Linie Aquavit

Apologies for the lack of posts lately - things have been manic. However, 2011 bodes well with some exciting Christmas and New Year drinking lined up and a trip to Burgundy in the first week of January!

Meanwhile, I had the good fortune to be Copenhagen at the weekend and managed to procure a bottle of Linie Aquavit at the airport. I have to admit they didn't make it easy. Initially I opted for the litre bottle which was on special offer. But at the checkout, the man told me I couldn't have this as I was travelling within the EU, so instead I had to have the smaller size.

After several minutes fuming with indignation, I decided I wanted the damned stuff so much that I went back and got the half litre bottle. This time, the man told me I wasn't allowed that either, but only the 70cl bottle. I hadn't even seen this size of bottle on the shelf but fortunately (he could probably see the smoke coming out of my ears at that point) he was kind enough to go and get it for me, so all was well. I'm still not sure what that was all about, and why the 50cl bottle was banned! Heigh ho.

Linie Aquavit is made in Norway and travels round the world on a ship to mature. It's therefore of interest to a madeira-lover as that is the method they used to use to mature madeira. I have just looked up the (exceedingly wanky) website to learn more and see that it's made from potatoes - that could explain why it appeals so much to one of Irish ancestry - flavoured with aniseed and caraway. Apparently it's matured in sherry barrels.

The website has suggestions for a range of improbable-sounding cocktails (Linie Banana Dream - I don't think so) but G and I have been drinking it neat. It's a pale brown colour, 41.5% alcohol and has a clean, refreshing taste with a hint of fennel. It makes me feel as though I'm in Scandinavia again and apparently it goes well with smoked salmon - I may have to try that. Skål!

Best of the Best tasting, 3rd Dec

For several years now my friend ACC has been holding a Christmas wine tasting which is always a major highlight of the year. We have a champagne, white burgundy, red burgundy, claret, sauternes and port, and throughout the year I know he spends a lot of time thinking ahead to this one and sourcing goodies for it.

Last night eight of us braved the icy pavements of Battersea to join him for this annual event and it proved to be a fascinating evening. Although I did take photos at the end they have come out very badly and I promise that one of my new year's resolutions is going to be reading the camera manual so that they're focused in future! (Obviously it had nothing to do with having too much to drink.)

First up, as an aperitif, was a magnum of Pol Roger 1990. This was fine, mature champagne. It was a golden colour and had yeastiness on the nose and richness on the palate. ACC said that 1990 was a difficult vintage for Pol as some of their grapes ripened faster than others. I thought this was the kind of champagne that makes you realise it's actually a proper wine but it didn't particularly set my world on fire, if I'm honest.

The second wine was a Chevalier-Montrachet "La Cabotte" Grand Cru 2000 from Bouchard. Grand cru is the top echelon of Burgundy and I don't get to drink it very often so this was exciting. It looked nice, and was a pale gold colour. The nose reminded me of the sort of big full-on Meursault that I like, and had a slight cabbageyness to it. But on the palate, I found it rather unbalanced and it had a sharpness as I was swallowing it that I didn't enjoy. Others observed that it didn't have the finish you'd expect at this level. Possibly it was too cold - the room where we were tasting was quite cold as it was -3C outside, and possibly it was just too young - there was some discussion of when it would be drinking, and whether it would improve over the next 2-3 years. I hope so. This wine goes for around £200 so while it was great to get to try it, there's no way I'd actually ever buy it.

Then we moved on to the reds. First a 1988 Clos-Vougeot from Capitain Gagnerot, another grand cru. My first impression of this wine was very favourable - it was a beautiful mahogany colour, had a rich, sweet nose with a pleasant "hint of the farmyard", and had chocolate and red fruits on the palate - I wrote down that it was (expletive deleted) delicious! Then the finish hit me, and I found it rather bitter. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't an unpleasant kind of bitterness but had to concede defeat. When we came back to taste it again later, the nose had become quite vegetal and it was fading fast. ACC circulated the copy of Bougougne Aujourd'hui with the map of Clos-Vougeot showing how it's carved up between the different growers and arguably the section owned by Capitain Gagnerot isn't one of the best. Still, this wine apparently goes for £100-150 so it's not exactly cheap.

The fourth wine of the evening was a 1990 Mouton Rothschild. Mouton's labels are always very artistic and in this vintage the label was by Francis Bacon. I was looking forward to this wine, and ACC told us that Robert Parker doesn't like it, which I think raised everyone's expectations around the table as Parker tends to like obvious, big, alcoholic wines at the expense of subtlety and elegance.

Again it was a beautiful dark red colour and very clear and scintillating in the glass. The nose was a delicious cabernet sauvignon nose, all cedar and lead pencils. So it was looking good - but then on the palate, there was just nothing going on of any interest. I charitably described it as "restrained" which in this case was a euphemism for dull. It did have a very good finish. But given the price of this wine (around £300), I think most of us found it disappointing.

Last year, in contrast, we had some Chateau Latour 1997 which was my wine of the evening. My tasting notes read "It does bring a smile to my face." Now, of course, I regret not buying any!

Fortunately things immediately improved with the sauternes. This was a 1975 Chateau Pajot, Enclave d'Yquem. ACC said that this vineyard is within the Yquem vineyard itself but is owned by someone else. It's extremely obscure and production is tiny, and 1975 was a great sauternes vintage. I liked it very much. It wasn't too sweet (for a sweet wine) and was very elegant, with a lot of citrus, marmaladey notes. I thought it was absolute nectar and it was my wine of the evening.

Finally, we had some 1966 Quinta do Noval vintage port. This had a very intense nose, with figs and dates both mentioned. It was a fine, classic port with a slight spiritiness. G described it as a "complete" port and it was his wine of the evening. If I hadn't been drinking my beloved Smith Woodhouse 1970 earlier in the day, I might have agreed...

All in all, a very interesting tasting and as is often the case, it was great to try some things one would normally never get one's paws on. On this occasion the most expensive wines didn't deliver. This has often been the case in the past too - at the top level there may sometimes be a step up in quality but the step up in price is exponential. Unless I win the lottery (unlikely as I don't play it) I'll stick to wines further down the scale and feel pleased that I'm getting good value for money.

One photo that did turn out all right - a genuine Tommy Seaward I spotted in the corner of the office. It reminds me of strawberry bootlaces and I love it!

Dinner with Anne Parent, 25th Nov

I'm a huge fan of Anne Parent and her wines and have had the privilege of visiting her domaine in Pommard three times (I wrote about the last time, which was in January, here). So it was incredibly exciting to find that ACC had managed to get her to come over for a special dinner which was held at the Savile Club on Thursday.

I arrived with my brother and sister-in-law and we were shown into the posh lobby area (G is outraged at this description and says this room is called the sandpit - I'm not quite sure why as there was no sand in evidence) where people were mingling. We were immediately given a glass of the Bourgogne Blanc 2008 which was showing very well - it had that floral nose which I'm starting to associate with 2008 whites but also quite a firm backbone. At one point a waiter came over with a tray of gougeres which was very exciting but sadly that was the first and last time we saw them. They weren't as good as mine anyway...

