The 2012 Madeira Dinner

On Thursday evening it was off to the Savile Club for this year's Madeira Dinner, hosted as ever by G. This year marked a change in theme from producer to grape, and the grape of the evening was Sercial.

First up was this "five year old" solera of 1980s wines made by Manuel Eugenio Fernandes. G found this on the island and thinks it was bottled around 1995. It was a deep gold colour, with a dry, savoury nose. On the palate it was quite sharp and I didn't enjoy the finish. Given that there were 11 more to come, I dispensed with my glass after a couple of sips.

Things picked up with no.2, a 1986 vintage Sercial made by ABSL aka Barros e Sousa. G and his father have been visiting their place for years and there's a nice article about it here. Apparently this wine was bottled in 2008 giving it 22 years in barrel. It was a dark gold, had a pleasant nose and was relatively fruity on the palate. T mentioned varnish, and again it was very dry but this time much more elegant.

No.3 was a 1979 vintage from HM Borges. This was bottled in 2008 giving it 29 years in barrel. Now we were talking! This was almost sweet after 2, and reminded me of marmalade. It was much more my kind of thing, but arguably not typical of Sercial. Satisfying and with a lovely finish. Dare I mention that we finished it off at lunchtime today and very enjoyable it was too.

No. 4 was a 1969 vintage made by Adegas de Torreao. When first opened, this was very pungent on the nose (turps!), and that hadn't abated even two weeks later. It was hard-going and not likeable after the lovely no.3, so was rapidly consigned to the bucket. Often Madeira which has been in bottle for a long time is "bottle-sick" and needs several days for the nose to come through, but T said that "sometimes there comes a point when you have to accept that it's not sick, but terminally ill".

No. 5 was a 1950 Sercial made by Justino Henriques. For Burgundy and Beaujolais, I firmly believe in the Inverse Law of Labels i.e. the worse the label, the better the wine. Sadly, this law does not appear to apply to Madeira. The label is a horror, and the wine was worse. On one memorable occasion in the past, T described something as smelling of sick - this time he went a stage further and described it as "alcoholic sick". It didn't taste better than it smelled. It was vile. Oh dear.

G thinks that as this was bottled before the EU came into being, it wasn't actually Sercial at all but the inferior grape, Tinta Negra Mole. For once, we have something for which to thank the EU. The staff of the Savile had laid out dishes of crackers for palate-cleansing purposes, behind which were dishes of Bendicks mints clearly intended to go with the coffee. I was seriously tempted to eat a Bendicks mint at this point to take the horrible taste away.

Fortunately we got right back on form with no.6, a 1940 vintage from Blandy's, bottled in 1996. This was provided by T and was a really enjoyable wine, and a great example of Sercial. It had an enticing nose and was rich and relatively sweet in style. I detected vanilla and apricot. G compared Blandys as being like Taylors for port, i.e. it has a big, rich, distinctive full-on house style.

No. 7 was a 1937 from D'Oliveiras. This was bottled in 2003 giving it 66 years years in barrel. Until recently, Waitrose sold this online, but I can't see it on their website at the moment. It was very dark in colour reflecting the long period in barrel, and I found it very savoury and gravy-like on the palate. G said it was monumental, and it had a lovely gloopy quality.

Sadly, no.8 was another duffer. This was the 1928 made by Izidro and bottled in the mid-1970s. Again, it smelled revolting and G's father said it was cheesy. G said to be fair it wasn't actually labelled Sercial, so perhaps it was no surprise that it turned out not to be. Ghastly and straight into the bucket.

We sat down to dinner at this point and had no.9 and 10 with a chicken consomme. No. 9 was a 1927 from Leacock, with the SJ on the label standing for St John, which is a particular vineyard. This was bottled in 1937 so only had 10 years in barrel. T and I both got varnish on the nose, but not in a bad way. It was eye-bleedingly dry, hardcore sercial. I liked it, but I wouldn't want to drink a lot of it.

No.10 was a 1920 vintage from Barbeito, bottled around 1970. This was perfectly nice but not exceptional, given the company in which it found itself.

