Recent reds report - Cote de Beaune

Things have been looking up here - am just back from a few days in Norfolk with my family, during which the news broke that the US travel ban is being lifted in November. It feels like a cloud has lifted and soon I'll be on my way back to Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, a report on some reds from the Cote de Beaune, descending from north to south. 

Here we have a Ladoix 1er cru Les Basses Mourottes 2014 from Gaston & Pierre Ravaut. It was quite dark in colour with a pale rim. We enjoyed the nose, which was full of dark things from underneath a hedgerow - truffle, mushrooms, blackcurrant and what G described as "elderly sheep dropping" although I'm unsure whether he was speaking from experience. It was all very interesting. On the palate, it was a little light on fruit and a bit rustic, but nevertheless I recorded that I seemed to have drunk it without noticing, so it was clearly quite enjoyable. We felt it was fully mature and needed no more time, and gave it an 8.

This Pommard 1er cru Fremiers 2012 from Nicolas Rossignol was the first of two recent Pommards. It was a nice garnet colour and had a lovely nose of summer fruit tart. There were some chunky tannins on the palate, or "matiere" as G described it - reminiscent of plum skins and cocoa. Somehow we doubted it was 13% as claimed. We felt it was a posh wine, exuding quality and I described it as a good wine to take to a dinner party, as it would be bound to impress. We thought it needed another 5 years to reach its full potential, and gave it a low 9 but with the potential to go higher. I note that the domaine is based in Volnay, and indeed it did have a certain similarity to Perrin's wines. It was quite pricey at £83. 

Then we have this Pommard 1er cru Clos les Arvelets 2014 from Mark Haisma. This had an engaging fruity, sweet nose with some nice raspberries going on. It was silky with lots of fruit on the midpalate and some chocolatey tannins on the finish. I sometimes find Pommard a bit heavy and brooding but occasionally I find one which really ticks my boxes (Maison Romane's Argilliere being the prime example) and this was almost in that category, with more finesse than some. "A lighter way to enjoy Pommard" as G put it. The 2014s seem to be giving us a lot of pleasure at the moment, and we felt this was drinking perfectly now. It was a solid 9, but then again it did cost £85.

Moving on down the map, we come to Santenay. This was a 1er cru le Beaurepaire 2017 from Jean-Marc Vincent. It was an attractive ruby colour but had a slightly dumb nose. On the palate, it was juicy and fresh, and a little bit croquant. We thought it was designed to be drunk young, and wasn't a particularly serious wine, unlike say the Santenays from Choupette which need more time to come round. On the other hand it was only £36. We thought it was a quintessential 8.

A quick detour to the west takes us to Maranges, which always brings back happy memories of the somewhat dilapidated maison de maitre we found on a property website a few years ago, with a lovely view over the vineyards. This was a Maranges 1er cru Le Croix Moines 2016 from Camille Giroud. Got to love that font, which is even on the cork! It looked glossy and inviting, with massive legs, and a really fabulous heady nose which reminded me of black cherry clafoutis. On the palate it was congruent and for me it still had black cherries while G got bramble. It went really well with our crispy duck and pancakes, and positively evaporated. We felt it was completely ready to drink and gave it a 9. At £33, it was fantastic value. 

Finally, we venture down to Mercurey where we had three examples of the genre recently. This Mercurey 1er cru Clos L'Eveque 2014 came from Romain Chapuis, whose low sulphur wines are a particular favourite of mine. This was glossy and looked young, and had a wonderful nose of wild strawberries which G described as feral. I loved it. It was relatively lightweight with immediate charm and good acidity, but didn't really feel like a premier cru, more a vin de plaisir. We gave it a high 7.

The other two Mercureys both came from P&M Jacqueson, with their immediately-recognisable squiggly font. First we have the 1er cru "Les Champs Martin" 2015. This had a fruity nose and was juicy and croquant, delicious lightweight pinot, with a slight hint of wine gums. It was crying out for a baguette and a bit of cheese and pate. I found it very enjoyable and we thought it was the sort of wine that would do well in hot vintages. We gave it a solid 8.

Finally, here we have the 1er cru Les Velley 2016. This had orchard fruit on the nose, but was richer and heavier on the palate, with quite a lot of oomph, and was fresh medium-weight pinot. It was slightly tart on the finish in an enjoyably mouthwatering way. I might have thought it was a Santenay if I'd been tasting it blind. We also gave it a solid 8 and my opinion of this domaine continues to be very favourable. I think we've been finding that Mercurey and perhaps also Rully deliver considerable pleasure at a not exorbitant price, and are perhaps coming into their own with the hotter weather in recent years. 

As always many thanks to G for supplying these and keeping the Premier Cru Project on the road! I'm happy to report that a modicum of social life is on the agenda in the near future, with D visiting from the Finger Lakes next week and several exciting tastings lined up. Bring it on!

Epic trip draws to a close

On Friday evening, we went to Caveau des Arches for dinner, or "Arches!" as I'd been hilariously calling it all week, channelling Father Jack. I hadn't been there before but it came ACC-recommended so that was good enough for us, and I had done some pre-trip wine-list-reading which led me to believe this could be quite a good one.

They had a big party of businessmen in that evening so our table was in a small side room with just two tables, which ACC told us was called the Prison. We had the Traditional Menu, 30 euros each for four courses.

To start with, some gougeres which looked like snails - clever!