After this, the dinner commenced and we found ourselves on the top table with Anne Parent herself (!) amongst others. ACC did a brief introduction and then Anne gave a speech where she explained that Burgundy is not complicated at all as it only has two grapes, chardonnay and pinot noir (I managed not to heckle and mention aligote and gamay), and just four levels of wine (bourgogne, village, premier cru and grand cru) and just four regions (Chablis, the Cote de Nuits, the Cote de Beaune, the Cote Chalonnaise and Maconnais - although this is five so clearly I've gone wrong somewhere). And only about 1,000 wine growers. The general gist was that it is very, very simple to understand Burgundy. This was very much tongue-in-cheek.

Anne went on to talk about the role of the winemaker. She believes that there is no such thing as a bad vintage, only a bad winemaker. Her family have been making wine since the mid-17th century and she herself is twelfth generation. You could hear the room collectively going "Bloody hell!" when she said this. Then she made the point that in certain other wine regions (e.g. some insignificant place beginning with B on the other side of France ho ho) they can change the proportions of the grapes to suit the vintage, but in Burgundy they're not allowed to do that - there aren't any other grapes to fall back on - so it's very important to do proper sorting.

I began to reminisce about the first time I visited her domaine in September 2006 in the middle of the harvest. It was early on a Saturday morning and in the courtyard we saw a stable-type building with the doors open. Inside there was a dining table fully laid with tablecloth and lovely cutlery and glassware, all ready for the workers' lunch later on. It looked like a Michelin-starred restaurant. That's how well she treats the people doing her harvest - we were very jealous!

Then we got cracking with the serious wines. With a hop, skip and a jump we climbed the giddy heights from bourgogne blanc right up to white Corton grand cru 2005. This is my desert island white Burgundy but I've only ever had cask samples, of the 2007 and 2008 vintages. G had never had it before and so the pressure was on as I boast about having had it at every opportunity. Fortunately the 2005 was wonderful. It's a relatively a pale colour, with a very classic white burg nose and on the palate it's rich yet elegant and has a finish that basically goes on until you can't wait any longer to have another sip. It's extremely accomplished and very much at the beginning of its life. For me there is no doubt that this wine gets 10/10 and needless to say, the next morning I made damn sure I got a couple of bottles which I will tuck away for 2013, hurrah!

Then it was onto the reds. As you can see from the picture of decadence at the top of this post, we had three reds simultaneously with the main course, which was great as it enabled us to compare them easily. The Savile came up with Riedel glasses (Anne gave a nod of approval when this was mentioned) and put little coloured stickers on the bottoms of each glass so that we didn't forget which was which halfway through proceedings - very thoughtful.

We had:

Pommard La Croix Blanche 2008

Pommard 1er cru Les Epenots 2004

Corton Les Renardes 2001

and with the cheese, Ladoix 2007.

Going back to Anne's crystal-clear classification, the Croix Blanche is a village-level Pommard. It's a lieu-dit i.e. the wine is made from the grapes from a specific vineyard. La Croix Blanche isn't a premier cru vineyard but it's right next to Les Grands Epenots, which is. I've tasted this wine several times and bought some of the 2007 vintage. I think of it as being an excellent Sunday lunch wine and as an "entry-level" Pommard it's hard to beat - it also costs significantly less than the premier crus. The 2008 vintage went down an absolute treat and I was surprised at how it was drinking so well so young. It had a delicious jammy fruit and was very approachable.

Next up was the clash of the titans (Titans Will Clash) - Pommard 1er cru Les Epenots v. Corton grand cru Les Renardes. This has always been a great dilemma for me as they are both superb and tres serieux. Anne has said in the past that if the village of Pommard had a grand cru, which it doesn't, it would be Les Epenots. I think this is a combination of grapes from Les Grands Epenots and Les Petits Epenots but hopefully somebody will correct me if I've got that wrong. This was tres Pommard - muscular and firm and well-structured. Essentially quite butch I guess, like an action movie hero. The Corton was softer and more sensual with a sort of mystique. I have to admit the Corton usually wins for me, although I love the Pommard too.

Finally, with the cheese course, we had the Ladoix 2007. You hardly ever see Ladoix in the UK which ACC attributes to the fact that we Brits don't know how to pronounce it. Therefore it's somewhat overlooked and can offer good value. I also know, having traipsed along the main road from Chorey to Ladoix back in January, that it's the next village along from Aloxe-Corton. So here you have Corton, with its grand crus, and a few feet away you have a village nobody has heard of. One of the reasons I love Burgundy! The Ladoix was more rustic than the other wines, but being from the 2007 vintage had that early-drinking charm. I note that we had it for lunch on 6th June but whereas G was not wowed by it on that occasion, on this evening he thought it went well with the cheeses - NB the English cheeses as Anne made a point of saying.

The wine and conversation continued to flow into the small hours and a good time was had by all. A fantastic evening! I'm just glad I didn't have to do the washing up...

Premier cru recent drinking roundup

Over the past couple of weeks we've been cracking through the premier crus at a fine pace!

1. Chambolle-Musigny 1er cru 2007, Domaine Odoul-Coquard

We visited this domaine back in May 2008 and loved their Chambolles. G picked up a case of this one which is coming on nicely - surprisingly early for a premier cru, but the 2007 reds are early-drinking and very charming in my opinion. This wine is made from a mixture of grapes from three different premier cru vineyards so we don't get to mark it off on the giant spreadsheet. Lovely stuff though and not crazy money. Gets a 9.

2. Nuits-St-Georges 1er cru Clos des Corvees Monopole 2008, Domaine Prieure Roch

This was procured from my favourite wine merchant in a bin end sale. There was some discussion about it as although it says 1er cru on the label, it doesn't specify a vineyard. Fortunately the Bible came to the rescue - Coates says they only have one holding and it's a monopole to boot! Slightly weird that they don't shout about it.

I found the nose heady, and we detected a hint of the sugar bag. G got baked plums and chocolate. On the palate, it was very soft and mature, but almost rustic. Old school. We agreed that it was not polished, but I actually found this rather endearing. It improved with food - duck with redcurrant jelly. In the end we upgraded it from an initial 7 to an 8.

3. Beaune 1er cru "en Genets" 1995, Bourgeois-Changarnier

ACC brought this back from Mon Millesime a few weeks ago. It had an excellent level for such an old wine, which was a promising start.

It was a beautiful colour and had that classic Beaune perfume. G said (and I checked I could quote this) that it was "almost good enough to rub in your armpits". All in all, tres Beaune. On the palate, it was characteristically delicate and elegant. It was fully mature and had no further to go but was as good as it would ever be.

