the famous bottle with the white splodge on, now a treasured part of my bottle collection.

Somehow this one seemed less developed than those were. If I'd been tasting it blind I doubt whether I'd have guessed it was as old as 1970. It's still a jolly nice drop.

In other news, I acquired a lovely fuzzy red notebook for Christmas, which I've decided to dedicate to wine notes instead of using scrappy little pieces of paper. A resolution for the new year is to make more detailed tasting notes in future rather than the "we drank this, it was great" that has been happening a lot lately.

Thanks for reading and I wish you a very happy 2014!

Dinner at mine, Sat 7th Dec

Last Saturday, ACC, Baron McG and G joined me for dinner. The date had been in the diary for a long time!

We kicked off with a bottle of blanc de noirs Cremant de Bourgogne from old favourite Domaine Felettig, and some Roka cheese crispies. Public transport problems added excitement but fortunately G and I managed to exercise self-restraint and there was still some fizz left for our guests when they arrived. We thought this has really come on since we bought it, and is developing nicely, and G suggested that I should set up a cremant ladder and store it for an additional year or two before drinking. Tempting!

With our starter of wild Irish sea trout, we had this bottle of Chassagne Montrachet 1er cru les Caillerets 2002 from Lequin-Colin. I got two bottles at a recent auction and G and I had drunk the first on an earlier occasion and considered it impeccable. Fortunately the second bottle was too, and it was everything you look for in 1er cru Chassagne, very classy and a great match with the sea trout. Definitely a 10 on the Premier Cru Project scale.

Then it was on to the piece de resistance, this magnum of 1971 Echezeaux from Prosper Maufoux, which was another auction find and quite a steal. The level looked promising, and the label was authentically filthy.

What can I say about this? It was everything I'd hoped for. The nose was very sweet and remarks about "hint of the sugar bag" were made (by me), but ACC thought this was unfair, and that 1971 was just a really great year for red Burgundy. It was absolutely delicious and went really well with the slow-cooked leg of lamb and gratin dauphinoise which I cooked. Baron McG was pleased to see there was some redcurrant jelly to go with it, and the wine and the food did go very well together.

Then it was on to the cheeseboard... these were mainly from Beillevaire on Montpelier St where the delightful shop assistant guided me to something which she called a Chablis (I think this must actually have been an Affidelice au Chablis) and the most amazing 2 year old Comte, as well as a Selles-sur-Cher which was practically climbing up the wall, and the saltier of the two Roqueforts they have. We also had some Stichelton from Selfridges - two blue cheeses because we were drinking port. As it was a special occasion, I'd also made some of my signature exfoliating hardcore oatcakes...

A few weeks ago G had tipped me off that Aldi of all places were selling a 30 year old tawny port. As there are no Aldis round here, I asked my parents to look out for it. Resisting the temptation to launch into a lengthy comparative socio-economic analysis of the north Northamptonshire / south Leicestershire region, it turned out that Kettering Aldi didn't sell it, but Market Harborough Aldi did! Thanks Dad for getting two bottles for me. It came in a hilarious extra-bulky and heavy decanter and wooden box. Given the price, £30, less than most 20 year old tawnies, we thought it was very respectable, and it did indeed come across as more complex than a 20 year old. I shall enjoy drinking the rest of it, and it has the added advantage that it will keep for a while after opening, so doesn't have to be guzzled in a hurry.

Alongside this, we had an unexpected treat from ACC, some 1997 Quinta da Roeda from Croft. He served this to us blind, so we had the usual couple of minutes of inaccurate guesses before its identity was revealed. When we found out what it was, it made sense - it had felt as though it might be 15-20 years old. It was fun to contrast the two styles.

We rounded off with an assiette de chocolat created by G, including some lovely Prestat chocolates supplied by Baron McG. All in all, a really fun evening. I hope 2014 brings more of the same!

Stuff out of storage

One of the drawbacks of living in a postage stamp-sized studio flat boutique penthouse in zone 1 is that there's not much space for one's personal wine cellar. Some get round this by storing their wine at the rural parental residence, but I find it easier to use the storage facility at Locke-King Vaults. My wine lives in a WWII air raid shelter until I decide that the joyous day has come and it can be taken out of storage.

It all runs very smoothly right up to the point where the delivery man encounters the porter of my building who 99.9% of the time makes a giant fuss about doing his job i.e. taking in parcels. Fortunately, last Friday I had a random day off work so when the porter decided to ring me at 7.45 a.m. I was able to don a hasty dressing gown and take delivery of my three boxes.

