A trip to the US and more ramblings about rum

It's been an eventful few weeks, including a trip to the States. We had a chance to visit J up in Grand Rapids which is about a 7 hour drive away. 

We loaded up the Jeep and I got some podcasts on the go. I'm particularly enjoying The Creative Penn about writing and self-publishing at the moment, and as D likes true crime, I did some digging about to see what I could find and came across one called Drunk Women Solving Crime which we enjoyed. Coincidentally, the first episode we listened to featured a somewhat gruesome murder that happened just outside my home town in 1930!

It was great to see J and her family, and to meet Penny the cat for the first time. Here she is keeping watch over a bottle of Cuvee Josephine which J had saved in my honour. 

 

Some epic wines were consumed over the course the weekend, including a trio of Corton supplied by me, which had been biding their time over at D's house. I was delighted they had all survived. The 2013 white from Maison en Belles Lies was particularly wonderful, and it was lovely to have it again as I probably drank my penultimate bottle over here back in 2020. The Americans mostly preferred Anne Parent's 2008 red over the Maison Romane 2009, which was useful intel for future reference. I suspect the Maison Romane may have been a bit wild for their tastes whereas the Parent was perhaps more polished.

Eagle eyes may notice that there was also a bottle of Delamotte 2002 and a half of Suduiraut 2001 in the mix. The Suduiraut was a really great bottle which reminded me how much they vary, but when they're good, they're exceptional.

J also shared some treasures from her spirits collection, which is quite something!

We returned home via East Harbor State Park in Ohio, on the edge of Lake Erie. Sadly this time there were no raccoons in evidence, but there were thousands of fireflies which was a magical new experience for me. 

The following weekend D and I had time for a quick backpacking trip to the Laurel Highlands. As the weather forecast was a little dicey, we booked a shelter as well as a tent spot. The camp sites have 5 or 6 of these shelters, space for tents, and bathrooms. A snake was sunning itself outside the ladies, but it was small and relatively sweet so I didn't freak out too much.

Anyway, on to the rum. Before my trip, the Baron and I attended a rum tasting at the WSET in Southwark which was very interesting. I hadn't previously been aware of the difference between column stilled and pot stilled rums, but it seems that column stills produce higher strength rum with less space for flavour, so they end up being very neutral and smooth. This is your typical white rum, good for mojitos or daiquiris. Not really what I'm after. 

We started off with one of these from Cuba, then had a rum from Haiti made from sugar cane, which was much more aromatic. The guy giving the class told us that the technology in Haiti is quite rudimentary so they're producing artisanal rums which might well be the next big thing. 

Then it was on to some rums more of the style that interests me. The Real McCoy 5 year old is a mix of column still and pot still, and had a lot more going on. I brought a bottle back from Pennsylvania where it was $30 as opposed to the £44 which it costs in the UK. To be honest, it's been fine but not super exciting. It's from Barbados and those rums tend to be a little on the light side for me. I'm glad I didn't spend £44 on it. 

Back at the tasting, we then tried something from St Lucia which reminded me of wood polish, and then some Worthy Park Single Estate Reserve from Jamaica. The guy told us that Jamaican rum often has "high ester" fruity flavours as there's a lot of yeast and bacteria involved. Others detected banana and tropical fruits while I got yet more of the varnish thing that I'm not mad about.

Finally, we tried some Ron Zacapa Centenario from Guatemala, which comes in a glamorous looking bottle and costs £105 over here. Ron Zacapa is part of Diageo, and they're clearly going for the luxury drinks market with this. It's made by the solera method, had a lot of toffee and caramel, and was very smooth. Just a little corporate for my tastes!

The overall conclusion was that rum is very good value compared to other spirits, and the other thing I learned is that you shouldn't swirl it in your glass as that releases the ethanol and makes it more volatile. 

Armed with all this new knowledge, I picked up a bottle of El Dorado 12 year old which is widely available at around the £37 mark. I liked it more than the Real McCoy 5 year old, as it had a bit more going on, but it's still not particularly complex or exciting and I wouldn't bother to buy it again. 

