Sunday lunch, 1st May

Yesterday I ventured south of the river for lunch with G and H at their new house. Also present were ACC and the Baron. I attempted to make a few notes but this will be mostly a review in pictures. 

G gave a tour of the house accompanied by this 2009 Moet and Chandon which was pleasingly mature.

ACC had brought along this intriguing looking white. I was paying insufficient attention when the Baron translated this for us, so have no idea what it is called. 

We were told it was a combination of two grapes from Burgundy, which turned out to be chardonnay and melon de bourgogne. It was certainly unusual, very aromatic with quite a grapey nose, and quite dry on the palate. It went well with the very pungent smoked trout starter. I also approved of the alcohol level. 

I had brought along two bottles of red which needed drinking up with good company. First was this Beaune 1er cru Les Epenottes 2009 from Domaine Parent. It looked beautiful in the glass, lovely and glossy, and was fully mature. I found it quite savoury and it almost reminded me of a claret, with some woody notes which others attributed to new oak. G gave it a solid 9 points. 

This Corton Perrieres grand cru 2009 from La Maison Romane went down even better as far as I was concerned. It had beautiful summer berries on the nose along with a slightly wild quality, and was drinking perfectly now.

Then G produced this 1973 Beaune 1er cru Les Greves from Yves Darviots, a real blast from the past as we used to stay at this domaine back in the day. It had survived remarkably well, especially considering that the vintage isn't well-regarded (for wine at least). It was perfumed, piquant, delicate and delicious, a real treat. In a crowded field, for me this was the top wine of the day. 

We finished off with a half of Suduiraut 2001, which went very nicely with a raspberry and almond tart. 

It was also a pleasure to see Benjy again, settling well into his new home and keeping an eye on things from his chair. 

Thanks to all for a most enjoyable lunch!

Lunch at the Baron's, 2nd November

Once again, I see that it has been a shockingly long time since I updated the blog, what with all the gallivanting that has been going on. The road trip to Maine back via the Finger Lakes was great fun, and thanks to D for his tip on the wine store in Ithaca, which had a remarkable collection. I also went to Sicily for a few days with my mother and enjoyed plenty of Aperol Spritzes in the sun. That seems a long time ago now as I sit here typing with the rain beating down outside. I plan a few more posts before the end of the year, as there is some recent drinking to be reported and a flurry of vinous-related social events lined up in the near future.

Anyway, last Saturday the Baron kindly invited us round to lunch at his place and, glass of Pol Roger in hand, we enjoyed a viewing of the newly-installed penthouse suite. With our smoked salmon, there was vodka from Uzbekistan and Russia. I'm not a vodka expert by any means but these were very interesting and definitely not something you'd find in Waitrose!

G contributed this 1973 Chablis 1er cru Fourchaumes from Lamblin & Fils which amazingly seemed to have survived very well.

It was an absolutely beautiful golden colour and very buttery. We concluded that a lot of sulphur must have been used to preserve it. It was made in the days when such things were built to last. Definitely the best dry white from 1973 that we can recall tasting.

I loved the label, with the lobsters and the rams, and we admired the colour of the bottle which ACC tells me is called "feuille morte".

Moving on to the main course, an amazingly silky "oxtail and other beef" stew, the Baron indulged us with a bottle of 2002 Beaune 1er cru Greves from Yves Darviot. This had a very farmyardy nose and needed a bit of time. It's fully mature now and went down very easily.

ACC brought along another 1973, this time a Cotes du Rhone from a negociant based in Rully. We were amused that it hadn't been passed off as a Burgundy. This was at the agricultural end of the scale and I detected a hint of the sugar bag. It had sweet fruit and was easy drinking.

My contribution was this 1978 Romeira, a random Portuguese red picked up at auction. G had suggested that it would make a good cheese wine, and indeed it was big, gutsy and powerful with a great finish.

Epoisses!

Finally, we had a bonus white which G brought along - this 2014 Hermann J Wiemer Late Harvest Riesling from the Finger Lakes.

This was medium-sweet, an old-fashioned style, and some described it as appley. It was the perfect complement to a fruit tart. At a mere 8.5% alcohol, it had good acidity and an amazing finish. The sort of wine that when I drink it, I always wonder why I don't drink wines like that more often...

Thanks very much to the Baron for hosting and to everyone for their contributions!

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!

