Sunday lunch at mine, 17th June

A couple of weeks ago, D and G came round for lunch at mine.

We started off with a bowl of gazpacho (I confess I didn't make it!) and a glass of manzanilla pasada en rama from Barbadillo which hit the spot. I haven't been drinking so much sherry lately as sometimes, but I really should knock off the negronis and get back to it.

G provided this Chassagne-Montrachet 1er cru les Champgains 2012 from Michel Niellon. This was a lovely light gold colour and was very Chassagne, with elegance and a nice weight. It was smooth, with honey in the middle, citrus at the end, and a long finish. We thought it was impeccable premier cru Chassagne and gave it a 9. It made a fine accompaniment to our halibut steaks with salsa verde.

D had brought this Hermann J Wiemer Cabernet Franc 2007 over from the US, which we had with the cheese course. This was a very dark colour and had a fruity nose which reminded us of plums with star anise. There was also some mint, and crushed cherries were mentioned. It was complex and both impressive and enjoyable, with a very long finish. "This is a bloody pleasure to drink" said G.

We finished off with the second of G's recent Tokaji acquisitions, again a 4 puttonyos but this time from 1959. This was dark brown but clear rather than murky. I would describe it as sticky toffee pudding in a glass. There was some volatile acidity on the nose while on the palate it had dried fruit, raisins and a certain creaminess. Rum and raisin ice cream sprang to mind. The finish went on for minutes, and it almost reminded me of Madeira. Given than it would have been produced in exactly the same way as the 1967 which we'd had earlier in the week, this was a pure expression of the vintage. Good for Monimplex!

Recent drinking round-up

I thought it was time for a brief recap of some things we've had to drink recently.

Manzanilla Torrebreva, Bodegas Los Infantes de Orleans Borbon

I'm always a sucker for a half bottle of sherry. so when one of G's colleagues told him about this manzanilla which we'd never heard of, I decided to take a punt on a case of 12 halves. We weren't disappointed. It's lovely fresh, sharp manzanilla with a bit more bite than some, and cost £6.95 per half from this place. But I see that it's described as a bin end on their website so may not be available for much longer.

La Cote de Vaux, Beaujolais 2013

It's in a claret bottle but it's actually a Beaujolais! With a heroic label showing the wine-maker, Jérôme Balmet, surrounded by wine-making equipment. This appeared at a Burgundy Portfolio tasting a few months ago and the Baron and I decided to split a case between us. He kindly brought my half of the case round a few weeks ago and I got round to trying it last week. I'm really happy with it - it's light, fruity beaujolais, as opposed to the meatier style I often drink, and is only 12% alcohol. When I bought it, I expected to keep it a while but actually it's drinking really well now. I think it will be just the thing for spring. It costs £140 for a case in bond, so not breaking the bank either.

Bourgogne Blanc, Domaine Bavard 2010

Another bottle-related conundrum... This is one of the wines I got out of storage recently and I was expecting it to be a bourgogne blanc, but when I saw it I immediately started thinking I must have got confused. Was it actually a bourgogne rouge? The label just says Bourgogne! I opened it to have a look and in fact it is bourgogne blanc after all. The bottle is just very, very dark - I assume this is some sort of UV filtered-glass. It's a richer style than some bourgogne blancs I've been drinking (i.e. Domaine Joly) and reminded us of a baby Chassagne-Montrachet. G commented on the mushroomy thing it had going on. It's drinking very nicely now, and went well with our soupe de poissons, which has become a weekly fixture at A du V Towers.

I've actually started stockpiling this stuff in case my local supermarket discontinues it (again).

Pommard Vieilles Vignes 2007, Domaine Latour-Labille

Part of G's haul from the 2007 vintage, we had this with a rack of lamb last night and it was smashing. It's quite delicate for a Pommard, made by Latour-Labille (now Domaine Vincent Latour) based in Meursault. It has a lot of style and finesse and is very enjoyable to drink - it has really hit its stride now. I see that we last had it in September last year and loved it then too. Seven years seems to be the magic number for this village Pommard.