First up was a case of this Morgon 2009 from Domaine Boulon. 2009 was a very good year for Beaujolais and this certainly hit the spot. Drinking now but with no rush, it was top notch Morgon and went very well with our Breakfast Pig sausages from Turner and George. It will see me comfortably through the winter, and at £90 in bond equates to a fully-paid up bottle price of £11.40 plus storage and delivery costs, making it excellent value. I'm looking forward to trying the very special Cuvee Pauline from the same producer, but based on this, I should probably wait a couple of years.

Then there was a six-pack of this white St-Aubin 1er cru Les Frionnes from Latour-Labille. This cost £120 for six, so worked out at £26.40 a bottle all paid up, not including storage and delivery. It was pale gold in colour and looked very nice in the glass. I got lemon and vanilla on the nose and G found that it reminded him of Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc, praise indeed. On the palate it was precise and classy, with enough grip to work well with G's signature lamb biryani. Again it was drinking now but there's no rush, although I doubt it will hang around. All in all, I was delighted with it and we thought it was probably about as good a St-Aubin as you're likely to find. We gave it a 9 on the Premier Cru Project scale.

The third wine was this Volnay 2005 from Comte Armand which I'd been looking forward to getting my hands on. I believe this came from Berry Bros back in the day. I bought a case, but on the stock sheet it turned out to be two six-packs, so I was able to get one of them out and leave the other in. We decanted it for 2 hours. It certainly looked the part, both the bottle and the wine which was a dark purple colour and very glossy. On the palate, it was very polished and we thought it was competing in the premier cru league. My case cost £180 in bond making it £20.40 a bottle all paid-up (excluding storage and delivery) but this was certainly £30 if not £40 wine.

However, if I'm honest, I found it a little on the "international" side rather than reflecting Burgundian terroir. Perhaps I've been spoiled by drinking far more expressive Volnays from Vincent Perrin. I found this wine quite hard-going, one of those wines where one glass would be enough. Still, we heroically persisted, and as we approached the end of the bottle it seemed to improve, and developed notes of black cherry. Perhaps it just went better with cheese. I think I'll tuck it away for a while and give it 3 hours in the decanter in future. At least the other six pack is still in storage and it can stay there for a few more years!

A quartet of old clarets

Over the past few weeks G and I have been drinking the occasional bottle of claret to make a change.

Of the four, this Chateau Talbot 1978 was my least favourite. I found it quite hard work. On the nose, I got soil, while it had a very bitter finish. "Interesting" say my notes, euphemistically. There was some fruit underneath the soil and before the bitterness, and it was better with food, but I wouldn't be unduly bothered if I never got to drink it again.

This Chateau de Malescot St-Exupery 1978 was more like it. It didn't look old, but glossy, and had clearly been very well kept as it wasn't remotely over the hill. It had big, manly flavours including coffee, cocoa, charcoal, tobacco, earth and black cherry. It improved after an hour in the decanter, and was definitely not a "lunchtime claret". We thought it would probably have been undrinkable when it was young, but it was definitely drinkable now.

This 1978 Chateau Gruaud Larose was fabulous. We gave it 15 minutes in the decanter before we started drinking it. It was very cabernet sauvignon, with enticing blackcurrant and mint on the nose, and was very correct, smooth and poised on the palate. I wrote that it was still going strong after 90 minutes and showing no sign of age; shortly after I'd written that, inevitably, it faded.

Finally, there was this 1967 Chateau Montrose, my favourite of the four.

I suspect everyone who is into wine can remember the first, special wine that introduced them to this world where the angel choirs sing etc.etc. In 1995, G and I stayed for a weekend at the Crown in Southwold, and one evening at dinner he spotted a 1970 Montrose on their bin-end list for £40. That was a lot of money for us poor students back in those days but was nevertheless a steal. We ordered it and after one sniff, my eyes lit up, and the rest is history. It was the day I turned 22, and I've had a sentimental attachment to Montrose ever since.

From all accounts the 1967 shouldn't have been any good so I didn't have particularly high expectations. In fact it didn't seem old or in any way over the hill. It was glossy and dark in colour, and on the nose G got mint and pencilbox while I found baked fruit. The texture was lovely and silky-smooth, medium weight, and the finish was great. All in all, it was excellent old claret.

Most wine writers appear to have written off these old clarets, but our experience has been that they do have remarkable longevity and if they have been kept well, can still give great pleasure. That's a big if, though. Buying at auction is risky but G is very careful to look out for bottles with good levels, as that seems to be the best indicator that the wine is still ok. Thanks G for sharing these with me!