Unlike this bottle which G brought back from his holidays. This is Venezuelan rum from La Maison Du Rhum, which internet research tells me is actually made by Diplomatico. It's quite light and fruity, with a lot of coconut on the nose, and really interesting. Sadly it appears to be unavailable in the UK. G tells me that I like rums from South America, and looking at my Berry Bros experiences over the past couple of years, I think he might be right, so my next project will be to explore the Diplomatico range. 

Magnums and more

Second blog post in a month shocker! I'm now trying harder to make sure I have a notebook to hand when drinking the good stuff. 

A couple of weeks ago we opened this magnum of Auxey Duresses 2005 from Michel Prunier, which had been lying in my wardrobe for a very long time. I bought several of these and last drank it in 2013 - we decided to give the others some time to come round. Our view was that it is now drinking. It was on the rustic side, old school Burgundy. It reminded G of wines from Doudet-Naudin, and if you told me it was from the 1960s I'd have believed you. I think a couple more of these are residing in Middle England somewhere so it may be one to run by the SPNS in due course... 

A few nights later we had this Savigny les Beaune 1er cru Les Marconnets 2015 from Domaine de la Vougeraie. This was an attractive glossy ruby colour. It had black fruit on the nose, not a typical Savigny nose. It seemed quite big to me but G detected a certain stemmy quality. This went away when we drank it with the lamb tagine and our view was that improved over time. I wondered if it was a bit young, but for me it was lacking in fruit and I'm not sure it would ever really improve. We gave it a 7 on the premier cru scale so a little disappointing to be honest. 

Things improved when G wheeled out this half bottle of Gould Campbell 1980. He has shared a lot of port with me over the past few months which I've enjoyed very much but failed to report on. This was very interesting with fig on the nose, panforte and even milk chocolate - very high quality milk chocolate, G said. The texture was wonderful, lots of glycerine, and there was a hint of Turkish Delight on the finish. It needed no more time and was now a "pop and pour". 

Last weekend we were extremely decadent and ordered a takeaway from Otto's which I have written about before here. To begin with, we drank this Rully 1er cru Montpalais 2016 from Jean-Baptiste Ponsot. This was a beautiful golden colour and had a very attractive nose of unwaxed lemons. It was rounded and creamy in the mouth with a burst of acidity at the end, almost salty. We thought it would be excellent with fish and chips. G declared that marginal villages make great wine in hot vintages, something to bear in mind for future reference. We gave this a 9.

The first course of the very complicated Otto's offering was brioche with duck liver on the left and morels in a sauce on the right. The toaster was brought down from its place above the kitchen cabinets and dusted off for the occasion, and fortunately G alerted me to the fact that the brioche would toast very quickly and we timed it to perfection. The duck liver may be the most delicious thing I've ever eaten, and I plan to attempt to replicate it in the near future - we think port, brandy and butter were all involved. It's hard to believe Otto's doesn't have a Michelin star.

The second course involved duck breast, the famous sauce and some pommes souffles - a miserly portion as we were splitting it over 2 days.

The intention was to have this Beaune 1er cru Cent-Vignes 2005 from Albert Morot alongside. Like the Auxey discussed above, I'd come to realise that 2005 is taking forever to come round, so this had been stashed away in the come-back-to-it-later branch of the cellar. What can I say. It would certainly have been undrinkable young. It reeked to high heaven with famyard aromas and sousbois and there was something weirdly pungent about it. G charitably looked for positives but even he was eventually defeated and agreed it was getting worse with time, so down the sink it went. We gave it a 5 on the premier cru project scale, a disappointing result, as I did enjoy some of the wines from this domaine when I visited it in 2007. 

Next, we opened my last bottle of Santenay Comme Dessus 2010 from Domaine de la Choupette, but something wasn't quite right about it either - it had a stemmy quality reminding me of bad cabernet franc, and a bitter finish. I'm pretty familiar with this wine and it's usually very pleasurable, so something wasn't right. Down the sink it went. 

