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!

Bits and pieces, 17th November

Random recent drinking round-up...

First, this 2007 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Clavoillon from Domaine Leflaive. Hilariously tasteful music on their website by the way! I found it in Adnams on Store Street and it had been reduced from *consults hazy memory* approx £68 to approx £57. Still an expensive bottle but I do like their Bourgogne Blanc very much and decided to find out whether this was worth the premium. It had a lovely texture and was scintillating, quite rich for a Puligny, all round classy booze. But we felt it only rated a 9, and that it was arguably about 25% better than the Bourgogne. We're on the exponential curve of quality v. price. I'm glad I tried it but won't be rushing to get any more.

Last night I cracked a bottle of red Chassagne-Montrachet 2008 from Domaine de la Choupette. I have a case of this sitting in the corner of my flat and last time we tried it, about a year ago, it was disappointing. I should really have paid more attention when we visited the domaine back in January last year, as we were told very clearly that these wines take 4-5 years to come round, which indeed turns out to be the case.

I decanted it for about an hour and a half before serving and the nose boded well. It was absolutely lovely - soft and elegant with black cherry flavours - and went down a treat with our Ginger Pig sausages. This domaine is now a firm favourite and I can't wait to try their white Chassagne in due course. They will be at the Burgundy Portfolio 2011 en primeur tasting on 8th January which should be great.

For the cheese course, we had Battle of the Enormous Cheeses - another wonderful Pouligny St Pierre from Beillevaire in Montpelier Street, and a huge hunk of parmesan which I got from "Save a Cheese". This is what happens when I listen to too many Monocle podcasts. It's a cheese rescued from the earthquake-stricken warehouses of the Emilia-Romana region of Italy. A little rough around the edges but tastes amazing.

And finally, a new range of goodies. I was fortunate enough to infiltrate a special shopping evening at Fortnums on Thursday and came away with some Elvas plums and some Pruneaux d'Agen Fourrés. And earlier in the week, my brother and sister-in-law very kindly gave me some dark Swiss pralines as a present for feeding their cats while they were away at the weekend.  Here you can see G has constructed a lovely assiette consisting of an Elvas plum, a prune, a praline and another prune. We subsequently scoffed another praline each as they were so damn good. Somehow I doubt whether any of the boxes will last till Christmas.

Sunday lunch, 18th July

Last Sunday it was my turn to host lunch. I used the fact that it was my birthday the previous Sunday to justify wheeling out some nice bottles.

While we were waiting for ACC to arrive, G produced this half of Hugel gewurz 1976, which was a different 1976 from the one we'd had at the Savile on Friday - this was the bog standard as opposed to the Selection Personelle. Alsace nerd, moi? It came in a 34cl bottle. G opened and poured, and you can see the colour from the photo, which led to immediate suspicions that it was ferked. One whiff confirmed this - very pungent indeed - and down the sink it went.

Fortunately I hadn't known G was going to produce this, so I'd already chilled a nice half of manzanilla which made a more than acceptable substitute. I note that I'm now down to my last 2 halves of this (when did I buy it? um about 3 weeks ago...) Je ne regrette rien, it has been ideal summer drinking.

For our starter we had some smoked sea trout which G had procured from a stall in Borough Market. It was lovely and went very well with a bottle of Domaine Leflaive bourgogne blanc 2007, which I have blogged about before so will not go into details. ACC provided some welcome expert advice, namely that this wine is not going to get any better, so that means no particular reason to hold onto it - hurrah!

For the main course we had roast fillet of beef which I got from the Ginger Pig, served cold with some salad. ACC had kindly brought along this Auxey-Duresses premier cru from Domaine Roulot 2002. We looked the domaine up in Coates to find that he gives it 3 stars, which is the score he gives "the best" - high praise indeed.

It was a relatively light colour with a slight amber tinge. On the nose it had a lovely, sweet fruit which I found quite heady and intoxicating. On the palate, it was absolutely delicious, and congruent with the nose. Rich and sweet yet light and soft. It reminded me of a red Chassagne, which is possibly my favourite style of Burgundy, very elegant. We all agreed this was a great lunchtime wine.

With the cheese, we had this Nuits St George premier cru Aux Perdrix, from Domaine du Perdrix, 2000. I knew that we'd had this before, but consulting my notes afterwards I was surprised to see it was actually the same vintage we'd had before too! Last time we gave it a 10, but this time it only got a 9.

It was a much darker colour than the Auxey, and on the nose had a lot of dark chocolate, prunes and black cherry. On the palate it was rich, deep, and mellow. I thought it actually had some parallels to the Auxey in its maturity and softness but this was very Cotes de Nuits style (darker flavours and black fruits) whereas the Auxey was very Cotes de Beaune style, lighter and with more red fruits. On this occasion, Roulot came out top - it was lunchtime after all, and qute hot in my flat. In future I should remember to save my C de N monsters for winter evenings!