Steak pudding and claret followed, then we had the last  two Madeiras with the cheese course. No. 11 was an 1860 solera wine from Leacock. This was bottled in the 1950s according to G with his bottle-detective skills (no stamp = pre 1967, and apparently the stencilling in that shape is very 1950s). A Madeira solera has to contain at least 10% of the original vintage, unlike a sherry solera. I could have sat there sniffing it for ages. It had an unctuous mouthfeel and was rich yet still dry. Well-balanced and full. This was my wine of the evening, and many of those present agreed with me. It was very special indeed.

Finally, no.12 was a 19th century solera bottled by Nicolas the French wine firm in the 1950s. They were virtually the only French company to buy casks of Madeira and bottle it, as on the whole the French don't understand Madeira and use it to cook with - tchah! This had butterscotch on the nose and was very elegant and perfectly-balanced. It was G's favourite of the evening.

After that, we had lemon tart with some of G's excellent 1985 Bonnezeaux, and then went downstairs and sat outside on the terrace drinking up the box of leftovers, which was almost like having another tasting all over again. The conversation flowed into the small hours, but I was still remarkably functional yesterday - another reason why Madeira has the edge over port, in my opinion.

Conclusions of the evening: Sercials are dry in style but vary in terms of their fullness, from sharp and piercing to big and rich. The wines of Justino Henriques are to be avoided at all costs, while Leacocks are the way forward. Once again, thanks to G for another exceptional evening. It's such a privilege to drink these wines which he has collected and in many cases kept stashed away for several years waiting for the right occasion to bring them out. Bring on next year!

The Burgundy Portfolio 2010 en primeur tasting

On Tuesday night I attended this wine-tasting which was held in a convenient location close to Green Park tube. This was particularly exciting since some winemakers had come over to show their wines in person. It had been going since lunchtime and I got there at about 6.30 to find a buzzy, cheerful room and lots of people enjoying themselves. Many leading wine critics of their generation were there - OBL, Baron McG, Oz Clarke. Rumour had it that Jancis herself had whizzed round earlier and I was later presented with photographic confirmation. Excellent!

At the first table, HPK was presiding over a mixed bag of white wines. Two particularly stood out for me. First, the Chablis premier cru Montmains from La Maison Romane, of Prosper the horse fame. This had a really enticing nose and was the first big tick of the evening. The second was the "Ali Boit Boit et les 40 Buveurs" (ho ho!) produced by Agnes Paquet, who I note refers to herself as a "viticultrice" on her website, fab. I love her wines generally and this was something very different - a Prosecco-style fizz in a bottle with a crown cap, 50/50 chardonnay and aligote, and just 8% alcohol. Someone I spoke to said it reminded them of cider and I could see why - it was very effervescent and medium-dry. Just the thing to drink cold at lunchtime in the park on a hot summer's day, and good value too.

I was very happy to see Vincent Perrin - I've never forgotten time he prevented us from getting hypothermia by letting us sit in his kitchen - and apparently he'd flown in from Guadeloupe especially. I tasted my way through the range of five wines he was showing. The Bourgougne Rouge was  its usual light style - I scribbled "very fresh lunchtime style" which I see is exactly the same as I've always said about it, and am  glad I bought a case of the 2009 last year. Then there were three Volnays in ascending order, from a village wine "En Vaut", to the premier cru Sous la Carelle de la Chapelle, up to the monopole premier cru Les Gigottes. Again, these were elegant and stylish but difficult hard to taste now as they need time. I asked Vincent how long he would keep them for and he said 3-4 years. Then finally I tried the Pommard Chanlins which is a village wine. This vineyard is on the border with Volnay and right next to a premier cru vineyard (Rugiens). It was a much darker colour than the Volnays, and generally richer and bigger, but still elegant. In the past, I've tended to taste Perrin's wines just after tasting the monster Pommards made by Anne Parent. His is rather lighter in style than hers, but this year, I couldn't resist going for some.