I thought it was absolutely lovely but G said, and I have to agree, that it lacked the transcendental element of the Darviot Beaune Greves, so in the end it got a 9. Lovely stuff though. Thanks to ACC and Philippe.

4. Volnay 1er cru La Gigotte 1999, Domaine Darviot-Perrin

I got this in the same bin-end sale as the NSG. I did attempt to take a photo but it didn't turn out very well so sorry about that. It was a beautiful deep purple colour and had blackcurrant and redcurrant on the nose. On the palate, I have written "gosh" - it was big and rich but not very sophisticated, in fact rather rustic. G maintains that he prefers village-level Volnay to premier cru Volnay, and this did nothing to make him change his mind. We gave it an 8.

Where does this leave the premier cru project? Discussing it with friends last night the consensus was that we should ditch Montagny and Chablis - Montagny because its premier crus aren't proper premier crus (all wine from Montagny above a certain alcoholic percentage can call itself a premier cru) and Chablis because although technically Burgundy, it's much further north than the Cote de Nuits and Cote de Beaune which are what we're focussing on. This would leave us with 542 premier crus of which we have had 132.

We'll soon be approaching the stage where I can do some proper quantitative analysis and bore the pants off everybody! Stay tuned....

Quinta Santa Eufemia, 20 year old tawny port

G was recently the lucky recipient of a couple of bottles of this tawny port and generously shared them with me. This stuff was a revelation! Admittedly I haven't drunk tawny port for a very long time, but this showed how good it can be. You can see the colour was a reddish brown and it was more like a serious medium-sweet madeira than a vintage port. I stupidly failed to make any tasting notes but can remember that it was quite sweet and had an excellent finish. It also has the advantage that you don't have to decant it as it doesn't throw a sediment, although you miss the excitement that you get with vintage port of seeing how just much gunge is in the bottom of the bottle.

I've just done some homework and see that Richard Mayson, a port expert, considers that 20 years is the perfect age for a tawny, as it has greater age and complexity than a 10 year old, but without the prohibitive price tag of an older wine. To give an idea, I've had a look at prices for Taylors (probably the priciest of the port houses).

10 years old: £18 from Majestic

20 years old: £32.30 from Waitrose but £40 from House of Fraser (crikey!)

30 years old: £53.95 from the Whisky Exchange but £76 from House of Fraser (wtf!)

40 years old: £83 from the Whisky Exchange but £90 from Waitrose and £100 from guess who.

Clearly it pays to do your homework beforehand.

Other port houses make a 20 year old tawny retailing for less - Oddbins have Churchills for £25, Berry Bros have William Pickering (made by Quinta do Noval) for £24 and the Wine Society have Calem Colheita 1990 for £22 which I'm quite tempted to try. Something to think about as Christmas approaches.

Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru Morgeot 1995, Domaine Ramonet

Shit, I really need to clean my decanter...

And finally, saving the best till last. This popped up in a recent auction and I was thrilled to get it and four other mature white Chassagnes for not ridiculous money. Getting stuff at auction is always a risky business as you don't know the provenance and it's possible that its previous owner could have been storing it next to the radiator but I was relieved to see that the levels and colours look good, although I daresay at least one of the five will be ferked, as G would say.

We decanted it for about an hour and observed that it was an absolutely beautiful and coherent golden colour. It was dazzling. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I have taken a bad photo to try to explain what I mean.

On the nose, G found truffles and mushrooms, and I found that it did have a kind of earthiness to it, but not in a bad way. On the palate, it was astonishing. Vibrant, yet utterly refined. Very serious and magnificent and it had what I would call a good bone structure. It was not a wine to be gulped or hurried. G described it as "an intellectual's wine" which I think was spot on. It was a real privilege to drink this. There was no doubt that it was a 10 and we had a lengthy debate as to whether it was in fact the best white wine we've ever had. For me, it was in the top 3 but I don't think it beat the Verget Meursault Charmes.

Ramonet gets three stars from Coates, indicating that this is top-notch booze. The only wine that I've had from them before was a red premier cru Chassagne, La Boudriotte, which G and I had at the restaurant at the Tate and which we gave a 9. (I'm pretty sure I wanted to give it a 10 but I abided by the rules, which are lowest common denominator.)

Consulting the trusty premier cru spreadsheet also reveals that this time last year we had some 2007 Morgeot, but it was a red from Bernard Moreau. We gave that a 10 too.

Savigny-les-Beaune 1er cru Les Vergelesses 2006, Nicolas Potel

On Monday evening I came home to find that G had left a note in my flat saying he was back early due, and had already opened a premier cru for dinner. Oh okay then, twist my arm...

By the time we began to drink it, it had been decanted for an hour and 45 minutes. On the nose I found it slightly dumb and if anything rather brooding. On the palate, however, it was very charming with black cherries and cocoa. It was well-balanced, relatively light and accomplished. I have written "not at all rustic" as Savigny isn't known for its poise and delicacy. It was drinking well now and had a very good finish. We gave it a 9.

I was in Burgundy during the 2006 vintage and saw at first hand how many of the pinot grapes were, for want of a more technical term, mouldy, so to produce this wine in that vintage is quite an achievement in my book. And at £21 it was reasonable value - for once the Wine Society was not a total rip-off. I note that Steven Spurrier in the current edition of Decanter says that he rates Potel. I shall be bearing all this in mind for future reference.

St-Aubin 1er cru Sur Gamay 2006, Francois d'Allaines

After a couple of interesting St-Aubins a few months ago which made me think this might be a village I could get into, sadly this one was a disappointment.

We decanted it half an hour before drinking, and it looked nice enough. On the nose it was not very exciting and on the palate I have said "quite nice, pleasant but undistinguished". There was nothing wrong with it, but it just didn't do much for us and G felt that it lacked definition. We gave it a 7. At one point G suggested downgrading it to a 6 but I felt that would be unfair.

It came from the Wine Society and cost £23. Ouch. Consulting the trusty spreadsheet, I see that back in 2008 we had a 2004 St-Aubin En Remilly from the same producer, which also received a 7 and received the comment "should be £15 not £20!" I don't think I'll be rushing to buy any more wines from this domaine in future.

Nuits St Georges 1er cru Clos des Forêts St Georges 2003, Domaine de l'Arlot

Bit of a premier cru round-up coming up, but I thought I'd do them as separate entries to make life easier.

A while back G bought some Les Petits Plets from Domaine de l'Arlot which is made from the young vines of the same vineyard. I can't remember what vintage that was, but even though it was in half bottles and therefore you'd expect it to mature faster, I struggled with it and found it hard-going and basically not my cup of tea. So I wasn't expecting much from the this Clos des Forêts St George, which we bought from the Wine Society a few weeks ago, in fact I wasn't looking forward to it much at all. How wrong I was!

We decanted it and started drinking it right away. It had a nice plummy colour. On the nose I have written "Wow!" It was lovely, fruity, sweet and rich on the nose with lots of interesting spices - cinnamon, ginger, star anise, liquorice. G got wild strawberries with balsamic vinegar.