We rounded off with coffee and a glass of G's mystery madeira which had a Berry Bros & Rudd label. He estimated that it came from the 1930s and was probably a malmsey. There must be a novel to be written about madeira detectives.

Domaine Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc 2007

I've been a fan of Domaine Leflaive's bourgogne blanc for a while, and one of my first en primeur purchases was a case of the 2002 which we drank in 2008-09 and which gave great pleasure to all who tried it. So I was thrilled to pick up a case of the 2007 at a recent auction. One tends to think of bourgogne blanc as entry-level stuff, but in the case of Domaine Leflaive this is misleading. This wine puts many premier crus to shame but sadly is priced accordingly - it's going for roughly £35 a bottle according to Wine Searcher. Very nice to get it for considerably less than that!

It turned up in a wooden case which I shall be adding to my collection. Although it's a bit early to be drinking it, we couldn't resist a bottle to see how it was getting on. I was in charge of opening it and narrowly avoided dislocating my shoulder getting the cork out, thereby avoiding a trip to the local A&E. (Time to get a new corkscrew, hint hint G.)

We decanted it about half an hour before drinking. It was a light gold colour. We immediately recognised it on the nose - it's one of those wines which has a unique and distinctive smell, quite lemony and oaky. On the palate, it was lovely - well-balanced, elegant and precise but with considerably acidity. Very Puligny in style, which is to be expected as Domaine Leflaive are one of the top producers in Puligny.

I doubt whether I'll ever be in a position to buy their higher end stuff - a quick check of Corneys website shows that the only wine they have from Leflaive at the moment is a 2008 premier cru Meursault which is going for £60, ouch, so it is a real privilege to drink this. It's the kind of wine that makes me sit there with a silly smile on my face. If it were a premier cru, it would be a high 9, verging on a 10.

It's beginning to drink now but if I have any self-control I ought to pace it over the next 5 years. No more than 2 bottles a year then, for special occasions. Definitely not to be drunk on a Monday night just for the hell of it! But then I would never do anything like that.

Burgundy lunch, 19th April

On Sunday, it was my turn to host lunch with honoured guests ACC, Baron McG and G. We had planned to kick off proceedings with a bottle of white Beaune 1er cru Clos des Mouches 2006 from Yves Darviot - so imagine our delight when Baron McG produced a bottle of the same, from the 2005 vintage! A Clos des Mouches vertical ensued.

It was interesting to see that the 2006 was in a much darker bottle than the 2005. Apparently the darker bottle protects against UV of some sort - but that's quite enough science bit for me. The 2006 was very good, but the 2005 whopped it - it was a brighter colour and more full-on and unctuous in the mouth, with a glycerine quality. We had some gougeres fresh from the oven, and found that with food and a bit of time, the 2006 improved considerably, but the final scores were 2006: 9, 2005: 10. Thanks to the Baron for sharing his last bottle with us. Fortunately G has more of the 2006 which is great news, as we think it will last another 4 years or so.


Next up were two premier cru Gevreys I brought back from Burgundy in January, both monopoles from Domaine des Varoilles. First we had the 2003 La Romanee, which was lovely. The nose jumped out of the glass and was quite heady. Baron McG detected Suze (which makes a change from curry). On the palate it was powerful, heady and concentrated with lots of liquorice, very easy to drink, and which went well with my beef carbonnade. It scored a 9.

This was followed by the 1999 Clos des Varoilles, which I'd expected to be better, as it was older and also from their named vineyard. However it was slightly disappointing after the 2003, still good but lacking oomph somehow. We thought it was complete and well-balanced but more old school and we suspected the winemaking may have changed generations in between. It scored an 8.


Then it was on to the wine ACC had brought, a 2002 Blagny 1er cru Sous le Dos D'Ane from Domaine Leflaive. Here's a photo of the bottle levitating - Blagny has amazing magical powers. This was the last vintage made of this wine, as the following year Domaine Leflaive converted the vineyard to chardonnay, which fetches a higher price - so a rare treat. I see from my notes I wrote CLASSY (must have liked it a lot to get carried away upper case). It was medium-weight after the Gevreys, and elegant with a lovely berry fruit, very Cotes de Beaune in style. It scored a 9.


Finally with pudding (rhubarb crumble) we had one of G's 1971 German rieslings which he picked up at auction recently. I didn't make notes but this is lovely stuff especially for less than £6 a bottle! It complemented the crumble very well.


As we sat around drinking coffee, G leapt into action, whipped on the Marigolds and did the best part of the washing-up, which was very kind. This whirlwind deserved an action shot - thanks to Baron McG for undertaking photographic duties.

It's not often one gets to drink 5 premier cru burgundies at a sitting - all in all, another great Sunday lunch!