At the next table was recent discovery Ludovic Belin with a range of wines mainly from Pernand-Vergelesses and Corton. I hadn't tried any of his wines before. First up was the Pernand-Vergelesses "Belles Filles" Blanc. It was slightly awkward asking Ludovic, a cheeky-looking young chap, for some of this, but fortunately I was in conversation with someone who spoke French so I was able to tag along behind her. My record-keeping at this stage of the evening was not all that it could have been, and I appear to have placed both a tick and a question mark next to this one. I think this means that my initial impression was favourable, but then when I came on to the next one, I thought that was even better. This was the Pernand-Vergelesses premier cru Sous Fretilles. The quality here was excellent and what was perhaps most surprising was that it was already very nice to drink and one wouldn't have to stash it away for too many years. Then there was the white grand cru Corton - lovely to try but sadly out of my price range this year.

On to the reds... first was the red Pernand-Vergelesses "Belles Filles" which had a wonderful nose of cherry stones and at £100 for 6, was very good value, given that some Bourgognes are now creeping up to £160 for 12 en primeur! There was also a premier cru Savigny-les-Beaune Les Lavieres which I think may have been the best Savigny I've ever tried, and the grand cru Corton-Renardes which again was lovely, and I'm still thinking about possibly getting some - at £220 for 6, again this seems like exceptional value.

Finally I moved round to ACC's table where he was presenting a variety of reds. As usual the Santenay and Chassagnes from Domaine de la Choupette went down very well, and Anne Parent's Ladoix and Pommard 1er cru Chaponnieres also stood out for me. I have to admit I was flagging by this stage, as there were about 40 wines altogether and I'm not used to tasting so many at once! Lightweight, etc.etc. ACC will probably be too modest to report this on his own excellent blog, but just before leaving, Oz Clarke said that he was "nibbling round the edges and there's some good stuff at the edges". An excellent summary of what the Burgundy Portfolio is all about - finding people making stuff in tiny quantities, so often nobody has heard of them, but which is still high quality.

I only realised at the end of the evening that these wines were all from the Cote de Beaune, which I suppose confirms that I'm a Cote de Beaune girl at heart - I love the purity and elegance, although I do also love the bigger dark fruits of the wines from the Cote de Nuits. With brilliant timing, the full en primeur offer has just appeared here on the Burgundy Portfolio website, so I can spend the rest of the day pondering what else to go for this year.

Finally (fanfare please) this is my 100th post on this blog! Thanks to my readers, whoever you are. I know some of you but am often intrigued to see that someone in e.g. Russia has been having a look! As long as the Chinese don't find out about Burgundy, we should be ok... On to the next 100 and there's lots to look forward to with the annual Madeira dinner, lunch at mine, and a Swiss Pinot Noir Society dinner all coming up in the next few days. So much for "Janupause"!

Terres Burgondes 2008, Domaine Emmanuel Giboulot

I attended an amazing 2010 en primeur tasting last night, which I'll write about at the weekend. But first, I wanted to report on this red from Domaine Giboulot. The label refers to it as a Vin de Pays de Sainte Marie La Blanche, rather than a Bourgogne. According to Wine-searcher, "A total of 17 small parishes are covered by the Sainte Marie La Blanche title, surrounding the village of the same name located just four miles south-east of Beaune... This is the land beyond the lowest slopes of the Cote d'Or escarpment and it is not granted the right to even the regional Bourgogne appellation. The slopes just to the west are a patchwork of highly prized vines bearing names like Montrachet and Corton. But the land here is flatter, more fertile and better suited to arable farming. That is not to say that no vines are planted, or that quality wine is not produced."