Two recent dinners

And the blog is back, by popular demand! Well, one person said he was missing it, so after a hiatus over the summer it feels like time to get back to it.

First up, a Monday evening dinner at the Hawksmoor Air Street with T, D and G. We were led for what felt like several miles through the restaurant and eventually arrived at a booth, which was very nice and made it easier to hear each other. Deafening noise is one of the major reasons why I prefer to dine at home these days, along with escalating wine prices. But corkage at the Hawksmoor is just £5 on a Monday, compared with £25 on all other days, and this price applies to bottles of every size, so it was a great opportunity to drink some magnums.

We started with 2008 Chablis 1er cru Fourchaume-Vaulorent 2008 from Domaine Nathalie & Gilles Fevre, which went down very nicely with some historic scallops. Apologies for lack of detail but I wasn't taking notes.

After that we moved on to steak, accompanied by a magnum of Beaune 1er cru Greves 2005 from Yves Darviot, which I believe belonged to me but had been sitting in G's Rutland cellar for a very long time and I had forgotten all about it. In my opinion, there is still no rush on it - these 2005 reds seem to be built to last. Am now wondering if I have any more stashed away?

With dessert, we drank this 1969 5 puttonyos Tokaji Aszu provided by D, which went particularly well with sticky toffee sauces/puddings. Afterwards we repaired to the bar for a quick post-prandial Calvados kindly supplied by T. Thanks all for a great evening.

Then, last Sunday, D came round to my place for lunch. We kicked off with a bottle of white Corton 2008 from Domaine Parent which recently came out of storage and has been providing much pleasure. It was big and rich with great acidity and a certain honeyed quality. D noted some viscosity, and the finish went on for ages. It has beens even better than the 2007 and went very nicely with our smoked salmon.

Then the main event: two Inglenook 1969s. The one on the left was the main release, whereas the one on the right was from a particular cask. Fortunately I am the proud possessor of multiple Riedel claret glasses so we were able to try them side by side, which proved to be a fascinating comparison.

The estate-bottled wine was very cabernet sauvignon, with mint leaf on the nose, and tasted very pure to me, while the cask wine had greater intensity and an extraordinary finish. At one point I glazed over for a few minutes and was unable to join in the conversation because it needed all my attention.

Both Inglenooks seemed to have a lot of menthol going on and would be great to drink if you had a cold! I was thinking about what made them different from claret and the answer seemed to be that they were lacking the woody, cedar notes that you often find in claret. This train of thought led to a suggestion... get some claret out to compare.

Fortunately I had a bottle of my old favourite, Chateau Montrose 1970, sitting on the wine rack (cue story of the Montrose Moment in Southwold on my 22nd birthday), so this was clearly the bottle to go for.

According to G, the Montrose had some merlot in it. I've just checked, and according to the chateau's website, the 1970 vintage was 65% cab sauv, 25% merlot and 10% cabernet franc. It was certainly much woodier, and held its own against the Inglenooks for the first half hour or so - at that point we thought it ranked in between the two - but then completely fell off a cliff and faded, whereas the Inglenooks kept going and didn't change much over time. It was really interesting to try the three together and thanks to D for the wonderful opportunity to drink old Californian wines which we never see in the UK.

We finished off with a glass of Apostoles, which is a 30 year old palo cortado from Gonzalez Byass, bought from Waitrose during one of their intermittent 25% off deals. This wine also has a spot of Pedro Ximenez in it which makes it slightly sweeter than, say, the Dos Cortados 20 year old palo cortado from Williams & Humbert which is super-dry and definitely an aperitif.

It was a really great lunch, and there were no hangovers the next day, which just goes to show the old stuff is the best!

White Beaune and 1970 vintage port

New Year's Eve has come upon us but there's time for one more post before Big Ben chimes the year out! This evening I'll be thinking of Paul who so kindly gave us the tour of the clock tower back in October, one of the highlights of 2013. The Torygraph has an interview with him today which is well worth a read.

I'm struggling to think of a theme for this post except that it's the second "white burg and port" report of the year as there was that rather interesting tasting at the Bakers' Hall earlier in the year.

The white burg we drank last night was a Beaune 1er cru Clos des Mouches 2006 from Yves Darviot. This was G's penultimate bottle and we drank it with some wild sea bass which I'd foraged from Selfridges food hall.