On the palate, it was congruent with the nose, big and intense, the kind of Nuits St Georges that I actually like. It had a kind of baked fruits flavour which is typical of 2003, an unusually hot year. While very much Cote de Nuits in style, it was not overpowering and not in the slightest bit difficult to drink. It was not a monster but had some finesse and a lovely sweetness to it. G thought it would last for another 5 years.

We had a look in Coates afterwards and saw that he describes it as medium-bodied. It simply wouldn't have occurred to me that a Nuits St Georges could be medium bodied but he is absolutely right.

This is a monopole, i.e. Domaine de l'Arlot own the whole vineyard, and on this occasion ACC's theory that monopoles tend to be particularly good was certainly borne out. It was a clear 10. I've got my dad a bottle as part of his birthday present, as this is the kind of wine that I think will appeal even to someone who doesn't drink much burgundy, so it will be interesting to see what he makes of it.

Saturday lunch, 23rd Oct

Last Saturday ACC and the Baron came round to my place for lunch and we jumped at the opportunity to open a couple of magnums, as not even G and I tend to consider a magnum a suitable bottle size for two...

First up, a magnum of champagne provided by G. This came from the Wine Society and was their Cuvee Millenaire made by Alfred Gratien from the 1995 vintage. This isn't something that they particularly draw your attention to in their list and we'd never noticed it before or never realised it was actually from the 1995 vintage, so a good spot by G.

I think it's fair to say that we adored it. It was fully mature, rich and briochey. We had it as an aperitif with some luque olives and also with the first course, some smoked sea trout which G had kindly procured from Borough Market.

I have to admit I was struggling slightly by the end of my third glass. I realise it isn't like me at all to say this but perhaps one can have too much of a good thing. However, I've ordered another magnum with a view to stashing it away for two and a half years as this would be just the thing for a major celebration. I notice that the Wine Soc think this will be over the hill by 2011 but I beg to disagree.

The main course was my famous beef carbonnade with Guinness and prunes which I'd made the night before and has never been known to let me down. It was even better than usual, she says modestly, which I attribute to the exellent stewing beef from the Ginger Pig. With this we had a magnum of bourgogne rouge from the Marquis de Mac Mahon. I picked up three of these in a recent bin end sale and when they arrived, they looked absolutely spectacular in a lovely wooden box which I intend to add to my wooden box collection.

It was from the 2007 vintage and therefore fairly light. The consensus was that it was still a bit young. Another one to keep for a couple of years then... this major celebration is looking promising already!

I hasten to add that we didn't drink all of the magnum, and moved on to the next wine which was a Volnay 2008 from Perrin provided by the Baron. We visited this domaine back in January which I blogged about here and I don't think we'll ever forget the charming hospitality of Vincent and that he let us sit in his warm kitchen on a freezing cold day. After that trip, the Baron bought some of this village Volnay while I opted for the white St Romain which is still in bond. Although young, the Volnay was delicious and in a relatively light and fruity style, but also very smooth. A reminder to me to seriously consider the Perrin Volnays in the 2009 vintage.

Finally, we had a vertical of Dow's port provided by ACC - the 1994 vintage in a half bottle against the 2004 late bottled vintage in a 50cl bottle. It was no surprise that the 1994 carried the day being both more mature and more complex, but they were both very good. As you can probably tell, I wasn't making tasting notes by this stage so apologies for my vague comments.

We had the port with some cheeses from the French cheese stall at Borough, including a fabulous Epoisses, in honour of the Baron whose full title is Baron McG of Croque-Epoisses. I do hope I get to try a croque-epoisses one day. I'm pleased to report that my hardcore home-made oatcakes went down well.

Needless to say, we finished off with coffee and Felettig marc, and finished off the bottle so I'm now anxiously awaiting further supplies - prunelle is no substitute! Lunch lasted five and a half hours which may be a record. A really enjoyable occasion.

Swiss Pinot Noir Society dinner, 18th Oct

Last night it was off to the Savile for the next instalment in the proceedings of the Society. Sadly ACC and T were unable to join us, so it was just G, P, D and me, but that was just about a quorum. Club rules prevent photography (that didn't stop the people at the table next to us but we were much better behaved than them) so I've shamelessly nicked photos from other places.

We began with G's champagne, Leclerc Mondet 2000. We've had a fair amount of this over the years and I expressed the view that "it has never failed to disappoint" which others were quicker than me to work out was a triple negative and thus the opposite of what I meant, oops. We all agreed that it was a very good, mature champagne. There was some speculation as to the mixture of grapes, with the view expressed that there was a relatively high percentage of pinot noir in there. How vintage champagne should be.

Next up we had P's Volgar sauvignon blanc 2007 from Italy. I hope I've deciphered P's handwriting correctly, and that it is called Volgar. This was a revelation. It had a very vibrant sauvignon nose, but was quite creamy on the palate, and the finish went on for ages. Everybody liked it.

After that, we moved on to a Penns Woods cabernet reserve 2005 from D. A whopping 14% according to the label but US labels are notoriously inaccurate and we thought it might be even higher. This was like a young, serious claret. I'd never come across a wine from Pennsylvania before and according to D, they have trouble getting the cabernet to ripen but in 2005 they were lucky. We suspected there might be some merlot in there too but I see the website says it's 100% cabernet sauvignon! Very good indeed.

Also provided by D, the oldest wine of the evening, a 1968 Freemark Abbey Napa Valley pinot noir. This had the enjoyably precise figure of 12.9% alcohol on the label. It reminded me of an old Burgundy and reminded G of old Alsace pinot noir, with a very sweet, jammy, tinned strawberry kind of nose. P detected rosewater. I would say it was reaching the end of its life but it was a real treat. I love drinking wine that's older than me!

After that, with the cheese course, we had my contribution: a vin jaune from the Jura, Chateau-Chalon 2000 from Domaine Berthet-Bondet. This came in a strange-shaped bottle which only held 620 ml. I got it from the Wine Society and followed their instructions to open it 24 hours in advance and serve cool. It reminded everyone of fino sherry - the best word I could find to describe it was "pungent". Interesting and austere, but I'm not sure it was actually very likable. I almost wonder if it would have been better as an aperitif, but think I will be sticking to sherry in future. Still, live and learn...

And finally, with pud, we had the 1982 Rivesaltes which I have blogged about before. G and I both felt it wasn't quite up to scratch compared to the other wines we'd had over the course of the evening, but P and D said nice things about it in the Book - "pleasantly medicinal" (no semi-dissolved paracetamol on this occasion), "long sweet finish". All in all, an evening of fascinating wine.

Assorted bits and pieces

It's been a good week on the vinous discovery front!