I won't give a blow-by-blow account of everything we ate, but it was all very good and I was completely stuffed by the end of it and unable to eat all my chocolate moelleux, disgraceful! The highlight, however, was the wine, which G chose (expertly guided by ACC and moi-meme). We went for a brace from the Domaine des Comtes Lafon - a Meursault villages 2008 followed by a Volnay 2009. I didn't make notes but they were both sensational, and at 105 and 78 euros respectively, a bargain, when one considers that the retail price of the Meursault is £80 and the Volnay £53 in the UK.

After dinner we popped upstairs where they have a new bar, and had our coffee and digestifs reclining on the luxurious chairs. I unwisely ordered a liqueur d'abricots which was sickly-sweet so I cunningly swapped it for G's better-chosen Fine de Bourgogne while he was distracted with the bill. It took some time for him to realise, as they were exactly the same colour. Once he did, he was not impressed.

The next morning we got up and packed, as we had to be out of the gite by 10.00. Luckily for us, Alain le taxi had offered to look after our suitcases for the morning, which was tres gentil and much appreciated. We spent some time at the flea market and then looking for somewhere to have breakfast. It was market day, and Beaune was very busy. A promising cafe was ruled out due to the presence of a small child, and I was getting grumpier by the second as a result of caffeine-deprivation, so we ended up getting croissants and then eating them with our coffee in what I call ACC's "locals' bar" which worked out very well.

Then we did some last-minute shopping at Magnum and la Boutique des Domaines before heading to Loiseau des Vignes for lunch.

We came here back in January and enjoyed it very much. They have a three course menu at lunch for 28 euros, very good value when you consider it has a Michelin star.

This is the cabinet with the wines available by the glass, using the "Enomatic" system, according to their website.

In fact we had this bottle of Bourgogne Cuvee L 2010 from Camille Giroud, which was wonderful. The only trouble was that the waiter placed the bottle carefully out of reach and then disappeared - the restaurant was full by this point - leaving us looking at it in despair yet reluctant to breach all etiquette by grabbing it to pour ourselves. Eventually when he did come back, we asked him to leave it on the table, and harmony was restored.

By this stage in the meal, I was taking random photos of everything.

Selection of cheeses - I was hoping we'd get to have the wonderful Epoisses we had last time, but it was not to be. The Ami du Chambertin was pretty damned good though. They have a marvellous-looking cheese trolley which we saw doing the rounds.

This was pudding - a yoghurt thing with fig ice cream, and two beignets.

Afterwards, we popped outside to have our coffee and final digestif of the trip.

We also spotted the secret door to the cellar. It was very tempting to sneak down there.

But we couldn't keep Alain le taxi waiting. He drew up with perfect timing just as we emerged from the restaurant. Merci beaucoup to Alain for everything.

We were in good time so were able to catch the train before the one we had planned to catch, which was great as the train we had planned to catch was running late. All was well and it was definitely time for a snooze.

At Dijon, we had the usual chaos getting onto the double-decker TGV, and sat opposite a party of rowdy Swiss people. Don't Swiss people know they're supposed to be quiet and well-behaved? Fortunately the announcement that we were arriving in Paris was made about half an hour early, while we were still clearly in open countryside, and they all got up and left at that point so we had a few moments of blissful peace and quiet.

At the Gare de Lyon, it was raining and the taxi queue extended for about 5 miles. The RER wasn't an option due to heavy baggage, so we stuck it out, and observed the sparrows eating people's sandwiches. After about 50 minutes, we were finally able to get in a taxi and were quite close to the Gare du Nord before promptly finding ourselves in a huge traffic jam. Our taxi driver did his best to get through it, but the chances of us catching our Eurostar were rapidly diminishing. I think we'd allowed about and hour and a half to get across Paris, but on this damp Saturday afternoon it wasn't enough.

We weren't too downcast as ACC thought they would be able to put us on the next train, but it turned out that a large coach party had also missed the train, so they were given priority and we were told to come back the next morning. Fortunately G had access to an eminent source of local knowledge, and was able to call him up for hotel recommendations. We made our way to the New Hotel across the road where they told us the good news was they had rooms available, the bad news was that they were on the sixth floor and the lift wasn't working. I'll be eternally grateful to G for carting our luggage up and indeed down six flights of difficult spiral stairs. Our room under the eaves was actually very nice, had a great view of the station, and even had a decent-sized bath.

After that, dinner at Terminus Nord was in order. I'd never been here before but ACC appeared to be quite a regular and even had a loyalty card! It was a bustling, traditional brasserie. I was very happy to get some steak-frites down me, and G and I enjoyed a bottle of red Rhone while ACC was on the beer by this point. For pudding, G had an enormous creme brulee - the table next to us had failed to eat one of these between three, but he has a special creme brulee stomach and wolfed it down with no problems at all.

After dinner I retreated to the hotel for an early night while the others went to a biodynamic wine bar. Then we were up at 6.30 to catch the 8.13 Eurostar. We had to tell the woman at the counter our sad story all over again, and were then given manual tickets at no extra charge, and found ourselves in a very empty, effectively first class carriage. Result! I have to hand it to Eurostar for their excellent service. So while the stopover in Paris was not what we'd planned, in the end it all worked out fine.

We arrived at St Pancras at about 9.30 on Sunday morning and walked home through the back streets of Bloomsbury which were very peaceful at that time of day. Then there was just time to unpack - all wine had made it back intact, with no repetition of the Great Marc Disaster of 2006 - and put some laundry on before heading down to SW2 for lunch with Baron McGuffog! It was so nice to have this to look forward to, and we regaled him with tales of our adventures while scoffing wonderful craft beers, pork pies and venison, and of course listening to the new Pet Shop Boys album, Electric. We had an amazing time, but it was good to be home.