Birthday dinner at the Savile, 20th July

On Friday evening, G and I had a joint dinner party at the Savile Club as we have both recently celebrated a moderately significant birthday. We held this in the Elgar Room upstairs, which was a very nice size for ten, and a random selection of ne'er-do-wells and miscreants were in attendance, otherwise known as family and friends.

On arrival we had a glass of this Champagne Billecart-Salmon Cuvee Nicolas Billecart 2002, which we tried in bottle earlier in the year. On that occasion, it went down in the blink of an eyelid, and I think it's fair to say that the same thing happened again. It was perhaps more austere in magnum than in bottle and with plenty of life to come, but had the same lovely floral notes. ‎I hope to drink some more in due course!

With the first course, we had this magnum of Chablis 1er cru Fourchaume-Vaulorent 2008 from Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fevre. An old favourite from a great vintage, it had never been better. It was crisp and lemony, but with a breadth on the mid-palate that wasn't there when it was younger. it went really well with the sea trout. Sadly this was G's last bottle!

With our main course, a lamb tagine for the carnivores and a vegetarian one for the veggies, we had two reds. First, a magnum of Beaune 1er cru les Greves 2005 from Yves Darviot. This prompted much reminiscence about how we used to stay at Yves' house in Beaune back in the day etc.etc. The 2005s have taken a long time to come round but are getting there now. This had the classic violets on the nose and was very elegant. We have two magnums left and I would still not be in a rush to drink them!

The second red was a magnum of Chateauneuf du Pape Clos des Papes 1998 from Domaine Paul Avril. For me, this was richer and sweeter compared to the Beaune but was still not heavy. An impeccable mid-weight style of Chateauneuf, drinking perfectly now.

Beaune on the right, Rhone on the left

With pudding, we had a magnum of Rieussec 1983 - remembering from the famous 40th birthday dinner that one bottle of sweet wine is simply not enough! This was amazing, rich but with acidity that meant it was not in the least cloying. The marmalade element from the heavy levels of botrytis paired wonderfully with the lemon tart. G informs me that he has acquired three more halves to see if he can recreate the sensation.

It was an absolutely beautiful colour, too.

Then, with the cheese course, a real treat. G provided this Quinta do Noval Nacional 1960 which he acquired from an auction where they described it in the catalogue as "Da Silva 1960". Imagine his delight when this showed up. It was in great shape, still fairly dark in colour, and extremely complex on the palate, with notes of fig and prune and a certain creamy quality. The finish was extraordinary. Absolutely top notch vintage port. Thanks for sharing it with us, G.

And to round things off, we had a glass of Lemorton Vieux Calvados 1972, which was an excellent digestif with true essence ‎of apples.

All that remains is to say thanks to G for organising everything, to the staff at the Savile for looking after us so well, and to everyone who joined us - it was a really enjoyable evening. Now roll on the 50th in five years time!

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...

Lunch at mine, Sunday 6th August

Last Sunday, the boys came round for lunch at my place. Supplies had been procured the previous day, as witnessed by my brother and sister-in-law who bumped into me carrying about 50 kg of food back along Goodge Street, and the pork was in the oven by 7.30 a.m. Fortunately we seem to be into autumn in London now so it wasn't unbearably hot. I'm sure the neighbours enjoyed the smells emanating into the corridor!

We started with a fizz brought by ACC, which was this Vin Petillant Naturel made by Romain Chapuis.

We loved the label, and the wine too. It was very refreshing and we wondered if the grape was muscat, because it was quite grapey. It turned out it was gewurztraminer! I would never have guessed.

Not what we were expecting

I got up to sort out the smoked salmon and left G to decant the next wine, a white Corton 2008 from Domaine Parent. As G began to pour it into the decanter, we all got a shock. It was red! And yet clearly in a bottle with the white label - the gold trim rather than the red. Not sure what happened there. G and I drank it the next day and we'll never know what it actually was, but felt that it wasn't a Corton as it was lacking that wild quality, so probably a Pommard with some age on. It had big shoulders and was fully mature. No hardship.

Fortunately, past experience has shown it's always a good idea to have a backup white, and I was very glad I'd taken the precaution of putting this Chablis 1er cru Montmains 2010 from La Maison Romane in the fridge. It was stunning as usual, rich and bigger than your average Chablis.

I'd remembered that I had this magnum of Moulin a Vent 2009 from Trichard tucked away and given that Beaujolais has a great affinity with pork, decided this would be a good opportunity to drink it. The four years or so it had spent in the wardrobe had done it no harm at all. I chilled it slightly, and it positively whizzed round the table. It was magical, with a heavenly perfume, very smooth and drinking perfectly now.