The pressure was on! Fortunately a bottle of Audiffred Bourgogne Rouge 2016 was on form with the usual exotic fruits on the nose, and went down very well. 

The following night, we had this Beaune 1er cru Greves 2013 from Domaine de la Vougeraie. This was more typical Beaune, medium weight, supple and elegant with nice acidity and complexity. It went very well with the remains of the duck, although I wondered if a big Cote de Nuits red might have gone even better. The nose took a while to open up, and after 2 hours in the decanter it brightened up with notes of black fruit, red fruit and clafoutis. It had a burst of sweetness at the end. Originally we gave it a medium 8 but it was upgraded to a high 8 as time went on. 

Finally, I've been drinking this magnum of Beaujolais Villages 2016 from Maison en Belles Lies for the past few days - not really the ideal size for solitary lockdown drinking but what's a girl to do. It has lots of fruit and is very gluggable, and it's been reminding me of the Coteaux Bourguigons from Romain Chapuis with its slightly feral quality. High praise indeed as that's one of my favourite wines. 

And so on we go... at least there are daffodils outside, the magnolia trees have their buds and I'm looking forward to resuming tastings and dinners soon!

Picnic in the park, 2nd August

And so the summer continues... Still no light on the horizon as far as big life plans go, but I'm now resigned to things going on like this for some time. Meanwhile, as my wedding has been postponed and plans for a big (by my standards) celebration have flown out of the window, there is wine to be drunk! I was delighted to be joined by ACC, G and the Baron for a picnic in the local square yesterday. 

   

Proceedings commenced with a bottle of Delamotte 2002, which is a blanc de blancs and from an excellent vintage. G explained that he had brought it to my attention a few months ago, and then I'd gone and bought a whole case. Well, obvs. There was some debate about how long it will last but in my view there's no great rush so the odd bottle here and there over the next 2-3 years will go down very nicely. 

ACC pointed out this comet motif on the foil. We wondered if this was a reference to Hale-Bopp, but Google tells me that was in 1997. It seems there was a comet called Ikeya-Zhang in 2002, which completely passed me by at the time, but seems like a cheery thing to have on a bottle of champagne and one can only hope the stars will align again soon. 

I made some cheese straws to go with the fizz, which were somewhat lacking in appearance but still tasted pretty good, made with the Cornish Vintage Quartz cheddar from Waitrose. This cheese is rated strength 7 on a scale of 1-6, and in my experience under no circumstances should be eaten after 3 pm as it has a tendency to cause nightmares. Which is a shame, as it's very delicious.  

Next up was this bottle of Corton Charlemagne 2013 from Maison en Belles Lies. For me, this is absolutely wonderful stuff, the epitome of Chardonnay, drinking very well now. Apparently there is still some available from the Burgundy Portfolio - I highly recommend grabbing a bottle or two! We had it with a chicken, apricot and pistachio terrine which worked very well. 

Moving swiftly on, this red Corton Les Renardes 2008 from Domaine Parent was also exemplary. Normally I'd have decanted it, served in proper Riedel red burgundy glasses etc, but as this was a picnic, it had to be served as it came. I had chilled it, which possibly brought out higher acidity, and it was a wonderful example of pinot.

It was an absolutely beautiful colour too.

And then, dessert! I failed to take a photo of the meringues I made, which incorporated pistachios and chocolate chips, based on Nigella's "forgotten cookies" recipe, although Nigella sadly let me down by pretending these would cook properly in a switched-off oven.  

With these, we had two half bottles of Suduiraut 2001, apparently one of the best ever Sauternes vintages. The first half was wonderful, lots of citrus and marmalade, but the second half was even better! It was a slightly darker colour, more gloopy and ACC detected butterscotch. Interesting that there should be so much variation between bottles from the same case. I'm glad we drank them in that order. We finished off with a spot of Epoisses which happened to be hanging around in my fridge *innocent look*

It was very enjoyable to have this get-together after recent months of doom and gloom. Thanks to the boys for your company and giving me an excuse to drink these beauties!

