Lunch at mine, Sunday 10th Sept

Last Sunday, I hosted lunch at my place with D and G. We kicked off with this Combe d'Eve 2010 which is a Cote de Beaune white from the biodynamic winemaker Emmanuel Giboulot. I had just got it out of storage a couple of days earlier and was eager to try it.

It was still very fresh and had excellent grip along with citrus and florality. The finish went on for minutes, and I detected notes of lemon zest and maybe even lemon syllabub, getting fancy here!

It was drinking very well now and G and I had another bottle on Tuesday so I don't think it will be hanging about for long. On Sunday we drank it as an aperitif and also with the portion of watercress soup which remained after the blender decided to shoot it all over the kitchen. However, I think in future I'll be drinking it with fish.

G's cooking, on the other hand, was impeccable and this was a stunning piece of brill, which barely fitted into the roasting tray!

With that, we had this Meursault 1990 from Abel Garnier which we first tried back at Easter. Once again, it was a specatcular deep gold colour and very gastronomic. Obviously it was fully mature, and we had a slight wobble wondering if it was all right, but we hung in there and were rewarded for our patience. As on previous occasions, it had a certain mushroomy quality, and was rich and mouthfilling.

With the cheese course, which consisted of far too much goat's cheese in my opinion, which reminds me, not sure why G is taking so long to set up his Odyssey de Chevre blog - we had this 2002 Clos Des Papes Chateauneuf from Paul Avril, provided by G who picked up a couple of bottles recently.

My god. I put my nose in the glass and made some unbecoming guttural noises much to D's amusement. It was extraordinary, drinking perfectly now, big, rich and delicious and extremely decadent. I always thought I was a Northern Rhone fan but this wine made me reassess that completely. There was some debate about whether the fruit was red or black but the balance and structure were perfect and the finish was amazing. G tells me that this vintage isn't highly regarded but as is so often the case, it seems it just needed time to come round and means bon rapport qualité prix for us!

We finished off with the most expensive strawberries in history along with this half of Aigle Blanc Vouvray 1989 which was a very enjoyable middleweight sweetie. It had notes of nectarine and apricot and D spotted some mint on the finish. G got this for a song some time ago, which was particularly pleasing!

We finished off with coffee, marc and chocolates, and looked at D's recent bin label acquisitions. I hope to see them in situ when we go to visit him in the Finger Lakes next week. Hopefully there will be a full report when we get back, bears willing...

SPNS dinner, 6th Sept

On Wednesday night, it was over to the Savile Club, fuelled by the Atomic Blonde soundtrack. I was transporting precious cargo across London, not a wristwatch containing secret codenames, but this 2014 pink fizz from Domaine Alice Beaufort which had been stashed in the boardroom fridge all afternoon to keep it away from the prying eyes of my colleagues.

I first tried this at a wine tasting held by the Burgundy Portfolio at Highbury Library and maybe the fact that it was my birthday that night had something to do with it but it was love at first taste. It's made from pinot noir grown just outside Champagne, but the winemaker, Quentin Beaufort, comes from a family which makes Champagne so he knows what he's doing.

What did the assembled company think? Notes of wild or tinned strawberries were detected and there was a reference to Eton Mess. Dangerously drinkable was the general verdict. "Easy to have too much" said P. Say what? There was some debate about whether it would age further. ACC is convinced that it will, but I only have three bottles left, one of which is in the fridge, so I don't give much for its chances.

We moved upstairs to the dining room and straight onto a pair of whites. First was this 2014 Chardonnay Barrel Select no. 02 from Domaine LeSeurre in the Finger Lakes, provided by D. This was a revelation. I would never have guessed it was chardonnay. For me, it had notes of lime and it reminded me of a really elegant riesling. It had an amazing finish and was highly regarded by everyone.

As you can see from the above, the winemakers at this domaine are French. I hope we get to go there in a couple of weeks' time. ACC said that maybe it was a different clone of chardonnay from the one which we're more used to, which might explain why it flummoxed us.

The other white was this Bourgogne Chardonnay 2013 from Domaine Albert Joly, provided by ACC. Funnily enough the 2012 has been my house white lately, so this was particularly interesting for me. The 2012 is definitely playing at village Puligny level, and has that strict thing going on which we love about this domaine, but the 2013 was fuller, richer and more powerful. G said it was less serious than the LeSeurre but that wasn't a criticism!

I took a photo so that we could compare the colour of the two wines. G remarked that normally you'd expect the New World wine to be the one on the left. Not this time!

With our main courses we moved on to the reds. P had brought along this Nuits-St-Georges 1999 from Jaffelin and enjoyed telling us how little it had cost him back in the day. It was classic old school NSG, drinking very nicely now with resolved tannins. Sometimes I find NSG a bit challenging but this went down just fine. It even got a "Wow" from D which isn't something we see very often!

G, on the other hand, had brought along a dodgy Croatian red made by the waiter in a restaurant where he dined while on holiday recently. Apparently "moje corno" means "my red". It was 15% and first impressions were that it was weird, certainly the nose was a bit strange. I got a lot of black cherry. It did have an extraordinary finish and reminded D of an old zinfandel. Generally I would have to say the reaction wasn't enthusiastic, but it was certainly unusual and very much in the spirit of the SPNS.

G redeemed himself with a bonus wine, a bottle of "Very Old East India Madeira" bottled by Berry Bros in 1959. Apparently it was a leaky bottle which is why he brought it along. The leakiness didn't prove to be a problem. For me it had lots of toffee and caramel which made sense when it was revealed that it was a Malmsey. "Absolutely splendid" said G and nobody in their right mind would argue with that. A pleasure to drink. More leaky bottles please!

Thanks everyone for another great evening.