Things kicked off on Monday when I cunningly put a premier cru Rully in the fridge. This was Rully La Pucelle from the 2007 vintage which is relatively early-drinking, and made by Paul Jacqueson, of whom I'd never heard. I'm pleased to say that we learned our lesson from the Chassagne debacle and decanted it, admittedly just before serving. It was still very cold as it had been in the fridge all day. Sorry about the blurry pic. I think I need to get a new camera or perhaps actually learn how to use the one I already have.

I must admit I didn't have very high expectations since Rully is not in the main bit of Burgundy but is in the south, the Cote Chalonnaise, generally considered to be a bit second rate compared to the Cote d'Or. However, this wine showed us that it can deliver. It was quite rich but was balanced by a zingy acidity, and again G detected lemon wax (this seems to be becoming a recurring theme). It was really quite charming and we thought it was at the beginning of its drinking window. We toyed with giving it a 9, but eventually decided it was a high 8. I was interested to see that Clive Coates in his Bible gives Jacqueson a star and says that he's the best maker in the Cote Chalonnaise. Thanks to ACC for finding this one for us.

Then on Wednesday, my brother and sister-in-law came round which was a great excuse to make gougeres. We had them with some Cremant de Bourgogne from Dufouleur, the second round spiced up a bit with the addition of some unexpectedly sweet Creme de Peche also from Dufouleur, a happy coincidence.

Then we moved on to this wine, La Grola, made by Allegrini who are located in Valpolicella. My father of all people splashed out on a bottle of this and raved about it so I decided to get a couple when it was in a recent bin end sale. It was really rather fabulous, with an incredible dense colour and quite a dry finish. Apparently there's something very special about the micro-climate of this vineyard. Also of note is that it comes in a thunking great big heavy bottle, the sort of bottle where you're sure it can't possibly be empty because it weighs so much, but unfortunately it is.

After that we moved onto the cheese so I wheeled out my Smith Woodhouse 1970 which we had decanted on Monday night (and tasted, just for quality control purposes of course). The bottle doesn't have a label but I trust my wine merchant! There's a splosh of white paint to show which way up it should be kept. As you can see on the left side of the bottle there was a lot of sediment left behind, so the white splosh method clearly works well.

G turned up just as I was serving it and my sister in law complimented him on his port radar. I've had this port before and love it. Smith Woodhouse are not in the premier league of port shippers but that's good news from a pricing point of view. Some of their vintages aren't to my taste but they got this one right and it has a lovely pontefract cake character.

Finally, on Thursday, we had another premier cru which scored a 10. I'm going to write about that next week as I need to procure further supplies before giving the game away...

Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru Les Chaumees 2004, Jean-Noel Gagnard

Cracking on with the premier cru project, we drank this white Chassagne earlier in the week.

We didn't decant it, but poured it straight from the bottle. It had had about two hours in the fridge. It was a pale, classic-looking colour and on the nose quite rich, nutty and buttery. On the palate, again quite full and my notes say "tasty", while G detected lemon wax and commented on how dry it was on the finish, which had exceptional length. We felt it was ready to go and wouldn't benefit from further cellaring. Overall, this was polished, very classic white burgundy, but somehow it just didn't blow us away so we gave it an 8. As time went on, it rose in our estimation and ended up a a high 8, but nevertheless still an 8.

Three things give me cause for concern here.

1. Afterwards, I checked how much it had cost. £39 - ouch! We had felt it was a £30 bottle. Needless to say, it came from the Wine Society, not renowned for their competitive pricing as demonstrated in the previous post.

2. Clive Coates (aka the Bible) gives this domaine a star, signifying good things.

3. Typing it up on the pc spreadsheet just now, I see that we had a different Chassagne from the same domaine back in March 2008 for similar money and gave it a 10! Argh! You will recall that 10 is "heavenly choirs singing, sell your granny to get some more" on the scale whereas 8 is merely "very nice drop, thanks" or words to that effect.

What went wrong? We've controlled for producer, but the variables of vineyard, vintage and decanting all remain.

Vineyard. Looking at a map of Chassagne, I can see that Les Chaumees is at the far northern end and is relatively high up the slope. The other Chassagne we had, En Cailleret, is in the middle of the premier cru vineyards and not quite as high up the slope. So it's quite likely that En Cailleret is a slightly better vineyard, based on the Yves Darviot principle that the best place to be is halfway up the slope.

Vintage. It's always difficult to sum up vintages but neither 2001 nor 2004 is regarded as a great vintage for white burgundy. I've just checked a vintage chart which gives 2001 a 7 and 2004 an 8, which would suggest that Les Chaumees should have been better than the En Cailleret, but these vintage charts are only broad generalisations. A related point is that we drank the 2001 in March 2008 when it would have been 6.5 years old, while we drank the 2004 in 2010 when it was only 6 years old. Not much difference there.

Decanting. I think this is where we got it wrong on this occasion. Reading my notes on the En Cailleret, I recorded that "We started drinking after it had been decanted for about 20 min. It kept getting better and by 90 min was incredible." The fact that Les Chaumees also noticeably improved as time went on also indicates that it would have benefited from at least an hour in the decanter. Damn it.

The question now is whether to stump up the readies to buy another bottle to check... perhaps I'll wait until another vintage comes up. In the meantime, I shall be watching out for this domaine, and I shall be remembering to decant everything in future!

Dry Marc-tini

I originally set up this blog as an online aide-memoire and took the view that if anyone else cared to read it that would be lovely, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they didn't, as premier cru burgundy is fairly niche as hobbies go, and me wittering on about whether G gave something a score of 9 out of 10 while I only gave it 8 would be of little interest to anyone except ourselves and perhaps our favourite wine merchant.

However earlier today I was messing about on here and belatedly came across a page which shows me my blog stats, including which posts have been most viewed. I was quite taken aback as the most popular entries have been the two about gin, so much for a blog about burgundy!

Anyway, it's good timing as we did a Wine Society order this week and a bottle of Blackwood's 2007 was amongst the goodies procured. I've alluded to this before but my previous bottle was pre-blog, so I feel it deserves a proper entry and as I've spent the day tidying up and cleaning, I felt I could justify a marc-tini this evening which is like a dry martini but with a smidgeon of finest old marc de bourgogne instead of vermouth.

From the Blackwoods website: "We make Blackwood's Vintage Dry Gin with hand-harvested Shetland botanicals. Local crofters harvest our Shetland botanicals each summer, roughly between June and September (depends when summer comes, and whether it's warm and dry like 2003 or cool and wet and windy like 2005) in proportions that do not disturb the fragile local habitat. We have a sustainable harvesting programme to ensure harmony with Shetland's unspoilt environment. The sustainable sourcing and harvesting was developed with us by Highland Natural Products, FWAG and the Orkney Agronomy College. The plants are brought down to the mainland of Scotland to be gently small-batch distilled. Blackwood's is truly the essence of Shetland, and the world's only handpicked gin."

Gosh, who would have thought there was an Agronomy College on Orkney eh? As for FWAG, that stands for the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group, for those of you not up on your agricultural acronyms (um, which included me until I looked it up just now). The whole thing sounds terribly worthy and environmentally-friendly and very much a Good Thing.

