Big Ben and dinner at mine, Saturday 12th Oct

Last Saturday was one of those days that doesn't come along too often.

In the morning, ACC, Baron McG and I had a private tour of Big Ben, thanks to my sister-in-law. She's friends with Paul Roberson, the Clockmaker at the Palace of Westminster (there's an interview with him here) and he kindly took us up the Elizabeth Tower. This was my second time seeing Big Ben in action for the midday bongs but was even better than the first, since there were just six of us, Paul had some wonderful stories and jokes, and we were granted access to some parts that the main tours don't get to see! As this is a wine blog, I'll restrict myself to three photos.

Inside the clock dial

Big Ben lui-meme

View south down the river

After the tour, we had a breather in the room with the clock mechanism. I produced a bottle of Pol Roger, Paul revealed his stash of glasses, and my brother produced mini-cheddars and TUC cheesy biscuits much to everyone's delight, and we toasted the experience. Magic. Then we descended the steep spiral staircase - at this point it was probably just as well we'd only had a glass of fizz each - and went for lunch at the Green Man and French Horn on St Martin's Lane. It specialises in food and wine from the Loire region and we were favourably impressed, especially since the set menu is excellent value.

There was just time for me to brave the hordes on the tube and nip over to Knightsbridge to pick up some cheeses from my favourite cheese shop. I see their website is charmingly translated and the English headline is "Federateur of gouts and of human passions". Should I mention this next time I'm there? More importantly, I got an update on the Mont d'Or situation: it will be a couple of weeks yet before the good stuff gets going...

Then it was back to AdeV Towers to prepare for dinner with D and G.

G had also been busy and had spent an hour at Borough Market hunting down the stall with the Irish wild smoked sea trout. We drank the last of my Chablis 1er cru Montmains 2008 from La Maison Romane with it. It took a few minutes to open up, as it had been in the fridge all day, but once it did, it was perfect.

There followed a pair of half-bottles of 1966 claret brought by D, which we drank with slow-cooked lamb and gratin dauphinois. The Haut-Brion was a lovely colour and very glossy, with liquorice, sous-bois and mushrooms on the nose. On the palate it was very smooth, rich and intense - delicious. G described it as an intellectual wine. The price tag of $14.95 made us groan with envy; I think it had been in D's cellar some time!

The second half was Mouton-Rothschild which D told us had cost $5 - those were the days! It was still a second-growth in 1966 before being promoted to first-growth status in 1973. This had cocoa on the nose and again it was quite earthy and very serious. G, who has drunk far more Mouton than I have, said it was discernibly Mouton. It was drinking very well now and I thought it was very charming indeed. D pointed out that lamb was a very suitable match for it, which was a lucky coincidence!

Next up we had some poached pears with this German wine provided by G - a 1989 Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Auslese which was just 8% alcohol.

Apologies for the wobbly photo but this shows what a wonderful colour it was. It was aromatic and sweet but with sufficient acidity to be very drinkable. "Dessert by itself" said D, but it did actually work really well with the poached pears and I think we'll be revisiting this combo soon.

Finally, with the cheese course, we had this half of Graham's 1977 brought by D.

This was quite a light colour and elegant. We thought it was ready to go in half, whereas in bottle that may not be the case.

Hilarious back label telling you how to open the bottle

All in all, this was a great evening - thanks D for sharing your gems with us and I hope we did them justice!

Epic trip draws to a close

On Friday evening, we went to Caveau des Arches for dinner, or "Arches!" as I'd been hilariously calling it all week, channelling Father Jack. I hadn't been there before but it came ACC-recommended so that was good enough for us, and I had done some pre-trip wine-list-reading which led me to believe this could be quite a good one.

They had a big party of businessmen in that evening so our table was in a small side room with just two tables, which ACC told us was called the Prison. We had the Traditional Menu, 30 euros each for four courses.

To start with, some gougeres which looked like snails - clever!

I won't give a blow-by-blow account of everything we ate, but it was all very good and I was completely stuffed by the end of it and unable to eat all my chocolate moelleux, disgraceful! The highlight, however, was the wine, which G chose (expertly guided by ACC and moi-meme). We went for a brace from the Domaine des Comtes Lafon - a Meursault villages 2008 followed by a Volnay 2009. I didn't make notes but they were both sensational, and at 105 and 78 euros respectively, a bargain, when one considers that the retail price of the Meursault is £80 and the Volnay £53 in the UK.

After dinner we popped upstairs where they have a new bar, and had our coffee and digestifs reclining on the luxurious chairs. I unwisely ordered a liqueur d'abricots which was sickly-sweet so I cunningly swapped it for G's better-chosen Fine de Bourgogne while he was distracted with the bill. It took some time for him to realise, as they were exactly the same colour. Once he did, he was not impressed.

