Sunday lunch with the Baron

Yesterday saw a long-awaited lunch with Baron McG of Croque-Epoisses, who had ironically given up cheese for Lent - I hope he will never do anything so foolhardy in future.

ACC collected us from Brixton tube station and we made our way past some interesting stalls to a lovely terraced street. Inside, the first thing that struck me was this.


Seriously cool.

We kicked off proceedings with a bottle from ACC - a coteaux champenois, i.e. still champagne, from Ruinart, which we think dated back to the 60s. Without further ado, G greedily stuck out his paw.


It was a fascinating wine. ACC came across it on his recent travels in Burgundy and had wisely chosen the bottle with the highest level and palest colour. It had richness and vibrant citrus fruit - Baron McG suggested mandarin, which was spot on. Not surprisingly, the dog wanted some too. Tough luck, Fido.


Next up was a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet 2004 from Louis Carillon, which had been hidden in a cupboard in Rutland for a couple of years and which G's mother had recently discovered. This hadn't done it any harm whatsoever - it was absolutely on song now, the kind of elegant Puligny I really like.

Then we had my offering, a Gevrey-Chambertin 2004 from Alain Burguet, whose Bourgogne Rouge "Pince Vins" had delighted us so much at Le Ciboulette in January. This showed some of the same characteristics, powerful and slightly raisiny. Sadly ACC was so busy shouting "boo hiss" and waving his arms around to express disapproval of my source that he knocked his glass over, but hey what's a Sunday lunch without a bit of carnage...


After that we moved on to a Volnay 1993 which the Baron had procured from our fave wine shop, Mon Millesime, served from the famous double decanter which was looking much cleaner than my decanter, so clearly his decanter brush won that particular competition. It was a treat to drink something so mature and it displayed characteristic Volnay softness and subtlety and went very nicely with the pork in a mustardy creamy sauce, mmm.


Then it was time for pud, a delicious St Clement's pudding, served with an Austrian Eiswein 2007 which complemented the orange and lemon flavours perfectly without either pudding or wine overwhelming the other.

After that we repaired to the living room to try the Baron's Gentiane - check this bottle out!


G has some expertise when it comes to dating old bottles, and reckoned this was from the 1940s due to the bottle type and colour. I have to admit that gentiane isn't really my cup of tea, but even I could tell from the small sip I had that this was quite remarkable. HRH obviously thought so too.


And yes, that is a genuine Tommy Seaward, specially commissioned by the Baron who went through 14,000 photos to find the one he wanted. That's attention to detail for you.

All in all, a fabulous lunch! Thanks to the Baron, and thanks to everyone for putting up with me taking these rather bad photos throughout. Blogtastic!

Le Ciboulette, Beaune, 2nd Jan

Although this was my seventh trip to Beaune, I hadn't been to Le Ciboulette before as other things always seemed to intervene, but I'd heard good reports.

After leaving our bags at the gite in Chorey and paying our statutory visit to the Mon Millesime wine shop (speciality: older vintages), AM, ACC and I spent some time walking round Beaune in the freezing cold looking for somewhere to have an aperitif. Memo to self: everything is shut in the first week of Jan, or if it isn't shut, it's full. There was no room even at the less enticing bars on Place Carnot. Eventually we gave up the search and although our table at Ciboulette was booked for 8.00 we turned up at 7.30. There was no problem at all about that as they only have one sitting.

We had a table in the corner by the small bar with a good view of the bottles of marc, prunelle etc. A small lamp on our table reminded me of being in someone's living room. The atmosphere was very cheery with a background hum of contented diners, and the woman who runs the place had that perfect combination of friendliness and efficiency.

Some things that can best be described as black pudding sausage rolls arrived as an amuse-gueule and were gobbled down in a matter of seconds. After that, I had the house terrine which came with a lovely apricot and pistachio chutney, and a slow-cooked pork dish. The food was good but not fancy. For pudding there was almost disaster as AM, ordering for all three of us, requested the "assiette de..." and the waitress completed the sentence for him: "fromage". No! We wanted the assiette de chocolat! Fortunately this misunderstanding was quickly corrected amidst much laughter, the crisis was averted and the assiette de chocolat was superb - a white chocolate mousse, a dark chocolate ice cream, and two other things of a dark chocolatey nature. Mmmm. The three courses cost in the region of 20 euros, so this was an absolute steal.

To drink we had a white Fixin, from a village in the Cotes de Nuits not known for its white wines but this was lovely, and then a 2006 Bourgogne Rouge from Alain Burguet called "Les Pince Vin" which was extremely good - much better than you'd expect from a typical wine at this level. We rounded off with a coffee which was on the house, before repairing to the gite to try the walnut liqueur which ACC had brought back from Bergerac and which AM claimed tasted of curry, but I digress. All in all, I thought Ciboulette was a charming restaurant and I shall insist on going there again next time I'm in Beaune!