Lunch at mine, 14th February

Last Sunday, D joined G and myself for lunch at my place.

To start, we drank another bottle of the Meursault 1er cru Gouttes D'Or 2006 from Moret-Nominet which I have written about before here and here. This time I worried silently for a few minutes about whether it was actually all right, but then it opened up and showed its rich, nutty characteristics. We had some goose rillettes on toast with it, which worked really well and brought out its acidity. It had an amazing finish. Nevertheless, I think time is now ticking on this one - probably being in the wardrobe over the winter hasn't done it any favours.

D had been requested to bring a medium-bodied red to go with roast chicken, and delivered the goods in the form of this 1968 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon from the Napa Valley. It had an amazing nose of baked fruits, described as "bewitching" by G, and was soft and smooth on the palate. We detected poached strawberries, which faded to reveal more traditional cabernet notes of tobacco and cedar.

At 12% alcohol, it was a perfect lunchtime wine, with great elegance and finesse. "It's not attacking you," said D. I was strangely reminded of the trio of wonderfully pure Beaujolais that I've had over the past year. It's remarkable that D has any of this left - and very kind of him to share it with us.

With pudding, I produced this Chateau de Fargues 1986 which I got at auction last year. It had been sitting in the wardrobe waiting for the right opportunity, which had finally arrived! It was a beautiful amber colour with apricots (G suggested Elvas apricots, just to raise the pretentiousness factor) and possibly frangipane on the nose.

The palate was congruent and not too sweet, in fact it was quite restrained, which made it very easy to drink. We had it with the most expensive berries in the world, which G had bought from Selfridges, and it also went very well with the Stichelton. A bottle went down between three of us with no problems whatsoever.

In fact, having drunk three very approachable wines, we found ourselves still going strong, so G nipped downstairs to get this bottle of Croft '63. "No harm in that" say my notes. It was a lovely lightweight port, pretty and delicate with hints of violet, turkish delight, cinnamon and victoria plums. "Filigreed" said G.

Lunch lasted seven hours and there were no ill-effects the next day. Clearly drinking fine old wines is the way forward!