The next morning we got up and packed, as we had to be out of the gite by 10.00. Luckily for us, Alain le taxi had offered to look after our suitcases for the morning, which was tres gentil and much appreciated. We spent some time at the flea market and then looking for somewhere to have breakfast. It was market day, and Beaune was very busy. A promising cafe was ruled out due to the presence of a small child, and I was getting grumpier by the second as a result of caffeine-deprivation, so we ended up getting croissants and then eating them with our coffee in what I call ACC's "locals' bar" which worked out very well.

Then we did some last-minute shopping at Magnum and la Boutique des Domaines before heading to Loiseau des Vignes for lunch.

We came here back in January and enjoyed it very much. They have a three course menu at lunch for 28 euros, very good value when you consider it has a Michelin star.

This is the cabinet with the wines available by the glass, using the "Enomatic" system, according to their website.

In fact we had this bottle of Bourgogne Cuvee L 2010 from Camille Giroud, which was wonderful. The only trouble was that the waiter placed the bottle carefully out of reach and then disappeared - the restaurant was full by this point - leaving us looking at it in despair yet reluctant to breach all etiquette by grabbing it to pour ourselves. Eventually when he did come back, we asked him to leave it on the table, and harmony was restored.

By this stage in the meal, I was taking random photos of everything.

Selection of cheeses - I was hoping we'd get to have the wonderful Epoisses we had last time, but it was not to be. The Ami du Chambertin was pretty damned good though. They have a marvellous-looking cheese trolley which we saw doing the rounds.

This was pudding - a yoghurt thing with fig ice cream, and two beignets.

Afterwards, we popped outside to have our coffee and final digestif of the trip.

We also spotted the secret door to the cellar. It was very tempting to sneak down there.

But we couldn't keep Alain le taxi waiting. He drew up with perfect timing just as we emerged from the restaurant. Merci beaucoup to Alain for everything.

We were in good time so were able to catch the train before the one we had planned to catch, which was great as the train we had planned to catch was running late. All was well and it was definitely time for a snooze.

At Dijon, we had the usual chaos getting onto the double-decker TGV, and sat opposite a party of rowdy Swiss people. Don't Swiss people know they're supposed to be quiet and well-behaved? Fortunately the announcement that we were arriving in Paris was made about half an hour early, while we were still clearly in open countryside, and they all got up and left at that point so we had a few moments of blissful peace and quiet.

At the Gare de Lyon, it was raining and the taxi queue extended for about 5 miles. The RER wasn't an option due to heavy baggage, so we stuck it out, and observed the sparrows eating people's sandwiches. After about 50 minutes, we were finally able to get in a taxi and were quite close to the Gare du Nord before promptly finding ourselves in a huge traffic jam. Our taxi driver did his best to get through it, but the chances of us catching our Eurostar were rapidly diminishing. I think we'd allowed about and hour and a half to get across Paris, but on this damp Saturday afternoon it wasn't enough.

We weren't too downcast as ACC thought they would be able to put us on the next train, but it turned out that a large coach party had also missed the train, so they were given priority and we were told to come back the next morning. Fortunately G had access to an eminent source of local knowledge, and was able to call him up for hotel recommendations. We made our way to the New Hotel across the road where they told us the good news was they had rooms available, the bad news was that they were on the sixth floor and the lift wasn't working. I'll be eternally grateful to G for carting our luggage up and indeed down six flights of difficult spiral stairs. Our room under the eaves was actually very nice, had a great view of the station, and even had a decent-sized bath.

After that, dinner at Terminus Nord was in order. I'd never been here before but ACC appeared to be quite a regular and even had a loyalty card! It was a bustling, traditional brasserie. I was very happy to get some steak-frites down me, and G and I enjoyed a bottle of red Rhone while ACC was on the beer by this point. For pudding, G had an enormous creme brulee - the table next to us had failed to eat one of these between three, but he has a special creme brulee stomach and wolfed it down with no problems at all.

After dinner I retreated to the hotel for an early night while the others went to a biodynamic wine bar. Then we were up at 6.30 to catch the 8.13 Eurostar. We had to tell the woman at the counter our sad story all over again, and were then given manual tickets at no extra charge, and found ourselves in a very empty, effectively first class carriage. Result! I have to hand it to Eurostar for their excellent service. So while the stopover in Paris was not what we'd planned, in the end it all worked out fine.

We arrived at St Pancras at about 9.30 on Sunday morning and walked home through the back streets of Bloomsbury which were very peaceful at that time of day. Then there was just time to unpack - all wine had made it back intact, with no repetition of the Great Marc Disaster of 2006 - and put some laundry on before heading down to SW2 for lunch with Baron McGuffog! It was so nice to have this to look forward to, and we regaled him with tales of our adventures while scoffing wonderful craft beers, pork pies and venison, and of course listening to the new Pet Shop Boys album, Electric. We had an amazing time, but it was good to be home.