I've just found out that, yet again, the Wine Society is a dreadful rip-off, as I paid a yuppie wanker price of £19 for it, but Googling just now has revealed that I could in fact have got it from Majestic for £16. Grrr! This sort of thing seems to happen rather frequently with the Wine Society, which is very irritating as it's supposed to be a co-operative and so one would assume it would be competitive as there should be no profit margin, but no. It's this kind of behaviour that gives socialism a bad name... take note, Red Ed.

Back to the marctini, which is excellent. I don't have the vocab to explain what is so good about the Blackwood's, but I just find it very smooth and harmonious. It's 40% alcohol too, none of your pesky watered-down 37.5% Gordons crap here. It does however come in a strange rather bulbous bottle with a cool picture of a Viking boat on it, which cunningly disguises the fact that it's only 70cl, as was the Sipsmith incidentally.

I'm eating a handful of Waitrose Lucques olives alongside, having had some of G's earlier in the week. I can't claim to be much of an olive expert but these are seriously good and compliment the marctini perfectly. Recommended.

Pernand-Vergelesses 1er cru Sous Fretille 2007, Rapet Pere et Fils

The other night we treated ourselves to this Pernand. I cunningly didn't look up beforehand where it had come from or how much it cost, so as to minimise preconceptions. I was also not entirely clear about where P-V actually is. Checking the yellow book reveals that it's near Aloxe and Ladoix.

It had been living in the fridge for the past 2 weeks (uncharacteristic self-control on my part!) so it was very cold. I decanted it half an hour before G got home.

It was a pleasing light straw colour as you can see. I found it rather dumb on the nose, possibly due to the excessive refrigeration.

On the palate it was quite sharp and austere - a refreshing wine - more Puligny than Meursault - but there was some honey there too. It had great length. G thought it was fabulous while I thought it was merely very nice, so we had a divergence when it came to scoring - he thought it was a 9 whereas I was stingy and only gave it an 8, so that's what it will get on the giant spreadsheet.

Talking to him about it later in the week, we think it may have been the "getting home after work on a hot day to find a lovely cold glass of white wine waiting" effect that caused him to rate it so highly. Tchah! I would never let such factors influence my judgement... Anyway, winter now appears to have arrived so we won't have that problem again in the near future.

We thought this was £25 wine and when I checked afterwards, I found that it cost 29 euros so that was pretty spot on. It came from Mon Millesime in Beaune. All in all, good stuff but I shan't be rushing to have more when there are so many other premier crus out there!

Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire vertical!

The other night after a hard day at work I succumbed to temptation and cracked open a bottle of my 2006 Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire. Shortly afterwards, G appeared and informed me that he had opened a bottle of (NB my) BGO 2005 downstairs the previous evening and still had some left. Immediately the light bulbs flashed on and a vertical tasting ensued.

Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire isn't something you see much of and I've just attempted to find out what the definition is, without much success. Basically it's a mixture of pinot noir and gamay, so it's a bit like a passetoutgrains, but passetoutgrains has to be at least 1/3 pinot, whereas I'm not clear if any such restriction exists for BGO.

Both of these wines came from Domaine Michel Martin, who happens to be the owner of the gite we have stayed in several times in Chorey-les-Beaune. I've tasted there twice and always enjoyed it very much. Monsieur Martin is always twinkly and welcoming and his wines are quite humble but delicious of their type.

Recently I acquired a mixed case of the 2005 and the 2006. The 2006 (on the left) has a vibrant red colour and is smooth, relatively light and very quaffable. My only quibble is that I get a slight stemminess on the finish. However, having been out in Burgundy for the 2006 harvest, we saw that a lot of the grapes were full of rot, so to produce something this good from that vintage is actually quite an achievement.

The 2005 is a darker, murkier, plummy colour. It has perhaps greater intensity and is well-rounded. Weirdly, we've discovered it gets better a day after opening. 2005 was a fabulous year for burgundy so I would predict that the 2005 BGO would beat the 2006, but what is surprising is how good the 2006 actually is.

Label detectives will note that the label underwent quite a transformation between the two years. Think I preferred the old one - the inverse law of labels means that this probably bodes well for the future! Hope he produced some BGO in 2009...

Sunday lunch in Brixton, 12th Sept

Last Sunday G and I went round to ACC's pad in Brixton for lunch. It was an absolutely beautiful autumn day, and there were lots of goodies on the menu!

We kicked off with a comparison of two whites, my Bouzereau Meursault 2002 and an Auxey-Duresses 1995 from Domaine Veronique de MacMahon provided by ACC. The Bouzereau was its usual self and I have blogged about it before so won't go over it again. The Auxey was fascinating. It had a nose of lemon and honey. I think if I'd been tasting it blind I would have mistaken it for a riesling, as it had a core of lime juice acidity. Very vibrant and we all liked it. It made the Meursault seem quite fat by comparison. Check out the classy wax seal!

Then we had a comparison of two reds: a Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru Abbaye de Morgeot 2006 from the Marquis de MacMahon provided by ACC versus an Echezeaux (grand cru) 1997 from Denis Thomas which I brought along.

The Chassagne was lovely - a gorgeous ruby colour. Very pretty and scintillating. It was classic Chassagne and reminded me why this is my favourite style of red burgundy, perfumed and elegant. We gave it a 9 for premier cru project purposes. Which, consulting my giant spreadsheet just now, is remarkably consistent as we had a half of the 2001 a couple of years ago and gave it an 9. Pleasing.

The Echezaux was rather a mystery as I picked it up for a bargain basement price at a recent auction. We weren't familiar with the producer but made the assumption that you don't get to produce grand cru burgundy unless you have some idea what you're doing (with perhaps one notable exception ahem) and it didn't disappoint. It was browner than the Chassagne, not surprising given its age, and more meaty on the nose. Rich, serious, delicious, intense, and mellow. That's probably enough adjectives. ACC liked the label and in particular the way the E of Echezeaux is in red. That's very classic, apparently.

Then we moved on to the hard stuff and in particular this old Bisquit cognac. At this point I was starting to flag and my handwriting becomes completely indecipherable except for "PRINCE BERNARD" which I clearly thought was an important point to note. Also "1956". Presumably the label detectives thought it was made then? It was very mellow and there was no fieriness left in it, which worked for me.

The food was great as always as ACC is very talented in that department - the smoked haddock and lentil terrine and tarte au praline were particular highlights. Thanks very much to ACC and we shall have a rematch in due course (better expand my terrine repertoire quick)!

Sipsmith Gin

Despite the name of this blog, I am not solely an Amatrice du Vin but also an Amatrice du Gin (and indeed myriad other alcholic substances).

