Sunday night at mine

D came round on Sunday night for another evening of fine wine.

We started with this Pouilly-Fume from Oroncio aka La Maison Romane. This benefited from half an hour in decanter beforehand and showed as well as ever. We had it with some smoked trout which G had got from Borough Market and the challenge was not to guzzle it all while G carried out a lengthy dissection in order to avoid any Queen Mother-style fishbone incidents.

Then, it was on to the reds...

In the blue corner was this Opus One 1985 brought by D.

In the red corner, this bottle of Chateau Latour 1979 provided by G.

The Opus One is on the left in the photo above, and the Latour is on the right. The OO was slightly paler in colour and was drinking very well. It had a lovely silky texture, ripe plummy fruit, and I got a hint of pontefract cake. It was relatively easy-going and approachable but possibly started to fade towards the end.

After the 1968 Latour which we had fairly recently, the 1979 was a return to form. It was far more typical: big, majestic stuff, with the classic cigar box nose and formidable intensity. Apparently 1979 was not well-received when it first came out and one can understand why - this must have been a monster difficult wine in its youth. At 36 it was drinking very nicely.

I wouldn't say there was necessarily a clear winner, but it was particularly exciting to drink the Opus One as we wouldn't be able to find that over here.

With the cheese, we moved on to this Harveys Oloroso, bottled in 1953. G got this (not to be confused with Harveys Bristol Cream) at a recent auction and we weren't sure if it would be all right; fortunately it turned to be fine. It was quite dry on the nose but opened up on the palate and was well-rounded with notes of walnut. It went down remarkably quickly, always a good sign. Thanks to D and G for a great evening!