Another recent drinking round up

Towards the end of January I got some wine out of storage, which is always an exciting occasion!

First up was this Vosne-Romanee 2010 from Domaine Audiffred. Having seen Henri the previous Monday evening, I'd asked his advice about decanting this and the verdict was not to decant in advance, so we opened it, decanted and began drinking right away! This wine was medium weight, deft and poised with a lovely burst of fruit acids on the finish along with a touch of cocoa. It made my mouth tingle. There was some debate about what the fruit reminded us of and in the end we settled on "hedgerow fruits". It felt like it gained a little weight over time, and was beautifully rounded, easy to drink and just very enjoyable.

A couple of nights later we had this Hautes Cotes de Beaune 2012 from Maison en Belles Lies. This was quite a pale colour and a little cloudy. It was lovely, lightweight, pretty pinot noir, just 12% alcohol, with vibrant cherry fruit, juicy and succulent. One of my favourite styles of wine and, as G said, it wasn't pretending to be something it wasn't. I was surprised it was still so fresh at almost 8 years old, and it positively evaporated from our glasses!

Finally, to round off the week, we had this Pernand-Vergelesses Les Combottes 2013 from Pascal Clement. This was an amazing golden colour with hints of green, a surprisingly vibrant colour for a village white. It had hints of stone fruits and white flowers on the nose, then bracing acidity on the palate. It was big and juicy, with a lot of lemon along with a savoury edge. Really remarkable stuff and we agreed it would be a 9 if it we were scoring it as a premier cru, so it was certainly playing at a higher level than its appellation would suggest. It was relatively expensive for a village Pernand but definitely worth it.

I'm looking forward to drinking more of these three very soon...

Lunch at mine, 8th December

Last Sunday, I was joined by G and D for lunch at AduV Towers. I was quite excited as the line-up was spectacular!

Wine Out Thursday had occurred earlier in the week, and one of the treasures I took out of my cellar was this Corton Charlemagne 2013 from Maison en Belles Lies. I've had the privilege to visit this domaine three times, and it's always been a terrific experience. The wines are biodynamic and fascinating, and Pierre Fenals is a lovely chap. Reviewing my notes from the 2014 trip, I see that he shares this vineyard with Bonneau du Martray and Coche-Dury. I can think of worse neighbours!

G sprang into action and donned the rubber gloves in order to deconstruct some smoked fish which he'd picked up at the stall in Borough Market. We had a mixture of smoked trout, smoked mackerel and smoked salmon, along with some evil dark rye bread. The wine itself was a beautiful golden colour, with a buttery nose, and tasted exquisite. On the palate, I got a lot of tropical fruit - pineapple, mango and passionfruit were all mentioned, and it had a wonderful line of acidity down the middle. Fully mature now, it was the perfect accompaniment to the smoked fish, and definitely a wine to savour. I'm delighted that I have five more bottles, but don't think they're going to hang about for long.

It was my turn to spring into action and heat up the beef carbonnade, which I'd made the previous day with additional marrow bone and stock bones. This was a mixed success, as the stock bones had splintered and added a certain Russian roulette edge to proceedings. In future I think I'll just make my own beef stock instead of attempting to cut corners!

With this, we had a Clos de Vougeot 2011 from Odoul-Coquard, which had been carefully cellared in G's country estate but actually belonged to me. It's delightful to have a stash tucked away which tends to be out of sight, out of mind. I had high expectations of this wine and we weren't disappointed. It was a nice dark colour and looked glossy and appealing. G described it as "perfumed, gorgeous" and it certainly tasted expensive - black forest gateau in a glass or even cherries in kirsch. Because 2011 was a relatively light vintage, this was drinking wonderfully now and needed no more time. For me, it was a great wine to share, as it was so powerful I'm not sure I'd have wanted more than a couple of glasses.