I adore white Beaune and this was no exception. It was a pleasing mid-pale gold colour and looked inviting. On the nose I found vanilla while G thought there was something floral going on, possibly heather honey. On the palate, it was dry, rich and full, but not blowsy. It was fully mature and in excellent condition. Possibly inspired by G's reference to honey, I detected a hint of beeswax, both in terms of texture and taste, but it wasn't unpleasant.

On a previous occasion, back in April 2010, we had a horizontal tasting and gave this a 9 while the 2005 received a 10. This time again we felt the 2006 scored 9 points and spent some time debating why this was. The best reason we could come up with was that it was lacking the narrow core of acidity that the best whites have - "the blade of Damascus" G said -  its backbone could have been firmer. Still, it was very pleasing and went down a treat, and it's sad that Yves has retired. I'll certainly be looking out for some white Beaune from Audiffred and Rateau at the Burgundy Portfolio en primeur tasting in January.

The vintage port was an old favourite, Smith Woodhouse 1970. We decanted this for lunch with friends on Sunday, but there was some left over so I had a cheeky glass last night and we'll be polishing it off tonight. It had flavours of prune and liquorice, and G thought there was a car tyre thing going on. This particular bottle was bottled in Oporto, whereas previously I've had it bottled in the UK - the famous bottle with the white splodge on, now a treasured part of my bottle collection.

Somehow this one seemed less developed than those were. If I'd been tasting it blind I doubt whether I'd have guessed it was as old as 1970. It's still a jolly nice drop.

In other news, I acquired a lovely fuzzy red notebook for Christmas, which I've decided to dedicate to wine notes instead of using scrappy little pieces of paper. A resolution for the new year is to make more detailed tasting notes in future rather than the "we drank this, it was great" that has been happening a lot lately.

Thanks for reading and I wish you a very happy 2014!

Embarras de Sauternes luncheon, Sun 30 Sept

Last Sunday, G and I travelled to Windsor to visit T in his new abode and help him and a couple of other friends drink some of his stash of Sauternes. The goodies that awaited us more than made up for the complicated journey to get there - it's not often you get to drink five Sauternes at a sitting! G made notes which meant I didn't. Now I have nothing to refer to except my memory and the photos I took, so details may be a little sketchy.

First up was this Chateau de Fargues 2003 en demi. I've rated this chateau in the past and I remember a tasting I attended in Oxford years ago where we drank Yquem against Fargues and I came away with the distinct impression that I preferred the Fargues, particularly considering the price differential. As a welcoming drink it was very enjoyable but on further reflection we felt that it was a little low in acidity. 2003 was a very hot year so perhaps this had something to do with it. T has quite a stash of the stuff so maybe it should be tucked away for a bit to see if it gets better with age.

Next was this Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey 1996 which I'd never heard of, and I don't think I was the only one. We speculated that the difficult-to-pronounce name might be the reason it's not well-known in the UK. It was distinctly darker in colour than the other wines but I think the general consensus was that it was not one of the top-end Sauternes.

After that we had this Chateau Myrat 2007. Again I wasn't familiar with this chateau. I enjoyed it but the feeling was that this wasn't great Sauternes, by which I mean that both of these two were lacking complexity and also had relatively short finishes.

We got on to the good stuff at last with this Chateau Rieussec 2000. This was proper Sauternes with botrytis flavours - really lovely.

And finally, Chateau Guiraud 2002. Again this was clearly the real deal and T's favourite of the tasting. I'll beg to differ and go for the Rieussec instead. Arguably they were neck and neck, both fantastic.

To go with the Sauternes, T provided a wonderful buffet of epic proportions and G and I brought along a magnum of Yves Darviot's Beaune Greves 2005 which sadly didn't show very well. I have a number of theories as to why this could have been but probably drinking it in the middle of a sweet wine tasting was never going to do it any favours. Never mind, I shall look forward to drinking the rest in due course.

The leisurely afternoon was rounded off by listening to some Flanders and Swann classics. They don't make 'em like that any more. Then we suddenly realised it was past 8.00 and time to get back to the metropolis, and thus a new record for a six and a half hour lunch was set. Thanks very much to T for his hospitality and giving us this opportunity to drink such amazing wines - quite an experience!

Lunch at mine, Sunday 22nd July

On Sunday,  ACC and Baron McG joined me and G for another epic lunch. It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago so I was in the mood to indulge!