Have to agree on that final point! We decanted this for almost 2 hours before drinking it, as all of Giboulot's wines are biodynamic and definitely seem to benefit from plenty of time in the decanter. It was a dark plummy colour and packed with fruit on the nose - I particularly got tinned strawberries but we also thought there were some peardrops and some melon. To summarise, it smelled delicious! On the palate, it was tongue-tingling, light but packed with flavour and with a core of acidity. As usual with Giboulot, it was very pretty, delicate, classy and scintillating. If we'd been tasting it blind, we'd have guessed that it was a Chorey-les-Beaune, but it was not in the least bit rustic which Chorey sometimes can be. Finally, at just 11.5% alcohol, it offers a great contrast to some of the monster wines being produced elsewhere. No hangovers here. I'm thrilled that I have a case of it.

Graham's 1977 port with cheese

Also on New Year's Eve, we had this bottle of Graham's 1977 which I procured earlier in the year from a reliable source, i.e. ACC, at a very reasonable price. I notice that Cadman Fine Wines, who are based in my home town of Northampton, currently have it on special offer for £47.50 a bottle. It's normally £67.50, so that's quite a steal. (But "What's the provenance?!" I hear ACC cry... signs of seepage, hmmm.)

In the glass it was young-looking with a nice dark plummy colour. On the nose, it was heady and sweet, and we detected prunes. I don't know a lot about the 1977 vintage but G tells me these ports are known for being big, rich and alcoholic, and this certainly ticked those boxes. I would say it was relatively sweet in style. The second night it still had some spiritiness on the nose and the third time - yes, amazingly it lasted that long - it was even better. G thinks this is a sign that it will improve and could last another 10 or even 20 years.

We had it with a variety of cheeses from La Fromagerie who have a shop next to the Ginger Pig in Moxon Street, just off Marylebone High Street. I'm a huge fan of the Ginger Pig and go there nearly every week, walking past La Fromag. on the way, but I've always been put off going inside by what seemed to be an invisible yet very definite veil of smugness in the doorway. But G went there a few weeks ago and came back with some lovely stuff, then we went there together so I was able to observe how the system worked, and now I've been in all by myself!

They have a special cheese room with a sliding door so heavy you could dislocate your shoulder trying to open it, assuming you have the gall to presume that you're allowed to open it yourself in the first place - I'm still not quite sure what the rules are. The aim is to keep the temperature in the cheese room low and once inside, it's a treasure trove of obscure varieties. It was a good time to go, not too busy, and I was served by a helpful bloke and got a mouldy-looking goat's cheese, some Bleu des Causses and a Swedish cheese called Almnäs Tegel which turned out to be a bit like mature Gruyere and was just my kind of thing. The port went best with the Bleu des Causses, and my twice-baked oatcakes were a great success. Pretentious, moi? I should point out they were only twice-baked because they turned out not to be properly baked the first time round.

Two vintages of Cos

Continuing the claret theme (normal Burgundy service will be resumed shortly), over the Christmas / New Year period we also indulged in a bottle of 1976 a bottle of 1978 Chateau Cos d'Estournel. I got both of these at auction for the princely sum of £33 each. I've had a look to see what market price is, but couldn't find any listings for the 1976, and only a double magnum for the 1976 which is apparently £380 and VAT probably needs to be added to that, giving a bottle equivalent price of £114 - ha!

Cos is on my list of clarets that I know I like, so I was really looking forward to trying these, and it was also great to have them within days of each other and compare characteristics. It's a deuxième cru in the Medoc classification of 1855, and is a St.-Estèphe. I gather it usually consists of 60% cabernet sauvignon, 38% merlot and 2% cabernet franc, which means there is a relatively high proportion of merlot but according to BBR, don't be fooled as "these are full-bodied, dark, brooding tannic wines when young which develop a complexity and intensity that can rival many top growths from Pauillac."

The 1976 was glossy-looking and on the nose it had baked fruits which isn't altogether surprising as it was a very hot summer that year. I was only a nipper at the time but our local reservoir dried up, rather like it has been doing recently. So it wasn't quite the cedary nose that I love. On the palate, it was big, heady and chewy with dried berries and cooked blackcurrants. It was well-integrated and very smooth - G described it as "noble". However, it took 30 minutes to get going after we'd decanted it, and then began to fade after 1 hour 20 minutes, so had a short drinking window. Next time (because I got two bottles, hurrah), we will open it, wait for 30 minutes and then drink it within 45 minutes. We gave it 8/10.

