Dinner at G's, 17th March

A couple of weeks ago, G hosted dinner at his flat and we were joined by D who showed up with a suitcase full of wine-related treasures.

We started with my penultimate bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru Morgeot from Domaine de la Choupette alongside the first asparagus of 2019 and some fine prosciutto. The Chassagne was a light straw colour and drinking perfectly now. It has been classy, elegant and stylish with deft use of oak, and has a lovely weight. D found it creamy and I got lemon zest - so basically a lemon syllabub in a glass.

Then it was on to a pair of elderly clarets, Lafite 58 and Leoville-Las Cases 1961, provided by G. Possibly not the fairest comparison given the vintages.

The Lafite was significantly paler than the Leoville and was old but drinkable. It had gone a little soft in its old age and I found it somewhat dried out. D said it had fruit but no acid. We drank both of the wines over 45 minutes and it did improve with time, but the Leoville was definitely more my cup of tea. "That's good" said everyone with a sigh of relief. It had all the flavours I'm looking for in a claret - cedar, tobacco, coffee, leather. Proper old school claret at 58 years old. G told me he knew why I liked it. Apparently Leoville-Las Cases is separated from Chateau Latour by a small stream. Wikipedia confirms this - the Juillac tributary to be precise - not that I doubted G for a moment. A discussion of the great claret vintages followed and for the record, D says that 59 is better than 61 so I think some 59 Latour needs to be added to my bucket list...

I amused myself reading Andre Simon's "Wine and Spirits: The Connoisseur's Textbook" which had some unexpected information in it, including the fact that California has a border with Canada. Who knew!

Meanwhile, G produced this unexpected half of sweet wine. It was called Cotnari and was basically the Romanian equivalent of Tokaji. The vintage was 1984 and it was 12% alcohol.

The wine itself was almost exactly the same colour as G's new table. It had a heady nose - I got a big hit of unsulphured dried apricots while D got figs. Orange peel and tinned peaches were also mentioned. The palate was congruent and the wine was very unctuous with lots of glycerin. It was remarkable stuff and really rather excellent. Apparently this has never been on sale in the UK and the label was in French. The score for Roumanie was definitely douze points and I believe G has another half bottle stashed away somewhere for a future occasion!

Finally, D had brought over a lovely half bottle of Dow's 1977 which we had with our cheese. This was a lovely ruby colour, sweet and rich, with figs, prunes and sultanas and an amazing finish. "The 77s are finally ready" said G, and D agreed - it had all come together perfectly and we got it at the right moment. It was impeccable vintage port, and particularly great with a piece of Stichelton. Thanks very much to both of you. If only all Sunday evenings could be like that!

Dinner at mine, 1st Feb - 1970 claret horizontal!

Last night, D came round for dinner. We'd been requested to provide 12 similar wine glasses, so guessed that some sort of comparative tasting might be in store, and I'd made an emergency Riedel purchase earlier in the week to bring stocks up to the necessary level.

We weren't disappointed. After a bottle of 2002 Castelnau blancs de blancs champagne (which I think we all enjoyed - it was light, elegant and creamy), it was time for the main event. D had brought four half bottles of 1970 first growth claret: Haut-Brion, Lafite, Latour and Margaux.

It was amazing to get to try these four fully mature clarets side by side, especially for me as I don't get to drink much claret (with the exception of my Latour habit).

We tasted them in alphabetical order, as good as any! The Haut-Brion was very smooth and had a lot of mint and even eucalpytus - a good wine to clean the tubes out. I thought it must have a high percentage of cabernet sauvignon to be having that effect. G described it as "bewitching" and it certainly was superior claret.

The Lafite was a noticeably lighter colour than the others, and was more austere. It seemed to have an edge to it. I have actually drunk 1970 Lafite before and found it vaguely disappointing; again, this evening, we felt it was in last place.

The Latour had that powerful Latour nose and was big and majestic. To start with, I found it a bit too much, and after the first round of tasting I moved it to the end, to stop it interfering with my impressions of the others. As time went on, I found it more pleasurable, but it was a wine I was happy to only drink a glass of as opposed to half a bottle. Whereas the others were mature, it felt as though this had some way to go (cue G telling story about the 1937 Latour only being ready in 1999).

Finally, the Margaux. This was more feminine and sensuous, coming after the Latour, with fleshy red fruits. "Hello sailor!" was one comment. It had an amazing finish and I liked it very much. But we did think it was a "pop and pour" wine, as it started to go downhill first.

Finally, with the cheeseboard, G produced this 1963 Sandeman port. It had been double-decanted at 2.30 and now it was 9.30. I'm not sure what went wrong during those seven hours but this port, although drinkable, had faded considerably. At first we thought perhaps it was suffering from coming after the first growth clarets, but even after some cheese had been eaten it still didn't pick up. A shame, but these things happen. It didn't stop us getting through a fair bit of it!

And on that note, I must finish, since I have an important occasion to attend, also involving fortified wine! More to follow at the weekend.

Lunch at mine, 11th May

And so normal service tentatively resumes.

I arrived back in London after a weekend away a couple of weeks ago, very much looking forward to having lunch with G and D who was over for one of his biannual visits. I wasn't disappointed.

We kicked off with a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet 1er cru Folatieres 2008 from Domaine Bzikot, provided by G. This continues to be a great example of the genre and is drinking perfectly now. We had a bottle back in March when G voiced doubts, but he seems to be converted now.

Then it was on to the main event. D had informed us that he'd be bringing "a couple of reds". It turned out that he meant two different vintages of Chateau Lafite. I couldn't believe it!

In particular, a bottle of 1966 and a bottle of 1975. It would have been a privilege to drink either, let alone both!

We started with the 1975 which was drinking extremely well. It was very smooth and the tannins had softened. The finish was amazing and I got some heat which I eventually worked out reminded me of black pepper. There were also notes of liquorice, chocolate and leather. It was supple and complex, not majestic like Latour, but more feminine.

The 1966 had a more classic "claretty" nose - that cedar, lead pencil, cigar box thing going on. Again it was very smooth and was more classic all round. G thought it was richer than the 1975 and to me it felt like there was more cabernet sauvignon in the mix. Again, it had a great structure and finish. We loved the $29.95 price tag. Those were the days...

Here you can see the difference in the colour - the 1975 is on the right and the 1966 on the left.

If we had to choose between them, I have to admit the 1966 was my favourite, but it has a price differential to match. It was great to be able to compare them and both went very nicely with G's shepherd's pie.

With our cheese course, we had a bottle of 6 puttonyos Tokaji from 1996. This had a heady nose of dried apricots and figs, and extraordinary exotic, tropical fruits on the palate - pineapple and mango. It had a lovely gloopy mouthfeel. I enjoyed it very much.

Finally, we had some of G's latest acquisition, some old navy rum in a terrible wicker basket! My shoes are included in the photo to show the scale of the thing.

This rum dates back to the 1950s and has acquired the smooth characteristics of an old spirit, but is nevertheless immediately identifiable as rum. Like whisky, it benefits from the addition of a little water. An animated conversation ensued about the possibility of doing an old spirits tasting, which is a great idea.

Lunch lasted 6 hours, a new record, I think. Thanks very much to D for providing such amazing goodies from his cellar, and to G for the others and for doing the cooking.