SPNS dinner, 13th May

On a Tuesday evening a couple of weeks ago, we gathered in the Savile bar for the next Swiss Pinot Noir Society evening. Present and correct were D, P, G, myself and a special guest, none other than Baron McG himself. Sadly ACC and T were otherwise engaged. Miss it, miss out, as ACC is fond of saying...

We commenced with this bottle of Champagne Moutard provided by P - cue lots of inevitable jokes about mustard. This was well-received with the general verdict being that it was pleasingly mature, elegant and well-rounded. It's available for £20.99 from Naked Wines and at that price I consider it to be very good value for what it is, although it may also have benefited from a little extra time in P's cellar.

We went upstairs to the dining room and as there is often a lull in proceedings at this stage, I produced a Tio Pepe Fino "en Rama" to keep us going until the starters arrived. This is a special release, and it's extra fresh and unfiltered. It was bottled in April and you're supposed to drink it as soon as possible after release, certainly within 6 months. I'd had it about a week and if anyone had been snoozing at this stage, it would certainly have woken them up - it was sharp and zingy. I got mine from the Wine Society who sell it for £14.50 a bottle, but there are other stockists such as Adnams. I may just have to order some more while it's still available...

Then, with our starters, we moved on to G's contribution, this dry white from Madeira, Barbusano Verdelho 2011. G told us how previously he had believed there was no good table wine from Madeira but then had come across this in a restaurant and been pleasantly surprised. It was a refreshing, relatively light white wine, crisp, with good acidity. It went down well and made an enjoyable change from the sort of white wine I usually drink.

With our main course, we knocked my second and last magnum of Echezeaux 1971 on the head. This was made by Prosper Maufoux and we had the first one at a dinner with ACC and the Baron back in December, which I blogged about here. I was hoping very much that this one would turn out to be as good, as I have a history of bringing corked bottles to SPNS. It wasn't just as good, it was better!

It had a lovely fragrance and sweet, dark fruit. It was fully mature, dangerously drinkable, and generally delicious. We had no trouble getting through it. The only dilemma was what to eat with it since for some reason there was no red meat on the menu that evening! P and I ended up having a full English breakfast while D had tuna and G and the Baron had veal chops. I think we were all happy with our choices!

Finally, D's contribution was this 1969 Moscatel de Setubal which is a Portuguese dessert wine. I have to confess I'd never heard of it until now! It was grapey, with good acidity. D detected spice and honey, while the Baron declared that it was amazing with his sticky toffee pudding. All in all, an excellent way to round off the meal. Thanks to everyone for another excellent evening!