Finally, with the cheese course, we had this Beaulieu Vineyards Private Reserve 1969 contributed by D. It emerged that he has owned this bottle of wine for longer than G and I have been on the planet. Now that puts the marshmallow delayed gratification test in perspective! This was a wonderful dark colour and had an amazing herbaceous nose with mint and eucalyptus. On the palate, it was dark and intense and I believe I made an unfortunate reference to After Eights, only to correct myself - it was of course Bendicks bittermints which I had in mind. It had a lovely warm finish of baked plums, and G drank the dregs, which says a lot. We had our doubts that it was really 12.5% alcohol as claimed by the label. It was amazing to think that it was 50 years old, and still on its plateau.

D told us that 1969 was an overlooked vintage, and they don't make them like they used to. I'd spotted some a recent vintage in the Pennsylvanian booze store, but apparently 1974 was the last good vintage. Damn!

Maison en Belles Lies, 29th October

We hopped back into Monsieur Parize's taxi and drove over to Saint-Aubin to Maison en Belles Lies. We were half an hour early but Pierre Fenals kindly interrupted his schedule to meet us earlier than anticipated.

The tasting was conducted entirely upstairs which meant no perilous trip down the spiral staircase on this occasion! The sun was shining in and gave the bottles a beautiful luminosity, but they were quite cold which made the tasting more challenging, for me.

Last year we only tasted 4 wines, as the vines were badly hit by hail, but this year there were a whopping 10. All the wines are biodynamic.

Starting with the whites, the Aligote was very pure with lively acidity, and the Bourgogne Blanc had a nice weight, was ripe and clean, like a baby St-Aubin. The Monthelie had good minerality and seemed very proper, the Santenay was approachable and I liked it a lot, and the Corton Charlemagne was top notch, lovely big wine with a wonderful finish.

Moving on to the reds, the Hautes Cote de Beaune was a bright red colour and had a fruity redcurrant nose, and was quite light and juicy on the palate. I found the Aloxe-Corton a bit tannic - although I am told that I may have been confusing tannin and acidity - I expect it just needs time. The village Maranges was easier to get on with and the premier cru Maranges was bigger and more powerful. Finally, the Corton Perrieres was silky, intense and had a lot going on - sous bois, leather, raspberries. I thought it would be sensational a few years down the road.

It appears that fans of L'Etrange will be disappointed as none was made in 2014 but Pierre made a lot in 2015 so that's certainly something to look forward to. Thanks to him for another great tasting.

I'd love one of these for AduV Towers

Friday night at mine

On Friday night, ACC joined G and me for dinner. I finished work, ran round the 'Trose, put on my AduV Party Mix, whipped up a batch of gougeres and made some pesto for the first time in my life. G rocked up and got the cremant on the go just as ACC knocked on the door. Perfect!

Still life with decanter brush

With our main course of salmon with the afore-mentioned pesto, we had a bottle of 2006 Meursault 1er cru Gouttes D'Or from Moret-Nomine. I've already written about this but this bottle was the equal of the first, like Meursault squared, heavyweight, nutty and powerful. Pretty to look at, too.

With our cheese course, ACC produced this fine bottle of Maranges from Maison en Belles Lies. I tend to think of Maranges as quite rustic and thought this would go very well with sausages, but it is at the more charming end of the spectrum as one would expect from biodynamic wine-maker Pierre Fenals.

In other news, I have continued my Duolingo French training and am now allegedly 47% fluent, a figure that would make anyone who has heard me trying to speak French chortle, I suspect. Fortunately we have now moved on from obscure animals and it is becoming more like a work of hardboiled detective fiction with sentences such as "She drinks, so I drink" and "If he talks, we talk". I wonder if there is much call for private investigators in Beaune?