Finally, I enjoyed reading an interview with Isabelle Legeron this week about natural wines, and the comments make interesting reading too. I think a lot of rubbish is talked about these wines, and it doesn't help that the terminology is so woolly. In my opinion, it's a mistake to generalise about them - some are great while others which I've tried didn't appeal to me. But my favourite wine-makers use a sparing hand with the sulphur, and anything that is made in small quantities by people taking lots of care and effort and allowing the wines to express their terroir seems like a good thing to me.

Recent drinking round-up, 31st Aug

G and I have been drinking a few bits and pieces lately which don't really need an individual entry (= code for I have been too lazy to make proper notes about them) but which I want to record here.

First up, these lovely halves of manzanilla procured for me by ACC of the Burgundy Portfolio. This is Bodegas Argueso San Leon Manzanilla, which I'm told is a step up from the Las Medallas from the same producer, which I've had from the Wine Society before. It's also a bit pricier. The halves look very smart in their box with the red capsule. Smashing stuff and very refreshing after half an hour in the freezer. I'm very happy with it and we've been getting through it at a rate of knots. Well, one has to make the most of the fleeting English summer!

This was a Muscadet sur lie from Comte Leloup du Chateau de Chasseloir 2007 from the Wine Society. It's a bit older than your average muscadet and claims to be some special cuvee, so we thought we'd try it as an alternative to white burgundy. It cost £8.95 but wasn't exciting and I wouldn't bother having it again. Top marks for jazzy string around the bottle though! I have no idea what that's all about.

Another white from the Wine Soc in the search for alternatives for white burg, as much as I love the stuff it's nice to have something different occasionally. This Saladini Pilastri Falerio 2010 was more like it. I think this was part of the mixed case of weird things (I hear a disapproving voice murmuring "les autres regions") that we got a while ago. The Wine Soc have moved on to the 2011 which is only £5.95. It was quite full-bodied and gutsy but good in the hot weather.

Then we have some reds. I've blogged about this Beaune 1er cru Clos du Roi 2007 from the Martins before. This was the last bottle on the rack and didn't disappoint, lovely classic Beaune.

Then a red I haven't written about before - a Meursault Rouge 2006 from Latour-Labille. I bought a case of this en primeur and got it out a few months ago. We tried it and, well, it wasn't that great, so we stashed it away in the hope that it was just going through its "sulky adolescence" and would come round in due course. What a relief to drink it the other night and find that it had done so - it's now delicious and soft with lovely fruit. There's no hurry to drink the rest but it's good to know I can if I want to.

And finally, this old friend - the Meursault 1er cru Les Cras 2007 also from Latour-Labille. This is wonderful wine and every sip is a pleasure. We think it's still a 9 but have no doubt that it's going to become a 10 - we had a debate about whether it's already reached that level. Given that the village level Meursault has taken 6 years to come round, arguably this should be reaching its window in a couple of years time, except that the 2007s are more approachable in style. Both of these red Meursaults are highly unusual as most vineyards in Meursault are planted with chardonnay. All the more reason to enjoy them while we can. I can't wait to try them both again in a few months' time!

Manzanilla La Guita

I'm a big sherry lover, and when G told me about La Guita, I had to get hold of some. It's available in half bottles from various places and in the end I got mine from Sipp which is a shop on the Brompton Road, just down the road from Harrods. I toyed with the idea of going there but in the end laziness prevailed and I ordered 12 halves online, incurring the annoying £10 delivery charge. It worked out at £6.50 a half all in.

It's made by Hijos de Rainera Perez Marin and comes in a convenient screwcap bottle with a vibrant orange seal. There's a bit of string taped under the label; I'm not entirely sure what its function is! Also, the date of bottling is stamped on the label - in this case July 2011 - which is a nice touch.