Rare sighting of a green vegetable!

With the cheese course, we had another wine from La Maison Romane (in fact the Oroncio sub-brand) - a Chateauneuf du Pape La Primaute 2007. G picked this up from a shop in Beaune on our recent visit. We'd never come across it before and I have a feeling it was the last bottle in the shop. It was splendid, the Platonic ideal of Chateauneuf with ripe Grenache fruit, juicy and sweet. For once, the bottle admitted to 14.5% as opposed to Oronce's usual 12.5%.

The Baron goes in for some cheese

We finished off with coffee, some lovely artisinal chocolates brought by the Baron, and a couple of digestifs - this Calvados which I picked up in Beaune, and a Marc de Bourgogne "hors d'age" from Pierre Fenals which recently landed and is available from the Burgundy Portfolio. The Baron gave us a wonderful reading of Arabella Fotherington-Tomas's school song from the Compleet Molesworth, and our Sunday afternoon was complete. Thanks to all!

1973 dinner, 21st October

A couple of weeks ago, at the inaugural tasting of the Burgundy Portfolio, a chance conversation revealed that four of us present were born in 1973, and a plan to have a dinner featuring 1973 wines was immediately hatched. Obviously this was an opportunity not to be missed, and so it was that last Friday G and I found ourselves at E's flat where we immediately made the acquaintance of Pinot, a beautiful Bengal cat!

To begin with, E offered us an intriguing-sounding German fizz made from pinot noir by a professor whose name I instantly forgot. I have subsequently learned that it was a Spätburgunder made by Dr Randolf Kauer. It was seriously bubbly and very different from champagne but very enjoyable and refreshing. We had it with some lovely smoked salmon crostini which amazingly, Pinot showed no interest in whatsover. It emerged that he had been fed prawns and rare beef beforehand, a wise precaution on E's part. Also, I mustn't forget to mention the Alsatian cheese and onion tart which N made, which went down very well indeed.

I should point out that 1973 is a notoriously rubbish vintage for wine so it was important to have low expectations. Actually, I have just checked an online vintage chart which suggests that it's not universally bad - white burgundy, Alsace and Champagne all get 8s - but also Ds, i.e. danger that they may be past it.

Which brings us to the first 1973 wine of the evening, an Alsace "Pinot" provided by N, made by Gustave Lorentz, who are still going and have been since 1836 according to their website. There are several types of pinot, both feline and vinous, and these days they are more specific in calling it pinot gris (but they still have the fabulous Gothic script). Sadly, it turned out to be over the hill. It's hard to describe but it was just sort of washed-out and not what you'd expect it to be. A shame, but maybe not a total surprise.

My fingers were firmly crossed when it came to my turn, especially after my disastrous offering the previous evening. I have to confess that I did not have any 1973 in my cellar beforehand, so when this dinner was arranged I went online and got a bottle of Chateauneuf from Chateau de la Gardine from Underwoods, with whom I was not previously familiar, but G told me they were kosher and they seem to have some interesting weird stuff. I was rather thrilled when the bottle arrived, because it was the most amazing strange bulbous shape! I've never seen anything like it.

It turned out to be surprisingly good, to my relief. It reminded us all of old burgundy, which lends credence to the view that back in those days, a lot of burgundy had more than a dollop of Rhone added to it. So that was a good thing.

Time for another photo of Pinot.

With dinner, we drank two premier cru burgundies from 2002 - a Nuits St Georges Les Vaucrains 2002 from Bertrand Ambroise and a Gevrey-Chambertin Estournelles Saint-Jacques from Frédéric Esmonin. They were both at the beginning of their drinking windows and the Gevrey needed time to open up, but were hearty and complex red wines.

Then we moved on to E's 1973, a half bottle of Kreuznacher St Martin Eiswein Trockenbeerenauslese made by Paul Anheuser, who are in the Nahe region of Germany. I have to say this was the wine of the evening. It was amazing, with a concentrated mouth-filling sweetness, but not in the least bit cloying. It's very unusual to get such an old eiswein so this was very exciting.

To round off, we had G's contribution, which was a 1937 Sercial madeira from D'Oliveiras. Bit of a transposition error going on here! I had the privilege to drink this relatively recently when I found it quite sharp and walnutty. Maybe drinking at the end, as opposed to the beginning of the evening made a difference, but this time I found it a bit sweeter. It was still incredibly fine and long.

So here's the final line-up of 1973s and the 1937...

and a final photo of Pinot!

Thanks very much to E for an excellent evening!