Domaine Perrin and Maison en Belles Lies, Wed 29th Oct

After lunch at Le Terroir, we were picked up by Julien, whisked along various windy roads, through Chagny (past Lameloise!) and back up to the Cote d'Or where the first stop was Volnay.

View from the main square in Volnay

We were visiting Domaine Perrin, and were greeted by Vincent and his wife, Marie-Christine, who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time. I think this was one of the first tastings of the 2013 vintage that they had carried out.

We kicked off with the white Saint-Romain, which ACC told me is an aligoté - I never realised this before despite quaffing large quantities of the 2008, or perhaps I'd forgotten. (Update: it appears I got completely the wrong end of the stick here. The aligote is not the same as the St-Romain, but is aged in St-Romain barrels. Mea culpa.) Must clearly re-evaluate my prejudice against stance on aligoté. Vincent said he had used less sulphur than previously (if I understood correctly) - he is generally moving to a more natural approach, and this seemed to have paid off as the wine had a very nice weight. I found it more difficult to assess the Meursault, which is another wine I've loved in the past, possibly because it had only been in bottle for a month and was still a bit shocked.

On the red side, the bourgogne rouge had a nice cherry thing going on on the nose, and was mouth-tingling with good acidity and crunchy fruit. The village Volnay was clearly related, but bigger and broader, while the two Pommards (Vaumurien and Chanlains respectively) were very elegant expressions of Pommard with a lot of tannin and I thought would need several years to come round, especially the Chanlains. The Volnay 1er cru Carelle sous la Chapelle was one of my favourites, with a really interesting nose, good structure and smoothness, while the 1er cru Gigottes had an enticing nose, great concentration and elegance, and a great finish - it may need the best part of a decade but when it gets there it will be fabulous. I shall have to give some serious thought to which one(s) it's going to be for me this year. Thank you very much to Vincent and Marie-Christine for yet another Volnay masterclass.

Then it was time to head off to Saint-Aubin where we were visiting Maison en Belles Lies. I remembered spending quite a long time hanging around in a car park next to what looked like a deserted factory last year. This year, things were very different. There were two men painting a piece of equipment (technical term) in a cheerful yellow colour, similar to the colour of A du V Towers in fact, and we were greeted by Pierre Fenals who seemed very upbeat. We were also joined by Bill Nanson from the Burgundy Report.

Last year, the domaine had been badly affected by hail which had drastically reduced what was on offer. This year, things were looking much brighter and we descended a tiny spiral staircase - it took me about 10 minutes to get down it, stepping very carefully to avoid a tragic accident - to the lower level where there were lots of barrels looking inviting!

We started with the aligoté which I thought was wonderful - vinified in oak, it had a lovely floral nose and was rich and big, unlike one of those nasty thin acidic aligotes that's only good for making kir. Next up was the white Santenay which brought tears to my eyes, not because it was bad, but because of the acidity level. Or maybe I just tasted it too quickly. It was very pure with good minerality and weight. The Monthelie blanc was less sharp, had a hint of honey on the nose, and was very agreeable. Then, the jewel in the crown: Corton-Charlemagne grand cru. What a treat! Pierre explained that he shares the vineyard with Bonneau du Martray and Coche-Dury so he's in excellent company. This was something very special, complex, rich and mouth-coating.

We moved into a different part of the cellar to taste the 2014s which were still fermenting away. They all seemed to be developing nicely, which bodes well for next year! At one point, Pierre was explaining something and suddenly there was a loud CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK which turned out to be Bill taking a photo with his super-whizzy camera. Pierre blinked and we all pretended nothing had happened.

Then it was on to the 2013 reds. First, L'Étrange, which I famously guessed blind at a dinner last year, admittedly only due to vast prior consumption of it since G is a big fan. It's a bit like a passetoutgrains in that it's a mixture of pinot noir and gamay, but if memory serves, PTG is normally 2/3 gamay, 1/3 pinot whereas L'Etrange is the other way round. Disclaimer: this could be completely incorrect. Anyway, it was very nice, had that slightly whiffy trademark nose, and chewy fruit. A relatively light and approachable wine.