I enjoyed it a lot - it's very fresh and relatively light in style, although it gained some weight overnight, so definitely one to be drunk over no more than 2 evenings. I think I like it about the same as La Goya, and it would be interesting to compare the two - must get some La Goya in before this runs out. Corney and Barrow are now selling La Goya for £6.29 a half so they are directly comparable. These two, and the trusty but more heavyweight Pastrana Manzanilla Pasada from Hidalgo (£9.95 from the Wine Society, £11.95 from Waitrose, I think - an interesting example of good value from the WS) are currently my three favourite manzanillas.

Recent drinking round-up

Things have been hectic at A de V Towers of late but today I have a chance to do a catch-up report on what drinking has been going down...

This Santenay from Lucien Muzard & Fils disappointingly turned out to have a fault. It had a lot of volatile alcohol on the nose, on the palate there was a strange graininess and the finish was bitter. We felt it was not as it should be, so that was 19 euros down the sink. It was one of the ones I brought back from the shop in Santenay. C'est la vie.

More pleasingly I can report that this Pommard Vieilles Vignes from Latour-Labille was a stunner. From G's cellar - he wisely picked up a case. It wasn't very Pommard in character which I suppose is a criticism, but if I'd been guessing blind I think I would have thought it was a Chambolle, which is definitely praise. It was a vibrant purple colour and G described the nose as super-charged beaujolais with violet and cinnamon. On the palate it was pretty, elegant, had lovely fruit. I detected victoria plums while G got chocolate orange peel. There was a lot going on! It was drinking now but there's no rush.

Also from G's cellar, a Gevrey-Chambertin 2005 from Huguenot. This had a very distinct nose of pear drops and tasted of liquorice root but was surprisingly easy drinking for a Gevrey (which I am coming to realise I don't like very much except in winter with hearty red meat). It was smooth and remarkably light for a wine from 2005. It had an excellent finish, and went very well with my slow-cooked ragu sauce. Again, drinking but will keep.

I picked up a case of this 2000 Beaune 1er cru Clos du Roi from Domaine Chanson at auction. It's very old school red Burgundy with a hefty dose of the sugar bag. We got stewed plums on the palate. I quite like it, but it's relatively rustic. It wasn't expensive by premier cru standards so I shan't feel guilty necking it on a weeknight as autumn draws in. Originally we gave it an 8 but I suspect it may end up being downgraded to a 7 - the jury is still out.

I brought back this Rully 1er cru Clos St Jacques 2007 from Domaine de la Folie from the shop in Meursault back in January. It was a pale gold colour and had lemon and butter on the nose. It was quite light and refreshing on the palate, with good acidity, and had an excellent finish. We toyed with giving it a 9 but settled for a respectable 8. At around 18 euros it was good value.

Thought I'd better mention this since it's become staple drink of choice over the past couple of weeks - halves of La Goya manzanilla from Corney and Barrow. Argh! It's not on their website any more! I hope this is a temporary blip as I was just about to order some more. It's around £4.50 a half, a snip. Delicious cold from the fridge and best to drink it all in one go if possible as it deteriorates overnight.

And finally, what have we here? This morning I was cleaning my flat and took the rubbish down to the bin room where there's a little shelf where occasionally people leave stuff which other people can then take if they want (usually knackered house plants etc.) This morning I found two bottles of 1982 Chambertin grand cru "Couvent de la Visitation" 1982 from Patriarche sitting there, alongside a half-drunk bottle of Crofts ruby port. I wasn't tempted by the port but swiped the Chambertin and am very curious about it. I wonder if it was an unwanted present. Anyway, very nice of whoever to leave it in the bin room for me to find! The levels don't look too bad for such an old wine and the labels are quite pristine as you can see. It also has a terrible drawing on it of a sort of courtyard thing, which according to the Inverse Law of Labels bodes well. I think I shall try one with G and see how we get on - I shall report back. If all goes well, the other could be a perfect candidate for a Swiss Pinot Noir Society dinner...

Recent drinking round-up!