Getting things off to a good start

The Baron kindly brought along some delicious little parmesan biscuits which he had baked that morning, based on a recipe by Simon Hopkinson. Some of them had a daring sliver of red chilli on the top. The secret ingredient was mustard powder, which I must consider adding next time I make gougeres, as the combination of cheese and mustard is one that appeals very much. To go with this we had a bottle of Krug 1989 left over from one of G's recent wine dinners. It was mature, yeasty, full-bodied champagne and very enjoyable. Obviously it costs megabucks, so not one we're likely to have again in the near future.

Next up was a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet 1er cru Les Folatieres 2007 from Bzikot. This had been sitting on my wine rack for some time waiting for a special occasion, and we had it with some smoked salmon from Hansen and Lydersen, who we had finally tracked down at Maltby Street the previous day, and some rye bread from the Nordic Bakery. The Puligny was a glorious golden colour. It took a little while to open up, was bigger than I expected and certainly ready to go.

Nom nom nom

On Friday night I'd been to the Ginger Pig and had fallen into the trap of losing all sense of perspective. This often seems to happen when I go to the Ginger Pig. Somehow, surrounded by enormous chunks of meat, one starts to think that a three rib roast is quite a normal size for four people and it's only when one finds out that it's actually five and a half kilos that one realises that perhaps it's actually quite a lot. But by then, of course, it's too late... actually that's not entirely fair as the butcher saw me wince and did ask if I wanted him to cut a bit off, but it looked so amazing that I decided to go for it as it was. We roasted it on Saturday to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's instructions and it came out looking like this. Confirmation that the bigger the piece of meat, the better the result.

Back to Sunday lunch - as it was the start of the recent heatwave, we served the beef cold along with a tomato tart from Marylebone farmers' market and some salad. The first red was our old friend Beaune Greves 1er cru 1999 from Yves Darviot, which needs to be drunk up fairly soon. This bottle was beautiful as ever. I have often raved about it in the past and it remains the pinnacle of price/quality ratio as far as I'm concerned. Just amazing.

Next up, with the cheese course, was a bottle of Vosne Romanee 1er cru Clos de Reas 1999 from Michel Gros, another old favourite and again one which did not disappoint. I read somewhere recently that ideally reds should be served at cellar temperature which is lower than room temperature, so we chilled both reds slightly, which was a good move and one to remember for future reference.

The Epoisses makes a bid for freedom!

A digression about the cheeses, which came from Pascal Beillevaire in Montpelier Street just off Knightsbridge. I've written before about how offputting I find La Fromagerie in Moxon Street, with its incredibly heavy shoulder-dislocating door to the cold cheese room and a general sense that somehow you're not worthy to be allowed in there. I don't think this is just me being paranoid as G has noticed it too. So I was expecting this Parisian cheese shop located in the area of the London mega-rich to be super-snooty.

Au contraire! When I visited on Friday evening, the assistant was friendly and quite happy for me to have a look round by myself. After I'd spent a few minutes mooching about, taking care not to swipe priceless cheeses off the shelves with my rucksack loaded with 5.5 kg of beef, I enlisted her help. We had a serious discussion regarding the components of the ideal cheeseboard - I knew I wanted some Epoisses, some Beaufort, some Bleu des Causses, and a goaty thing, but fancied one additional wild card cheese. She suggested a sheep's cheese - bien sûr! - and I got to taste a wonderful pungent and smoky example of the genre which was the missing link. I'm not sure what the name of it was but will find out next time I'm there. I also got an evil dried-up little goaty thing for G - this is chevre sec, which is sold by weight so this particular one cost about two quid. I'm now the proud owner of a Pascale Beillevaire loyalty card and received a "little present" in the form of a chocolate mousse. All in all, a delightful experience and I think it may become a weekly habit!

I failed to take any photos of pudding, but made the world famous Petits Pots (to a closely-guarded family recipe) which is also basically a chocolate mousse. To accompany this, we had this Mas Amiel 1975 provided by G. This is a sweet red wine from Maury, an area in the Roussillon, one of the few wines that goes well with chocolate. Which it certainly did!

Finally, the piece de resistance was provided by ACC - a kirsch and a poire william liqueur, both with some serious age on them.

Good example of the Inverse Law of Labels

We think the kirsch may have been made in 1950 as there's a punched out 50 on the label (just below the second M of Commerce). These two made a very enjoyable end to the occasion - another five hour special!