We drank the 1978 the evening after the Latour 1964 (oh, the suffering!), so it had a lot to live up to. The bottle had an excellent level, into the neck. Again it was a nice dark glossy colour and on the nose it was more classic with the cedary thing going on. So far, so good. On the palate it didn't have the baked characteristics of the 1976 and had sweet fruit and smooth, integrated tannins. It was full, elegant and well-structured, really lovely mature claret with an excellent finish, and drinking very well now. It didn't fade over time in the way the 1976 did, and we thought it still had another 5 years or so life in it. We gave this 9/10.

Chateau Latour, 1964

One of my New Year's resolutions is to update this blog more frequently, rather than storing up a month's worth of drinking and then writing an enormous post about it, making vague comments along the lines of "um this was quite good, I think. Now let me cast my mind back. Was it red or white?"

So getting things off to a good start, there's plenty to write about the period between Christmas and New Year as we spent several evenings in drinking exciting things. We were most looking forward to this 1964 Chateau Latour. I'm trying to establish Chateau Latour as a New Year's Eve tradition - last year we had the 1960 vintage, and I appear not to have blogged about it, probably because I was off to Burgundy directly afterwards. The previous December, back in 2009, we had the 1997 vintage at ACC's famous Christmas tasting and my eyes were opened as I realised I'd discovered my dream claret.

The cork probably looks elongated in this photo, but it was very long, and you can make out the 1964 on it.

I was very lucky to get both the 1964 and 1965 in an auction earlier in the year for a knockdown price, between 1/3 and 1/4 of the market rate. We think the reason it was going cheap was because the label was mucked up and you can't see the vintage. This would mean that restaurateurs and collectors weren't interested - good news for me! The vintage was clear on the cork, which was exceptionally long and which G extracted with masterly precision, no easy process. The level was mid shoulder which considering its age wasn't a major cause for concern.

I was able to swing into action and use one of my new Moleskine Carnet des Vins (thanks to D and G and C for these - I ended up with two! clearly this year's on-trend Christmas present - but not a problem as have already used up quite a bit of the first one) and also the two Riedel claret glasses which Mum kindly gave me. It was a good Christmas for wine-related gifts. The Carnet des Vins comes with a number of stickers expressing various sentiments, which I doubted whether I'd be using - until I saw the one with "Best ever!" on it. That, in a nutshell, was the Latour 1964 experience.

We decanted it and it took 50 minutes to get going. I couldn't get over how beautiful it looked. Intensely dark and glossy, glinting like a jewel, it was a pleasure to look at. I haven't really recorded the nose, as it was quite dumb to start with and only opened up after we'd started drinking it. On the palate it had the cedary thing going on which is what I look for in a claret, and a velvety mouthfeel. It was muscular and powerful, packed with flavours including liquorice and marinated black cherry. The finish went on forever as you'd expect.

Another night in at A de V Towers

Proper conversation was frequently replaced by incoherent noises, because I had sipped some and was reluctant to swallow it. We had it with some excellent roast sirloin from the Ginger Pig and I had to eat my dinner very slowly. G thought it might have gone better with game, and I suggested perhaps venison, but the sirloin did the job very well.

It was a wine to be savoured and G stated that it was complete, which is high praise from him. I think what struck us both was how it had no sign of age, given that it was 47 years old! It was fully mature but we thought it could last another 20 years, which immediately made me start wondering how I could get hold of some more. I don't drink a lot of claret - not because I don't like it but because it's just so damned expensive compared to Burgundy - so I didn't know much about 1964 as a vintage but G tells me it was a very good one, not in the league of 1961 or 1970 but not far off. This made me realise again how lucky I was to get it, as Latour from those vintages is pushing four figures.

All in all, this was the best claret I've ever had, and the best wine I've ever had too. Desert island stuff. I'm looking forward to drinking the 1965 in due course, although it may have to wait until New Year's Eve 2012.