Maison en Belles Lies, Friday 13th Sept

On Friday morning ACC had an early appointment in Meursault and it was agreed that G and I would join him there for lunch. We caught one of the few trains going south that stops at Meursault. The thing to remember is that it's a good half hour uphill walk from the station into the village, but the sun was shining and as we walked past vineyards with rough tracks we were reminded of the previous day's exciting tour of Chablis with Nathalie Fevre.

We passed this road sign, which put me in a very good mood - lots of my favourite things!

Then it was time for lunch at Le Bouchon. Here they do an amazing 12.70 euro three course lunch menu, including a buffet starter which had pate en croute and similar nice things. There's also a good range of wines by the "pot" so you don't have to have a whole bottle, which meant we could indulge in both red and white.

Afterwards G and I had a wander round Meursault. The market was just closing up and unfortunately the wine shop wasn't open, but there was quite a lot of activity and the ubiquitous cyclists wandering around looking lost.

Then it was time for our taxi which took us over to St Aubin where the winery of Maison en Belles Lies is located. Here we were greeted by Pierre Fenals. We sat along a bench at a trestle table and it was rather like being at school. We tasted seven wines altogether, all biodynamic.

The Aligote 2012 had a lovely, quite floral nose and was very appealing and easy-drinking. The other 2012s we tried were all red. The Hautes Cotes de Beaune had amazing red fruit on the nose but needed some time, as it had just had its final blending and wasn't quite knitted together yet. The Aloxe-Corton had very strong blackcurrants on the nose and was very pretty, while the Corton grand cru Les Perrieres was very Corton on the nose (undergrowth, and that foxy thing) and was serious and complex. The finish went on forever. This would be a wine to keep, definitely.

Then we tried some wines in bottle. The Aligote 2011 again was relatively soft on the palate and very drinkable, with a great finish. The Santenay blanc 2010 wasn't my kind of thing but G liked it, while as always the Beaune 1er cru Greves 2011 had a beautiful perfume on the nose and was very elegant, with succulent fruit. The view was that this needs 4-5 years. I have a six pack of this so am looking forward to 2016! Many thanks to Pierre for a very interesting tasting.

Afterwards we had some time to kill before Alain collected us, so we took some photos. I'm more a premier cru type myself but one had to do one's best with the props available. 

Day trip to Chablis and Domaine Nathalie & Gilles Fevre, Thursday 12th Sept

On the Thursday morning we got up bright and early and headed to Beaune station to catch a train to Tonnere. This turned out to be the slow train which goes all the way to Paris Gare de Bercy, and I rather enjoyed it; it wasn't crowded and stressy like the TGV frequently is, and we didn't have to change at Dijon. If I was travelling to Beaune in future and wasn't in a hurry, I'd give it serious consideration.

We emerged at Tonnere and were greeted by our hostess for the day, Nathalie Fevre. She whisked us off in her black Audi 4x4 to Fontenay-pres-Chablis, while a paper bag containing something that smelled rather nice slid about precariously on the back shelf. A few minutes later, we arrived at the winery of Domaine Fevre and were taken through to a very swish tasting room complete with bar stools, all very airy and light.

Then Nathalie gave us a tour of the winery, which contained many gleaming stainless steel tanks. Everything was modern and immaculate, quite a contrast to tastings in the Cote d'Or where there are usually cobwebs, gravel and earth all over the place.This was a big operation - the winery was like a small factory, and they employ 15 people. It's a far cry from the much smaller domaines down south. Nathalie used to work at La Chablisienne and she is the wine-maker here, while her husband Gilles takes care of the vineyards.

My French wasn't good enough for me to understand everything she was telling us but ACC gave me the edited highlights and it appeared that some of the tanks are horizontal instead of vertical, allowing the gunk (that's a technical term) to sink to the bottom more effectively. Nathalie's enthusiasm for experimentation to find the best ways of doing things reminded me of Anne Parent, and indeed they are in the same group of female wine-makers, Femmes et Vins de Bourgogne. They seem to be a pretty fabulous bunch, judging from that website.

Then it was time for a tasting of the various Chablis (is that the plural of Chablis?) made at the domaine. We tasted 8 wines altogether. The youngest one we tried was the Chablis 2012 which was bottled at the beginning of July. I thought this was very classic, with a good finish and good minerality, and it demanded to be drunk with fish. The 2012 vintage seems to be very promising indeed.

Then it was on to three premier crus from 2011 - Fourchaume, Mont de Milieu, and Vaulorent. The Mont de Milieu and the Vaulorent both have 15% aged in oak, while the Fourchaume is 100% stainless steel. I found I preferred the richness of the oaked wines. The Vaulorent was particularly serious and in my notes I described it as "posh". It comes in a big, light-resistant bottle and looks the part.

