Lunch at mine, Sunday 28th Sept

On Sunday, we had the honour of a visit from T, who had ventured down from the sticks especially for the occasion. It was a good opportunity to drink some nice things that had been lurking in my wardrobe!

First up was this Chablis 1er cru Vaulorent 2008 from Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fevre. I (and my mother!) have been drinking a lot of the 2010 vintage lately which is arguably infanticide. The 2008 is more mature and drinking very nicely now. T got a whiff of something which G identified as mushrooms, while I found it completely beguiling, perfect mature Chablis. We had it with some smoked trout which G had obtained from Borough Market - a rather complicated filleting process took place before we could eat it, but it was worth it, a great combo.

Next up was this bottle of Chateau Latour 1960 to accompany our lamb shanks and gratin dauphinoise. T made the shocking revelation that he'd never drunk Latour before! Better late than never, I suppose...

Although the level was mid-shoulder, with a bottle of this age that wasn't a particular cause for concern and it turned out to be intense, majestic claret. Latour does seem to be wonderfully consistent and to produce great wines even in lesser vintages. G drew our attention to the minty overtones of the cabernet sauvignon in the mix. A wine to savour.

Finally, with our poached pears, we drank two petite (250 ml) bottles of 2005 Royal Tokaji 5 puttonyos provided by T. This was a beautiful amber colour, complemented the pears very nicely and the finish went on forever, with distinct flavours of apricots. We all agreed that it was more interesting than most Sauternes.

Coffee, a spot of marc de bourgogne and much irreverent conversation completed the picture. I can think of worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon! Thanks T for coming all the way to join us and for not bringing the Thai pink the Tokaji!

A couple of reds drinking nicely now

This week, even though it's been quite warm, we've mostly been drinking red wine. I'll need to get some more bourgognes out of storage soon at this rate!

On Sunday night G returned from the rural idyll bearing this Pommard Vieilles Vignes 2007 from Domaine Latour-Labille. It was glossy and a lovely dark colour. On the palate, we found it juicy, succulent, elegant and supple - G described it as "singing". There are times when I find Pommard a bit too heavy and powerful, but Latour-Labille are based in Meursault and it shows. We've loved their red Meusaults and this exhibited similar finesse. It was drinking absolutely perfectly now.

Then on Tuesday night we had this bottle of Bourgogne Rouge from Meo-Camuzet, a recent auction find, from the fabled 2006 vintage (this is sarcasm, the Wine Soc are forever going on about what a great vintage it was, when I saw for myself that it wasn't. "I was there, where were you" etc. etc.).

Again, it had a dark colour, but this time that was a sign of its Cote de Nuits heritage, as Meo-Camuzet are based in Vosne-Romanee. I got masses of black cherry on the nose and G mentioned pear drops. The palate was congruent but for me there was some bitterness on the finish, like black coffee, while G thought there was tart cranberry fruit. It grew on me as time went on, suggesting that it might benefit from a few minutes in the decanter, and it went very nicely with our sausages.

In other news, I've followed in the footsteps of a certain ACC onto Twitter and can be found spouting further nonsense there at twitter.com/amatriceduvin - but this blog will certainly continue, not least because I can't fit all our pretentious tasting notes into 140 characters...

Sunday lunch at ACC's, 7th September

On Sunday G and I caught the trusty 68 bus southwards for an epic lunch at ACC Towers.

I failed to take a photo of the first wine we drank, a Pouilly-Fume, which made a very pleasant aperitif on a surprisingly warm September day.

"Colour is not a function of pinot noir"

We were then offered a choice of three reds. I couldn't deny that the Beaune 2008 from Domaine Giboulot was my first preference, and it was duly opened. Such a glorious wine, light and beautiful as always. I'd been under the impression for a long time that you needed to decant Giboulot's delicate biodynamic wines 90 minutes in advance, but apparently that's not the case, which is great news as it means G and I can drink them on week nights now!

Another guest, J, had brought along this bottle of 2008 Chateau Leoville Poyferre. I don't drink a lot of young claret but this was lovely and certainly seemed ready to go. A discussion of the change in claret-making techniques over the past few years followed - apparently it's much more scientific than it used to be and the wines are made to drink younger, which I guess is a good thing as you don't now have to wait 35 years for them to come round.

Back label

Spot the difference!

Next up was the bottle of 2007 red Chassagne-Montrachet from Domaine de la Choupette (not to be confused with Karl Lagerfield's cat) which I'd brought along. I got this out of storage recently and this was the second bottle I've had since then. I absolutely love it - for me, it has a very strong smell and taste of redcurrants and maybe other red fruit too, is really succulent, and all in all a great expression of Cote de Beaune style pinot noir. I always think that the wines of this domaine take a while to come round and the 2007 is drinking nicely now, at 7 years old. It was revealed that J has recently been drinking the 2011 so opinions may differ.

What's that green stuff? Answers on a postcard

G's contribution was "the most expensive raspberry tart in history" bought from Patisserie des Reves in Marylebone High Street. There's one born every minute...

With this we had a half of 1996 Moscatel Reserva from Quinta do Portal, which was well-chilled and made a very enjoyable, refreshing dessert wine.

Then, as it appeared we weren't finished yet, ACC cracked open this Cote de Brouilly from Domaine Trichard (there is some enjoyably bad translation on this website: "Discover wines of soils with the tempered character, with the aromas of fruits, and exceptional obstinacy") which I believe was a 2007. I wasn't making notes but this was decent, mature beaujolais and I'm led to believe it's rather good value! Another great lunch and thanks to ACC for his hospitality.  

Aquavit and gravadlax

I see August has managed to pass by without me writing a single entry on here, but worry not, this blog is not moribund! I've just been out and about a lot, including a few days in Malmo seeing my friends there. I failed to take any photos of our crayfish party but the carnage was not photogenic in any case. I did at least manage to bring back some aquavit.

The Bridge!

After an afternoon sampling the delights of the Malmo festival, visiting various designer-type shops ranging from swanky to trashy, and stuffing our faces with cake at the fabled Hollandia (where I was very glad to be with someone who understood the complex queueing system), my Swedish friend and I went home via the state-owned booze shop which is a place of fascination for me. It's actually nothing like as bad as you might expect and has a pretty good range of stuff comparable to a UK off-licence, but not as cheap.

Here I was able to look at a range of aquavits and to make a change from Linie aquavit which I wrote about here, I went for this Herr Gards one instead. It cost 199 kronor if memory serves, which is about £20, for a 500ml bottle, so is more expensive than the Linie stuff. Also, it's Swedish, not Norwegian.

G and I had some with gravadlax and rye bread the other night which worked very well. I've been storing it in the freezer and it has a lovely gloopy texture when poured. It's aged in sherry casks, has notes of cumin and aniseed and there is a certain resemblance to a lighter style of whisky. The essential accompaniment to a Nordic evening in London.