The other day I indulged in a bottle of this Hidalgo Manzanilla Pasada Pastrana, which I got from Waitrose for the princely sum of what I remember being £11.99 although according to their website it's a mere £11.39. Said website (here) also describes this as "a light and fresh Manzanilla" which is absolute garbage. Were they talking about a different wine?

This wine is aged in oak casks for 12 years which is what makes it a pasada, as opposed to the normal "light and fresh" style of manzanilla which should be drunk young. It costs significantly more than your bog standard Manzanilla, but it's worth it. Powerful and pungent, a glass of this straight from the fridge after a hard day at work really hits the spot. The Wine Society have it for £9.95 - fair play to the WS, their sherry is excellent value. Majestic have also been known to stock it in the past.

Rully 1er cru Les Cloux 2007, Paul Jacqueson. I've blogged about Jacqueson before, who is one of the best winemakers in the Cote Chalonnaise. Previously we had a white Rully from him and gave it a high 8. This was a red, with a lovely light pinot colour, and blackberry and black cherry on the nose. On the palate, it was silky and succulent and had bags of flavour congruent with the nose. Once again we toyed with giving it a 9 but in the end decided it was a high 8. Good value though, because it was either 17 or 19 euros (I suspect the latter) from the shop in Meursault.

A couple of weeks ago we had this Marsannay 2005, Montagne, from Huguenot. I didn't make notes but it was very enjoyable and drinking well now. There are no premier cru vineyards in Marsannay but this was a reminder to self that this village, which is right up the top of the Cote de Nuits near Dijon, produces some very pleasing and relatively good value wines.

Last night I stuck a bottle of our old friend, the Dufouleur Cremant de Bourgogne, in the fridge as an aperitif. We're now on the 2007 vintage and it remains very consistent with a florality and hints of elderflower. Dangerously drinkable.

Last week I treated myself to a bottle of Latour-Labille Bourgogne Rouge from 2005. This wine tends to be very light and in some years I find it's not my cup of tea, but 2005 was a big vintage and one that suits the style very well.

And finally, the jewel in the crown, a red Meursault 1er cru Les Cras 2007 from Latour-Labille. I got to taste the 2008 when I visited the domaine in January, and it was the highlight of the tasting. This was the first bottle from G's case of the 2007 which we have tried and although expectations were high, we weren't disappointed.

We gave it two hours in the decanter and when we poured it into our glasses, it had an amazing dark purple colour, I was surprised by how dark the colour was. On the nose it had wonderful dark fruit and a lovely perfume. G detected parma violets. I'm not altogether sure what parma violets smell like but I think I got the general gist. On the palate, it had a lovely mouthfeel, rich fruit, balance and poise. The finish went on for several minutes. We sat there using words like "remarkable" and "sublime" and there was no doubt that it was a 10. Hurrah!

Although it's drinking now, there's no rush as it has years in it and I hurriedly attempted to stomp on G's suggestion that he share some with a certain bunch of elderly claret-drinkers, by reminding him of my trump card, the Corton from Anne Parent...

In other news, the Wine Society produced their 2009 burgundy offer. "Three for the price of six" was how G described it, spot on. The Domaine Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc is £60 for three bottles, en primeur. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

Also, I have been giving some thought to this blog and have decided that I may broaden it out to include food and drink more generally. But I promise to save the cute kitten pictures for Facebook. Stay tuned!

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.

Musings on sherry and other topics

I haven't been drinking all that much lately, partly because I had my annual booze-free week while cat-sitting for my parents, partly because G has made a controversial rule that he's not drinking mid-week unless there's a good reason, and partly because it's just so hot, particularly in my penthouse suite (i.e. 9th floor studio flat).

One thing I have been drinking lately though is halves of manzanilla!