The Waitrose mag had a huge plug for Sipsmith Gin this month and to show that I have not remotely learned my lesson after the blue gin debacle, I immediately went into credulous yuppie wanker mode and had to get some. It's made in Hammersmith and is all very artisinal and they only make small batches, the sort of thing of which I thoroughly approve. It's a remarkably precise 41.6% alcohol and cost the princely sum of £24. It also set the security alarm off as I left the shop but I decided to be nonchalant and pretend it wasn't me.

The article was illustrated with pictures of hairy men with beards who make the stuff, who look more like members of CAMRA than what I would expect a gin-maker to look like, although come to think of it I have no idea what I'd expect a gin-maker to look like. Possibly something like myself, after G discovered a juniper tree growing at the family estate in Rutland. But apparently the Sipsmith guys found it very hard to get a licence to distil so don't hold your breath.

Anyway, the same mag had a recipe for a pear martini so I also bought some ruinously expensive pear juice in order to have a bash, and that's the reason why this evening's post is even more rambling and inane than usual. This stuff is good!

My adaptation of the recipe (as I forgot to look it up beforehand and therefore forgot to get a lemon) is as follows: bung loads of ice in cocktail shaker, add a splash of elderly vermouth, then add equal quantities of gin and pear juice. This has turned out very well-balanced and not too sweet, which was my main concern, so I think the lemon can probably be dispensed with. The flavours complement each other well and it has a nice autumnal feel to it. This would be a good cocktail to make when you had company as the pear juice allegedly only lasts for 3 days after opening which means I have a lot of martinis to get through before Tuesday. Must get cracking!

I think a proper assessment of the gin will have to wait until I've made a dry martini or a G&T with it. But first impressions are favourable.

A mixed bag!

Last Saturday we had plans to go out for dinner with T at Number Twelve which is a nice Italian place in the Ambassadors Hotel just up the road. However, T did his homework beforehand and discovered that although they had cheerfully accepted my booking, the kitchen was effectively closed for August, and some dodgy-sounding alternative menu was being offered instead. G popped up there to have a look and confirmed that this was indeed the case, so I cancelled the booking and G made an emergency trip to the supermarket while I did an emergency clean of my flat. Admittedly this didn't take long, am just mentioning it to make it sound as though I wasn't delegating everything to him while I lazed about on the sofa...

T generously offered to bring something, which turned out to be very much in the spirit of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society: a Bulgarian rose fizz, vintage 2006, made by Edoardo Miroglio if my decoding of the swirly label is correct. It was a nice pale pink colour and I recorded that it had a delicate fruity nose. So far, so good. Sadly before I could get a mouthful without preconceptions, T had already made a start and used the word "penicillin" and then G took a sip and said it reminded him of paracetamol. It was difficult to be neutral with those descriptions in my head, and indeed it did have a slightly grainy quality just like badly-dissolved painkiller, particularly on the finish. We manfully finished our glasses with the aid of plenty of pistachio nuts, but the rest of the bottle remained untouched. Fellow members of the SPNS, you owe us one.

Fortunately I had an emergency bottle of Tio Pepe in the fridge, which went very nicely with our gazpacho - it's a decent workmanlike sherry, especially when on special offer at Waitrose.

With the main course, an assiette of charcuterie, we had one of G's 1978 clarets, in this case Chateau Chasse Spleen which is from the Medoc and the website tells me is 73% cabernet sauvignon, 20% merlot and 7% petit verdot. It was a lovely dark colour, had a fabulous nose of tar and liquorice, and was very soft on the palate. I got a lot of black cherry. Delicious and not in the least bit stemmy.

This went down very quickly so we followed it up with Chateau du Tertre 1978 which is a Margaux. The label caused some amusement with its reference to Arsac - according to Wikipedia, this is a commune in the Gironde and absolutely nothing to snigger about. It had a heady nose and I found it sweeter and more obvious than the Chasse Spleen. Apparently it's made from a mixture of 40% cabernet sauvignon, 35% merlot, 20% cabernet franc and 5% petit verdot. A discussion of the relative merits of cabernet sauvignon and merlot ensued and I promised to give T a BIG BLACK MARK for preferring merlot to cabernet sauvignon. Tchah! But while I didn't think it was in the same league as the other, it was soft and drinkable and very enjoyable.

We then moved on to a comparative tasting of digestifs: G's ancient vieille prune versus my marc, and finally the dreaded prunelle. The vieille prune won the day, as you'd expect given its age and price - it was very elegant and light. I adore the bottle, which is definitely joining my bottle collection when we finally finish the contents (so far great restraint has been shown).

T said that the marc seemed toasted after the vieille prune. We all felt it stood up well and G thought it had had 20-25 years in oak and was probably made in the late 70s. T found a lot of fruit in it - grapes and raisins. I hope that it restored his faith in marc after an earlier, less fortunate encounter.

Finally, the prunelle. I'd had high hopes that T might like this and I could palm off my remaining two bottles on him, but I should have known he'd have better taste than that. It was extraordinarily sweet after the other two, and just rather unsophisticated. I note that G has written "Riedel must make a prunelle glass" which is indeed a fair point, although somehow I doubt that even a special glass could rescue it.

At this stage T became desperate and began drinking my Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which not even I drink neat but save for kir royales, while we had a lengthy discussion about which club if any I should join. I remain tempted by the Oxford and Cambridge due to the reference to Happy Vintage Port Friday Afternoon on its website, but even by my standards, I'd have to get through a hell of a lot of bargain basement vintage port to recoup the membership fee.

All in all, an excellent evening and thanks to T and G for their fine or at least interesting contributions!

Meursault Les Grands Charrons 2002, Michel Bouzereau et Fils

This little beauty recently came up at an auction and I was lucky enough to get it. I had the pleasure of visiting this domaine back in 2007 with G and ACC - am in haste and can't find my notes from the trip, but I do remember that we were favourably impressed with the purity and elegance of the wines. However they're one of the top producers of Meursault and therefore prices tend to be on the high side.

G and I had a bottle last night. It's a beautiful pale gold colour and I decanted it for half an hour before we started guzzling, which past experience has shown helps it to open up. G's reaction to his first sip was an expletive, but in a good way; mine was "hell, yeah". This is wonderful serious Meursault, rich and buttery but also with a grapey quality. G observed that the oak is completely integrated, and the finish goes on some time. It's not a premier cru but the vineyard is just north of the premier cru belt, and this could compete with many premier crus in my opinion. It went perfectly with our roast chicken.

Marc-vellous!

My love of marc dates back to 2000 when G and I went to Beaune for our summer hols. We stayed at Hotel de la Cloche in Place Madeleine, and on our first night were in the mood for something simple so we went to a pavement cafe on the square where we had some hearty Burgundian fare and ended up with a huge brandy glass of marc each, probably about 3 measures. That night, dehydration kicked in big time. I'd been brought up on stories of how you weren't supposed to drink French tap water so it was a fairly dire situation. Since then, I've learned to ensure that 2 litres of water are at close hand any time I drink the stuff.

