SPNS, Mon 9th April

On Monday night, I made my way over to the Savile Club this time accompanied by thumping trance music courtesy of Paul Van Dyk's excellent podcast.

T was sitting with a distinguished-looking bearded gentleman who on closer inspection turned out to be D! Apparently the pair of them had decided seconds earlier that quorum had been reached, and so this bottle of Cuvee Brut 2013 from Hermann J Wiemer brought over by D had just been opened. It was perfect timing.

G and ACC duly showed up and we cracked on. We tried this wine at the winery back in September and were favourably impressed on that occasion. The general consensus was that it was admirable, creamy and smooth, generally a classy drop which might improve with time. It certainly gives many champagnes a run for their money.

We moved to the dining room upstairs where I had this as a starter - trying to remember what it was now! The yellow thing is definitely pasta, and I believe the pink thing is beetroot and there was also some goats cheese involved.

My contribution was this Beaune 2010 Chaume Gaufriot from Henri Audiffred, which has been sparking much joy here at AduV Towers. On this occasion it took a few minutes to open up and seemed less tropical than previously, but was generally considered to be top notch classic white burgundy. I suspect the remaining stocks need to be drunk in the near future though. Quelle horreur!

G contributed two wines, the first of which was "Queen Charlene's Dry Rose" from Seneca Shore winery in the Finger Lakes. I wrote about this winery here and Charlene is the name of David's wife for those wondering where the name came from. This was a relatively uncomplicated easy-drinking, fruity pink wine.

I can never resist pork belly and scallops when they appear on a menu...

We moved on to two reds. First this Beaujolais Nouveau 2016 from Dominique Piron, provided by ACC who with typical modesty wrote "Amazing!" in the Chronicles. Everyone else agreed that it was punching well above its weight and was fruity and drinkable. Certainly not your average Beaujolais Nouveau.

This A.A. Badenhorst Brak Kuil Barbarossa 2015 provided by T was quite a contrast. It was a big, gutsy, South African red which could really have done with some red meat to go alongside. We doubted it was 13.5% as claimed on the label. G subsequently referred to it as "break skull" as we both found ourselves suffering the next day and this was suspect number one.

Can never resist Welsh Rarebit either...

Finally, we had this La Font Del Bosc Maury 2004 also provided by G. It was described as thick, gooey and sweet by T, which was spot on, and we had no problem dispatching it. Thanks everyone. I can think of worse ways to spend a Monday evening!

Parmesan Syndicate Night

A few months ago I was listening to "The Menu" podcast and they had an interview with a cheesemaker in Wales who had set up Save a Cheese, a campaign to help the "devastated artisan cheesemakers in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy hit by two earthquakes in a short space of time" in May 2012. I considered this a noble cause and signed up to "save" a kilo of cheese. It went down so quickly that when the second campaign started, G and I decided to upgrade to five kilos. ACC and Baron McG were also keen to help out and thus the Parmesan Syndicate was formed. I mentioned to G that the Parmesan Syndicate would be a good name for a band, and his response was that "Reggiano" would be the name of the splinter group.

Normal size cheese... and PARMESAN! This is just one kilo.

It arrived last week, so I arranged a rustic supper so the others could come and get theirs, since the rescue Parmesan was taking up most of my fridge. Fortunately it had arrived in one-kilo vacuum-packed bags, and a laser-guided cheesecutting machine was not required.

A sight to gladden the heart

As luck - or rather, good planning on the part of my favourite wine merchant - would have it, on the very same day, a case of magnums of Auxey-Duresses 2005 from Prunier arrived, so it was the ideal opportunity to try one. Auxey is a new favourite village for me, and G spotted this on the broking list of the Burgundy Portfolio. I looked Prunier up in Coates who describes him as "certainly the best grower in the village", the 2005 vintage was an excellent one, and there's something quite special about a magnum - so I decided to go for it.