I have Jancis to thank for this discovery. She mentioned this in her FT column a couple of weeks ago, and my quest for sensibly-priced halves of jerez was at an end. This manzanilla from Barbadillo costs £4.45 a half from Waitrose Wine Direct (I haven't seen it in the shop) - click here - and with free delivery (hurrah!), a case of 12 was £53.40 and came within the week. A half bottle is a great size for two or for me by myself over a couple of evenings, and a lovely cold glass goes down a treat at the end of a hard day bean-counting. It's proper manzanilla too, vibrant and zingy, and great with a bowl of olives or pistachios.

While we're on the subject of Jancis, I was recently carrying a cup of tea down the corridor when my chief executive asked me to come into his office. It turned out that he wanted to give me the FT supplement on investing in wine, as I am not only head bean-counter but also in charge of the office cellar. I was heartily amused to read her recommendation that Coche-Dury Bourgogne Blanc was an excellent investment wine. Coche-Dury makes some of the very best white burgundy and the only one I've had (= been able to afford) is his bourgogne, which can to my knowledge only be obtained in minute quantities from a particular restaurant in Beaune with spectacularly customer-unfriendly opening hours. Memo to Jancis: WTF?

However, she hasn't completely lost her marbles, as in addition to the sherry recommendation, it has recently been brought to my attention that she selected Edward Parker Wines (do I get a discount for this shameless plugging, ACC?) as the best wine supplier in an article on her Purple Pages here. Unfortunately one has to fork out £69 a year to subscribe to the Purple Pages so I can't read the whole article, but congrats to EPW in particular for beating Corney and Barrow, one of the top London wine merchants, quite a triumph!

In other news: on Monday we had an office outing to the nearby bowling lanes and afterwards ended up somehow at Fortnums wine bar which I rate highly. Some went for the claret flight while my colleague C and I shared a bottle of gewurztraminer 2007 from Domaine Bruno Sorg. I chose this because back in the day C used to like medium-dry wines such as riesling, and she thought she liked gewurz because she had enjoyed a Paul Cluver gewurz from South Africa. Unfortunately she didn't go for the more full-on style of the Alsace version so I ended up having to take one for the team... shame. Yesterday she gave me a bottle of the Paul Cluver for my birthday, which I am sampling as I write, and I can confirm that it is in a much a drier style. Not bad, especially well-chilled, but slightly bland and more international. Interesting that gewurz can vary so much. NB I see from the website that Fortnums are still offering £10 corkage on the wines from the shop in the wine bar, which is an excellent thing.

On a related note, there's been some press lately about a BYO club in London whereby you pay £75 for a year and can then pay a corkage rate at a number of participating restaurants. A quick look at the club's website here shows that participating restaurants include Club Gascon, Arbutus, Angelus, and various other stalwarts. However, annoyingly, restrictions appear to apply at many of them. All in all, I'm not convinced. The Hawksmoor has been doing £5 corkage on a Monday night for some time now and I still haven't made it - largely because I can go to the Ginger Pig and cook my own steak for about a quarter of the price. Now, if somewhere really fancy like Le Gavroche or the Connaught did corkage, I'd be interested... oh well, am not going to hold my breath!

I've been rather intermittent writing on here of late. In future I'm going to try to write something every weekend - stay tuned!

Recent drinking round-up 2

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. It's taken me a while to get organised and take photos of the things I've been drinking over the past few weeks, but here they are. In no particular order, largely because I can't remember what we had when...

Savigny-les-Beaune les Fourches 2005 from Champy, en demi. This emerged from a Norfolk cellar which shall remain nameless, and I was happy to acquire it although it was a bit of a risk as I hadn't tried it beforehand, and G predicted doom. Fortunately the gamble paid off!

Maison Champy are negotiants based in Beaune and I've been there a couple of times. The last time we had an extensive tour with the delightful Sophie which was brilliant - we got to poke around in their cellars where they have stuff going back about a century - but overran by about two hours, causing us to abandon our plans of a leisurely lunch and have to eat a quiche on a park bench instead, but I won't hold that against them. It was a good quiche.

