Lunch at mine, 13th May

Last Sunday, I was joined by G, D and ACC for lunch at A du V Towers.

We commenced with some pork scratchings and this bottle of Meursault 1er cru Sous le Dos D'Ane 2002 from Domaine Leflaive, provided by G who is trying to breathe new life into the Premier Cru Project. It was a beautiful pale gold colour and had good legs. I'd like to think I would have identified it as Domaine Leflaive from 20 paces. I'd probably have thought it was Puligny though. It was restrained and elegant with a hint of mushrooms, and was drinking perfectly now. G explained at length that the Sous le Dos D'Ane vineyard is in Blagny, but it's only called Blagny if it's a red wine. We gave it 9 points.

Next up, with our starter of smoked mackerel pate on toast, was this Vougeot 1er cru Le Clos Blanc de Vougeot Monopole 2011 from Domaine de la Vougeraie. We suspected it might not be 100% chardonnay and that there might be some pinot blanc in there. It had a lovely weight and G referred to it having "nice shoulders" while ACC described it as racy. I noticed that it strangely seemed to have evaporated in my glass - not sure how that happened. We gave it a 10, which means Vougeot keeps its top spot with the highest average score for a village. 

ACC had brought along this 2014 Beaune Vieilles Vignes from Domaine de la Roseraie, which although very young was starting to drink. As usual with this domaine, it was a serious wine demanding concentration! It was pretty yet had substance and was very smooth, classic red Beaune. Personally I would come back to it in five years.

I was fairly happy with the roast beef which is just as well as I've been eating it all week!

D had brought along a Adelsheim Oregon Pinot Noir Calkins Lane Vineyard ‎2004 which sadly turned out to be corked. I think this is the first corked bottle we've ever had from D, which is a remarkable record, and what an irony that it was this one and not one of his much older vintages.

Fortunately I had a wardrobe full of alternatives so I wheeled out this Pommard la Croix Blanche 2009 from Domaine Parent. I got this out of storage a few months ago and the verdict was that it wasn't quite ready back then, but this time I think it was. It was tres Pommard, powerful and rich, with good length. G described it as impeccable, and ACC told us that the lieu-dit is next to premier cru vineyards, which explains a lot.

This Epoisses wasn't quite ripe enough for my liking. Never mind. The Picos de Europa was pretty stunning, a new discovery made by G. It's going to be hard to go back to Roquefort now...

A brace of digestifs was consumed with abandon. The fine is made from aligote from Pierre Fenal's parcel (i.e. Maison en Belles Lies) and in my opinion these are up there with the Roulot equivalents.

And then just in case we hadn't had enough to drink, G supplied this Exshaw 1973 cognac to round things off. All in all, a very fine luncheon!

New Year's Eve 2015

Bonne année tout le monde!

The new year got off to a good start on Thursday night with yet another decadent dinner at my place. ACC, Baron McG and G were all present and correct. Baron McG showed up in some rather shocking Robocop-style flashing electric blue glasses which caused quite a stir. A nice glass of Castelnau 2002 calmed us down (the same fizz as last year in fact, and still doing the business) along with some delicious parmesan biscuits made by the Baron himself.

ACC contributed this "mystery wine" and we were required to guess what it might be. It had no label and all we had was bottle shape to go on. Our initial guesses of Alsace and Germany were incorrect so given that he runs a company called the Burgundy Portfolio it seemed possible that it came from Burgundy, except it was apparently a sweet wine, and Burgundy doesn't do sweet wines apart from Ratafia... bingo!

I've always been a bit hazy about what exactly Ratafia is and have a tendency to confuse it with Prunelle, but I now know that it is in fact a mixture of marc and grape juice, a bit like Pineau des Charentes. This particular Ratafia came from the private cellar of one of the growers in ACC's portfolio.

It was dangerously drinkable, well-chilled, and slipped down very easily indeed - it felt like drinking grape juice but was probably about 15% alcohol! We had it with our starter of pate and toast which it accompanied very well. G unchivalrously recounted a story of an encounter between me and a bottle of Pineau des Charentes many years ago. That sort of thing doesn't happen these days but left alone with a bottle of this Ratafia it very well might.

With our roast beef we had this bottle of 1967 Latour, contributed by G. The level was good as you can see from the photo. As usual, it was unmistakably Latour, with the classic cedar, mint etc. yet the tannins had softened over the years and it was relatively mellow.

With the cheese course we moved on to this Domaine de Trevaillon 1989 also contributed by G. This is a 50/50 mix of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz. It seemed big and powerful coming after the Latour but was very drinkable.

These "Elizabethan" chocs from Bendicks which the Baron brought along also went down a treat! This photo must have been taken before we got down to the second level.

Then it was on to the marc. This bottle was my primary find in Burgundy in October and came from Mon Millesime. I didn't know what Fauchon was but apparently it's the French equivalent of Fortnums. Sold!

The fossilised cork also appealed to me, although it did cause problems by falling into the bottle and the marc had to be decanted into a different bottle. We noticed that the bottle had a huge punt, and G got down the old Marquis D'Angerville bottle to compare. A distinct similarity there.

This suggests that it was probably bottled in the 1950s and we think the marc itself probably dated back to the 1930s.

It was lovely stuff, smooth and mellow, without much fieriness, but with a great finish. The sort of marc that makes me do an impression of my Irish grandmother, put on an Ulster accent and say "No harm in that" or possibly "Get outside of that".

On the same trip I also brought back this bottle of Fine de Bourgogne (very similar to marc) which I found in the shop that used to be Magnum. With a label like that, I just had to have it. Let's see the full horror in close-up.

I suspect this dated back to the 70s, based on no evidence whatsoever. It was surprisingly good and not particularly expensive. I was very pleased with the marc/fine discoveries this year and am almost inspired to set up a separate blog called Marc Quest, but along with G's long-awaited Odyssey de Chevre I suspect this will never actually happen.

Some fell by the wayside as the evening wore on, while others watched the fireworks on TV and then pondered the mystery of why Bryan Adams had been chosen to play in concert afterwards. We'll probably never know. That was the winter of 15.

Thanks everyone for a great evening and am looking forward to further vinous discoveries in 2016!