Champagne Pierre Jamain, 2004

At lunch a few weeks ago, ACC turned up with this vintage champagne from Pierre Jamain which went down a treat. It was relatively light and elegant and made from 100% chardonnay i.e. blanc de blancs which is a style I like. I understand from ACC that it's keenly priced. A bonus: it comes with a hideous picture of a woman in a bonnet on the metal cap thing. I would have taken a close-up photo but I was worried it would break my camera.

I really must drink more champagne - don't want to end up like John Maynard Keynes regetting his failure to do so on his deathbed. It was interesting to read Jancis's column in last week's FT where she talked about recent developments in English sparkling wines and how they compare to Champagne. I've had the odd bottle of Nyetimber and Ridgeview, and the latter in particular has impressed me, but I always feel slightly resentful that they are so expensive, so it was good to see Jancis telling it how it is: "All in all, I think the best English sparkling wines, the ones listed on the previous page, acquitted themselves well, but the lesser ones did nothing at all for our national pride, especially considering their price."

Beaune 1er cru Clos du Roi, Domaine Martin, 2007

I first tasted this wine at the domaine a couple of years ago - can't remember if it was still in barrel or if it had recently been bottled, but either way I didn't like it and it took some persuasion to get me to try it again. It's come on a long way since then.

The Martins are based in Chorey and are an engagingly small operation - I've blogged about their bourgognes before and am also a huge fan of their Chorey and their Savigny. The Clos du Roi vineyard is at the northern end of Beaune bordering Savigny.

We decanted it for about half an hour. On the nose it had the lovely classic Beaune perfume, and on the palate I found it soft, light and well-balanced with a certain sweetness. It had a great finish and we felt it was drinking well now but would last another 5 years - I've bought a couple more to stash away for a while. We gave it a 9.

G. Miclo Eau de Vie de Framboise Sauvage, Grande Reserve

Apologies for the lack of posts lately - I've been somewhat in the doldrums, but it feels like spring today, time to turn over a new leaf and get back to the blog!

G picked up this Framboise Sauvage from Gilbert Miclo recently and it's quite remarkable. It's 43% alcohol and the bottle is only 50cl but looks bigger, due to the lovely tall shape of it which gives the game away that the distillery is based in Alsace. Having looked at that website, I'd like to visit, not least to get some Gentiane (what am I saying, I don't even like Gentiane)!

It's clear in colour and has a wonderfully fragrant nose of raspberries before packing a fiery punch as it goes down. Oomph. Apparently it should be served chilled but not with ice. We haven't been chilling it but perhaps we should try that.

NB the Tradition range is aged for 2 years, but the Grande Reserve range is aged for 4 years, so it's a bit better and costs a little bit more.

This eau de vie (such a lovely name for a drink) is available from Berry Bros for £23.50 for 50cl. The Kirsch Grande Reserve is also available from BBR but it's £35 which suggests that the Framboise Sauvage is actually rather good value. You might think it looks like a pricing error; I couldn't possibly comment...

Michel Cluizel chocolate

My one-woman online campaign to get "US man survives chocolate ordeal" to the top of the BBC website's most-read list, out of appreciation for the sinister last sentence of the article, has sadly failed to yield tangible results. So as a sort of New Year's resolution I made a vow to eat less chocolate this year, but better.

Waitrose cruelly took their limited range of Michel Cluizel off the shelves a few months ago, so some googling was in order which led to the discovery of the Chocolate Trading Co and since then all hell has broken loose. As any small child could have told me, access to good chocolate means more gets eaten, not less, and before one knows it, one has a fifty quid a month chocolate habit. I like to think I'm doing my bit for the French economy.

My current favourite is Noir aux Ecorces d'Orange, which has little pieces of orange peel incorporated into the chocolate.

Also extremely fine, and slightly crunchy, is the Noir aux Grue de Cacao (cocoa nibs). There are multi-packs to feast the senses and the packaging is smart and colour-coded to enable you to tell your Los Ancones from your Maralumi single estate. The possibility of wheeling out a box of tasting discs at a future dinner is very tempting, and they also sell chocolate mushrooms. I haven't tried those yet, but it's only a matter of time. How cute are these?