Marc is a spirit made from grape skins, seeds and stems from grapes which have been pressed to make wine - so it's basically the French equivalent of the Italian grappa. A glass at the end of a meal is the most wonderful thing, and I still remember the time I attempted to bring back a bottle of 1978 vintage marc but it got crushed in the taxi (long story) and ended up perfuming my rucksack. I got some strange looks on Eurostar that day.

ACC made my day a few weeks ago when he offered me some of this vieux marc de bourgogne from Henri Felettig. I haven't had the opportunity to visit this domaine, but they're based in Chambolle-Musigny in the Cote de Nuits. G went last year and raved about their wines, but he hadn't tried this. It's not cheap at £37.50 a bottle, and when I saw that I'd ended up with six bottles I was a little bit taken aback as for some reason I'd thought I was sharing the half-case with someone else but apparently not. I was slightly worried as to how I was going to get through it given that I also have three bottles of prunelle from Dufouleur at the moment. (Prunelle is like amaretto on steroids, sweet and almondy, but G doesn't like it so I'm having to drink it by myself, the horror.)

It turns out there won't be a problem - the first bottle barely lasted a week. This stuff is like no other marc I've ever had. It comes in a very heavy 70cl bottle with a yellow wax seal, always a sign of seriousness. I think it must be very old as it's incredibly mellow, with the classic nuts-and-raisins nose, and goes down with no fieriness, so you wouldn't think it was 40% alcohol. There has been no dehyrdration effect to date and all in all, it's a life-enhancing drink, a genuine eau-de-vie. I don't envisage that getting through the rest will be any great hardship, indeed we've already made a start. Now all I need is some of Anne Parent's marc to do a comparative tasting...

Hurrah for marc!

Bruno Desaunay-Bissey

On Thursday I was very excited to get the chance to go to an impromptu tasting down in Battersea organised by ACC to try some wines from a producer he has recently found.

I somehow braved the new door entry system and found the new office which was just as full of enticing goodies as the old one used to be, if not more so (marc so he he).

We kicked off with a glass of cremant from Agnes Paquet which was perfectly nice but for me, less interesting than the Dufouleur vintage cremant, of which I'm eagerly awaiting a new delivery of the 2007 and will then blog up.

Then it was onto the reds, which were from Bruno Desaunay-Bissey who is based in Flagey-Echezaux. Flagey is in the heart of the Cote de Nuits, between Vougeot and Vosne-Romanee. The bottles we tried were all from the 2008 vintage.

First we had a village Chambolle-Musigny, which had a vibrant nose and was quite light, soft and elegant on the palate. We thought it would be drinking in about 2 years, so one wouldn't need to wait too long. A bit of a crowd-pleaser I would say. Am seriously considering treating myself to a 6 pack.

Consulting the excellent maps in Coates, I see that Combe d'Orveau, the vineyard, is right on the Flagey border, and part of the vineyard is classified as premier cru, although not this particular part. I smuggled the rest of the bottle home with me so here's a photo, showing a traditional style label. Also, it's only 12.5% alcohol which is a plus point as far as I'm concerned.

After that there were two premier cru Vosne-Romanees, one was Les Rouges and the other I can't remember as I've somehow managed to lose my tasting notes, duh! Was it Les Beaux Monts? Les Rouges had a lot of red fruit although as ACC said this might be purely suggestive as a result of the name - he got raspberry, while N and I got redcurrant. The other one was more typique, with darker fruits and more power and richness, and would probably need 4 years or so to come round.

Finally we moved on to a pair of grand crus, a real treat for me as I very rarely get to drink anything at this level. We had an Echezeaux and a Grand-Echezeaux. N turned to vintage car analogies at this point and suggested (I hope I got this right) that the Echezeaux was like an old Bentley while the Grand-Echezeaux was like something sleeker. Certainly it was a delight to drink, with all the qualities of elegance, finesse, and structure in place, and while I'm wary of acquiring a Grand-Echezeaux habit, it's very tempting to get a bottle, tuck it away in a safe place and come back to it in 10 years. This is the highest level of red burgundy, and the price seemed very reasonable considering that. All in all, an excellent addition to the EPW portfolio of producers.

Sunday lunch, 18th July

Last Sunday it was my turn to host lunch. I used the fact that it was my birthday the previous Sunday to justify wheeling out some nice bottles.

While we were waiting for ACC to arrive, G produced this half of Hugel gewurz 1976, which was a different 1976 from the one we'd had at the Savile on Friday - this was the bog standard as opposed to the Selection Personelle. Alsace nerd, moi? It came in a 34cl bottle. G opened and poured, and you can see the colour from the photo, which led to immediate suspicions that it was ferked. One whiff confirmed this - very pungent indeed - and down the sink it went.

Fortunately I hadn't known G was going to produce this, so I'd already chilled a nice half of manzanilla which made a more than acceptable substitute. I note that I'm now down to my last 2 halves of this (when did I buy it? um about 3 weeks ago...) Je ne regrette rien, it has been ideal summer drinking.

For our starter we had some smoked sea trout which G had procured from a stall in Borough Market. It was lovely and went very well with a bottle of Domaine Leflaive bourgogne blanc 2007, which I have blogged about before so will not go into details. ACC provided some welcome expert advice, namely that this wine is not going to get any better, so that means no particular reason to hold onto it - hurrah!

For the main course we had roast fillet of beef which I got from the Ginger Pig, served cold with some salad. ACC had kindly brought along this Auxey-Duresses premier cru from Domaine Roulot 2002. We looked the domaine up in Coates to find that he gives it 3 stars, which is the score he gives "the best" - high praise indeed.

It was a relatively light colour with a slight amber tinge. On the nose it had a lovely, sweet fruit which I found quite heady and intoxicating. On the palate, it was absolutely delicious, and congruent with the nose. Rich and sweet yet light and soft. It reminded me of a red Chassagne, which is possibly my favourite style of Burgundy, very elegant. We all agreed this was a great lunchtime wine.

With the cheese, we had this Nuits St George premier cru Aux Perdrix, from Domaine du Perdrix, 2000. I knew that we'd had this before, but consulting my notes afterwards I was surprised to see it was actually the same vintage we'd had before too! Last time we gave it a 10, but this time it only got a 9.

It was a much darker colour than the Auxey, and on the nose had a lot of dark chocolate, prunes and black cherry. On the palate it was rich, deep, and mellow. I thought it actually had some parallels to the Auxey in its maturity and softness but this was very Cotes de Nuits style (darker flavours and black fruits) whereas the Auxey was very Cotes de Beaune style, lighter and with more red fruits. On this occasion, Roulot came out top - it was lunchtime after all, and qute hot in my flat. In future I should remember to save my C de N monsters for winter evenings!

We rounded off with coffee and a glass of G's mystery madeira which had a Berry Bros & Rudd label. He estimated that it came from the 1930s and was probably a malmsey. There must be a novel to be written about madeira detectives.