I always think Champy are very typique - they somehow always seem to capture the essence of a village. This Savigny is very good indeed - tres Savigny, smooth and velvety and elegant but with a richness. If this were a premier cru, it would be scoring an 8. I love the fact that it's in half bottles, and I love the fact that I have 24 more in bond, in two packs of 12 so I can get some out soon and the rest when I can't delay gratification any more.

Auxey-Duresses Les Clous 2007 from Sylvie Boyer. I got this as part of a mixed case of interesting whites in the £12-18 range. This was the most interesting and inevitably also the most expensive of the bunch. Very accomplished. I believe some sort of family bust-up means that she's not making wine at the moment but on the basis of this I do hope she gets back in the game soon. Have to deduct a few marks for the screwcap though - tchah!

Bourgogne Rouge La Chapelle Notre-Dame, from Domaine Nudant, 2007. I picked up a case of this last year and it's one of my house reds. It's relatively light and sometimes has a hint of apricot kernels and a slight muskiness. G is not a big fan (although there's some bottle variation and he has made favourable comments a couple of times) so I tend to neck this myself when he's away for the weekend. I've enjoyed it but don't think I'll be rushing to buy any more - plenty more bourgogne rouge in the sea, so to speak.

Cremant de Bourgogne from the Duchesse de Magenta. Sadly this was my last bottle of this wonderful cremant. I think it's blanc de blancs (aka blanketty blank) and it's much more of a champagne-style cremant than some. We were lucky to get the small allocation that we did and am not expecting any more to be available so there we are. Heigh ho.

Ah, an old friend. This is the Bourgogne Rouge '07 from Domaine Parent. G and I have been getting through this stuff like nobody's business. The 2007s were relatively light and charming, so this doesn't need decanting and leaving for an hour, which makes it convenient for weeknight drinking. Plus I have to say the label is stunningly beautiful compared to most of the monstrosities out there. Clearly this is the exception to the Inverse Law of Burgundy Labels which I will discuss in a later post. Stay tuned!

It has been drawn to my attention that I rarely (never?) talk about wines you could buy in the supermarket on this blog. That's because I don't buy much wine from supermarkets. I mainly drink Burgundy and any Burgundy in a supermarket is going to be produced in mass quantities in order to meet the demand, whereas it's the small enterprises that produce the interesting stuff. However I will from time to time buy other wine in a supermarket, and 9 times out of 10 it will be sherry when Waitrose have a special offer on. I love all sherries and in the summer, a glass of cold fino or manzanilla goes down very well.

This La Gitana from Hidalgo was on special a couple of weeks ago - a couple of quid off, so it was about £6.50, and very nice it was too, chilled, with some pistachio nuts and some almonds. NB it's important to treat sherry like a proper wine and not leave it open for weeks - drink up asap. Under no circumstances behave like an elderly aunt, put it in a wooden cabinet and wheel it out again at Christmas.

This is Chateau Tour Cormeil 2006 - a claret, gasp! It's really nice and has that blackcurranty thing going on, and everyone in the office loves this too, we had it at a Christmas party and it went down very well. Not hugely expensive by claret standards - only about £12 I think.

The other night G got back from Rutland with these two beauties from Hugenot - a Marsannay and a Gevrey-Chambertin, both 2005, so we thought it would be interesting to try them side by side. The Gevrey was powerful and muscular and beefy as expected - G had already had a bottle a while ago and had given it a good review - but the Marsannay was a revelation! The fruit jumped out of the glass at me (which is always a good thing) and it was vibrant and very juicy and delicious. I don't know much about Marsannay except that it's the most northern of the villages in the Cote de Nuits, practically at Dijon, and that I always get it confused with Maranges, which is down in the south. Need to start paying more attention.

Last but by no means least, the other night we had one of G's Alsace haul, procured after the Alsace dinner. This was the 1970 Sporen. It was an absolutely beautiful golden colour, and quite dry and refreshing. Remarkable to think that it's 40 years old. Wonderful!