Lunch at mine, 21st October

And so the great blog catch up of 2017 continues... thank god I've found my notes at last!

21st October was a Sunday, and D and G joined me at A du V Towers for lunch. That's fellow wine enthusiasts D and G not brother and sister in law D and G.

We commenced with this 1er cru Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot 2012 from Domaine de la Choupette. This was a lovely colour and had a good mouthfeel. The oak was there but it was appropriate and integrated. It was well-balanced and drinking really well now, crisp, classic Chassagne with that slight mushroomy thing going on. There'd be no hurry to drink the rest, if G has any left, and we gave it a 9 on the premier cru scale.

Next up was the red version of the same wine, from the 2008 vintage. This was a relatively light colour and slightly dumb on the nose for me initially, but once it got going it had smokey, leather, redcurrant and red berry compote flavours. We thought it would last another five years.

At this point I remembered that I had the village level Chassagne 2008 from Choupette lurking in my wardrobe, so naturally a horizontal comparison ensued. This was much darker with black cherry fruit and somebody appears to have made the comment "a little bit of sweaty saddle" - I think that must have been G channeling his inner Jilly Goolden. It was drinking perfectly now and was approachable, but we felt the premier cru was more solid and the fruit was riper.

The colour contrast is very clear in this photo.

Moving on, with the cheese course we had some Chapoutier Hermitage La Sizeranne from 1998. This claimed to be 13% but I have my doubts. It was a very dark colour and had a big nose with woody spices including star anise and a hint of rubber. On the palate we found plums, cinnamon and liquorice. It was big but had mellowed down, and reminded me how much I like the Northern Rhone. My notes threw the f word around with abandon and in an entirely positive way. Or, as G put it, more elegantly, "Rhone is offering a lot of pleasure at the moment."

We finished off with a half of Chateau Suduiraut 2001 with our berries, which had a lovely botrytis quality and lemon and lime marmalade flavours. It was light, elegant and floral rather than blowsy, and had good balance and acidity. The finish lasted for minutes. A wonderful end to a very fine lunch!

Dinner at the Savile, 16th July

Last night G generously hosted a dinner for me and my family at the Savile, to celebrate my birthday which was last Sunday. We brought the wines ourselves, and spent many enjoyable evenings planning exactly what we would have. In the end, all the wines turned out to be French, what a surprise, but I restrained myself on the burgundies as thought it would be fun to have some different things for a change.

We started off in the bar with a bottle of non-vintage Bolllinger rose, which G acquired from our local Unwins when it was closing down, and got it at about half price I believe. Everyone raved about it, and it had a lovely fruit and weight. The perfect start to the evening.

Then we went upstairs to the restaurant and continued proceedings with this 1976 gewurztraminer from Hugel, part of G's Hugel acquisition back at the beginning of the year. It proved very popular and my mother even asked me what it was. As on previous occasions, we found that its age had given it time to mellow and it had become something really interesting.

We followed up with the Hugel riesling 1969 which prompted some humorous comments as this was the year my brother was born. For me, it was less wondrous than the gewurz, but still lovely mature Alsace, and went very well with my marinated mackerel.

Next was an old favourite, the 1999 Vosne-Romanee Clos de Reas from Michel Gros. I've had several bottles of this and it had never failed to disappoint. So it was inevitable I suppose, that the one we had last night with my family wasn't quite as good as the previous bottles. I don't know if it was coming to it after the Alsace wines or what, but I found some strange appley top-notes going on. They diminished with time and with the accompaniment of red meat. G agreed that it wasn't quite what we'd hoped for. Still, that's burgundy for you, you do get these bottle variations.

After that, we moved on to a bottle of 1996 Hermitage La Chapelle from Paul Jaboulet Aine, an iconic wine of the northern Rhone which I love. I bought this bottle after a tasting held by ACC, for no particular reason except that he was offering a good deal on it, and put it on the rack for a rainy day. My family all loved it as I thought they would, particularly my sister-in-law who has dangerously expensive tastes when it comes to this sort of thing. But it would be hard not to like this wine - powerful yet elegant.

We finished off with this Rivesaltes 1982 which G bought from Waitrose It's a 50cl bottle which is a good size, and everyone got a couple of small glasses. A very pleasing dessert wine, not too sweet, which went well with everyone's various puds.

Then it was back downstairs for coffee and brandy for some, and then a whistlestop tour of the club including a very bad performance by me of the Entertainer on the piano in the ballroom. Memo to self: resist the temptation to play the piano after a bottle of wine!

All in all, a very enjoyable evening.