Next came the Hautes-Côtes de Beaune which blew me away with its heady, scintillating nose. Pierre described it as tres jolie and it was just my kind of thing - very pinot, very pretty. The Aloxe-Corton was more serious stuff and had that meatier Aloxe thing going on, which certainly has its place but the Hautes-Côtes had ruined me for it. And then finally, the Corton les Perrieres grand cru which I see I put two stars next to in my notes, high praise indeed. It was very serious, rich, complex, interesting and just generally stunning.

We tasted some of the 2014s again bubbling away in their barrels. Already the unique characteristics of the different appellations were shining through. There's a Maranges in 2014 which will please a certain person I know, but it was very tannic at this stage and Pierre described it as more rustic.

Once again this was a very interesting tasting, it was great to see Pierre looking much happier, and the domaine's trademark style, elegance and purity were all in evidence. I don't really know much about biodynamism but it certainly seems to do the business as far as I'm concerned.

View of vineyards in Saint-Aubin

Afterwards, Julien dropped ACC off in Puligny-Montrachet and took me back to Beaune. I felt very swanky travelling in the black Merc by myself, but this luxurious lifestyle was short-lived. After Julien had gone on his way, I attempted to visit the local traitteur to get something to eat, but by the time I'd figured out how the automatic door worked, the sales assistant had disappeared. After hanging around for five minutes I decided to go to Petit Casino instead and procured a tin of lentilles aux saucisses, the French equivalent of beans and four pork sausages, a childhood favourite. It had been an amazing day and I was happy to have a quiet night in watching French game shows and reading a 1930s mystery novel.

Maison en Belles Lies, Friday 13th Sept

On Friday morning ACC had an early appointment in Meursault and it was agreed that G and I would join him there for lunch. We caught one of the few trains going south that stops at Meursault. The thing to remember is that it's a good half hour uphill walk from the station into the village, but the sun was shining and as we walked past vineyards with rough tracks we were reminded of the previous day's exciting tour of Chablis with Nathalie Fevre.

We passed this road sign, which put me in a very good mood - lots of my favourite things!

Then it was time for lunch at Le Bouchon. Here they do an amazing 12.70 euro three course lunch menu, including a buffet starter which had pate en croute and similar nice things. There's also a good range of wines by the "pot" so you don't have to have a whole bottle, which meant we could indulge in both red and white.

Afterwards G and I had a wander round Meursault. The market was just closing up and unfortunately the wine shop wasn't open, but there was quite a lot of activity and the ubiquitous cyclists wandering around looking lost.

Then it was time for our taxi which took us over to St Aubin where the winery of Maison en Belles Lies is located. Here we were greeted by Pierre Fenals. We sat along a bench at a trestle table and it was rather like being at school. We tasted seven wines altogether, all biodynamic.

The Aligote 2012 had a lovely, quite floral nose and was very appealing and easy-drinking. The other 2012s we tried were all red. The Hautes Cotes de Beaune had amazing red fruit on the nose but needed some time, as it had just had its final blending and wasn't quite knitted together yet. The Aloxe-Corton had very strong blackcurrants on the nose and was very pretty, while the Corton grand cru Les Perrieres was very Corton on the nose (undergrowth, and that foxy thing) and was serious and complex. The finish went on forever. This would be a wine to keep, definitely.

Then we tried some wines in bottle. The Aligote 2011 again was relatively soft on the palate and very drinkable, with a great finish. The Santenay blanc 2010 wasn't my kind of thing but G liked it, while as always the Beaune 1er cru Greves 2011 had a beautiful perfume on the nose and was very elegant, with succulent fruit. The view was that this needs 4-5 years. I have a six pack of this so am looking forward to 2016! Many thanks to Pierre for a very interesting tasting.

Afterwards we had some time to kill before Alain collected us, so we took some photos. I'm more a premier cru type myself but one had to do one's best with the props available.