Next, we tried two premier crus from 2010 - the Mont de Milieu and the Vaulorent. These were both wonderful. Having just tasted the 2011s, it was clear how these wines which were a year older were more knitted together, and they were both sensational. For me, the Vaulorent had the edge but I loved them both. Subsequently ACC mentioned that he still had stocks of the 2008, so I've just succumbed.

Then we tasted a Chablis grand cru les Preuses 2010. This vineyard is next to Vaulorent - by now we were poring over the map to see the location of the various vineyards. It was even bigger and richer, but needed time. In some ways it was more mellow and softer, and G detected a spot of honey.

Nathalie disappeared briefly at this point and came back with a basket - a little aperitif, she said - containing about five million gougeres. It had been these in the paper bag making the car smell so nice. Could the day get any better? We dived in. There were so many that even with my limitless appetite for gougeres we barely scratched the surface.

Finally, we tried the Chablis grand cru les Preuses 2009. This was lovely. It had come together and was already drinking now, since 2009 didn't have as much acidity as the other vintages.

Then it was time for lunch. Nathalie very kindly took us to a restaurant in Chablis, Hostellerie des Clos. It was a hard life! The food here was excellent and beautifully presented, and to accompany it we drank some of her own 2008 Vaulorent while discussing a wide range of wine-related topics. We got the impression that Nathalie was well-known and quite a VIP at the restaurant, and although we didn't look at the wine list, I'd be confident some of her wines are on it. It seems that they recently lost their Michelin star but I can't think why, as this was up there, and I'd love to go back and perhaps stay there some time, as it's a hotel too.

Afterwards, she asked if we would like a tour of the vineyards. We had plenty of time before our train, so readily agreed. There followed a great adventure as we soon found ourselves off-road, on what can only be described as a rollercoaster ride hurtling up and down steep hills along rough tracks. From time to time we stopped and got out to have a look at the grapes on the vines.

At one point Nathalie was telling us about the soil. A large part of the minerally, pure character of Chablis comes from the limestone soil which is high in marine fossils. She literally bent down and scrabbled in the soil and produced some fossils which she told us were moules! I managed to drop mine while faffing about with my camera, but G kept his and here is a photo of it with my hand next to it to give an indication of scale. It's now sitting on my bookshelf as a souvenir of this amazing day.

Down south in the main part of Burgundy, we had the impression that the grapes were nowhere near ready and that the harvest would be towards the end of October, but here in Chablis, they were all set, and indeed started last week.

Afterwards, Nathalie dropped us back off in Tonnere where we did a spot of shopping for our supper and hung out by the station watching the school kids being collected, before catching our train back to Beaune. What a brilliant day. Thanks very much to Nathalie for her hospitality and time, and to ACC for taking us along with him to join in the fun. I learned a lot about Chablis and will certainly be looking out for the 2012s when they are released. With remarkable timing, the Burgundy Portfolio has just published an offer on some of the wines from this domaine which can be found here.

Domaine Bavard, Wednesday 11th Sept

Time had somehow flown and we were due at our next appointment, at Domaine Bavard. This was a few minutes down the road, and we ended up practically sprinting to get there, laden with purchases from the shop and other bits and pieces. All good exercise and there was no doubt in my mind that we had worked off our three course lunch by the time we got there.

This is a domaine which ACC has discovered relatively recently and despite being in Puligny, they don't actually make any Puligny, just to keep us on our toes. I was very impressed earlier in the year with the Bourgogne Blanc 2010 and red and white Auxey-Duresses, and already have some of these in my cellar, so I was looking forward to trying these and the other wines.

We tasted 11 wines and reviewing my notes, it's quite difficult to pick highlights as I loved most of them. Of the 2012s, the Bourgogne Blanc was everything you'd want in a Bourgogne Blanc with a lovely nose, good acidity and a certain weight to it, while the white Auxey-Duresses les Clous also had a wonderful nose, with more richness and I described it as delicious. The white Chassagne 1er cru Embrazieres was huge, big and fat, and I loved it, while the white Corton had a scintillating nose and an amazing finish - we felt it would need 10 years. G was particularly impressed with it, so hopefully he'll buy some, hint hint G.

Then we decamped to the cellar to try the red Auxey-Duresses which was still in barrel. This was very purple and had amazing legs. It had lovely fruit on the nose and was juicy and pretty on the palate, and running out of adjectives again I wrote that it was delicious. Only 1100 bottles were made, if my French comprehension was correct, so I'll have to make sure I grab some.

Overall, these were impressive wines at every level, and again showed that the 2012 vintage is shaping up to be very good indeed.