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.