As I don't drink many magnums, I don't have a magnum decanter, so I used two normal decanters about 2.5 hours before drinking. It was quite a dark colour, had a heavenly nose with lively red berry fruit going on and was quite sweet and delicious. A great expression of pinot noir in the lighter, approachable Cote de Beaune style. I'm very much looking forward to drinking the rest, but there's no rush and at least one bottle should be tucked away for another five years to see what happens.

To eat, I made gougeres, then served this rather successful chicken, apricot and pistachio terrine made the day before. G expertly got it out of the terrine dish intact so it still looked nice, rather than like Pedigree Chum as has been known to happen in the past.

For dessert we had some petits pots au chocolat (made to Maman AdV's closely-guarded recipe) with Waitrose's Seriously Plummy Maury which is £10.99 for a half bottle. Earlier in the week G had suggested I get some of this, and I had looked at him in confusion as first of all I thought he was saying "Morey" and secondly because I was not aware that Waitrose actually sold a Maury. Although I do look at their sweet wine section from time to time, the terrible branding and label has always acted as a kind of anti-visibility shield and I had genuinely never noticed it. It did however turn out to be just the thing to go with the petits pots, and the half bottle was the perfect size for four.

Don't drop it!

We rounded off the evening with this precious item - a bottle of 1925 Marc de Bourgogne which ACC gave G as an early birthday present. It's amazing stuff, quite pale in colour, and has that old spirit thing going on which we love so much. There is still a little bit left but I don't rate its chances of lasting till G's birthday...

Lunch at mine, Sunday 22nd July

On Sunday,  ACC and Baron McG joined me and G for another epic lunch. It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago so I was in the mood to indulge!

Getting things off to a good start

The Baron kindly brought along some delicious little parmesan biscuits which he had baked that morning, based on a recipe by Simon Hopkinson. Some of them had a daring sliver of red chilli on the top. The secret ingredient was mustard powder, which I must consider adding next time I make gougeres, as the combination of cheese and mustard is one that appeals very much. To go with this we had a bottle of Krug 1989 left over from one of G's recent wine dinners. It was mature, yeasty, full-bodied champagne and very enjoyable. Obviously it costs megabucks, so not one we're likely to have again in the near future.

Next up was a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet 1er cru Les Folatieres 2007 from Bzikot. This had been sitting on my wine rack for some time waiting for a special occasion, and we had it with some smoked salmon from Hansen and Lydersen, who we had finally tracked down at Maltby Street the previous day, and some rye bread from the Nordic Bakery. The Puligny was a glorious golden colour. It took a little while to open up, was bigger than I expected and certainly ready to go.

Nom nom nom

On Friday night I'd been to the Ginger Pig and had fallen into the trap of losing all sense of perspective. This often seems to happen when I go to the Ginger Pig. Somehow, surrounded by enormous chunks of meat, one starts to think that a three rib roast is quite a normal size for four people and it's only when one finds out that it's actually five and a half kilos that one realises that perhaps it's actually quite a lot. But by then, of course, it's too late... actually that's not entirely fair as the butcher saw me wince and did ask if I wanted him to cut a bit off, but it looked so amazing that I decided to go for it as it was. We roasted it on Saturday to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's instructions and it came out looking like this. Confirmation that the bigger the piece of meat, the better the result.

Back to Sunday lunch - as it was the start of the recent heatwave, we served the beef cold along with a tomato tart from Marylebone farmers' market and some salad. The first red was our old friend Beaune Greves 1er cru 1999 from Yves Darviot, which needs to be drunk up fairly soon. This bottle was beautiful as ever. I have often raved about it in the past and it remains the pinnacle of price/quality ratio as far as I'm concerned. Just amazing.

Next up, with the cheese course, was a bottle of Vosne Romanee 1er cru Clos de Reas 1999 from Michel Gros, another old favourite and again one which did not disappoint. I read somewhere recently that ideally reds should be served at cellar temperature which is lower than room temperature, so we chilled both reds slightly, which was a good move and one to remember for future reference.

The Epoisses makes a bid for freedom!

A digression about the cheeses, which came from Pascal Beillevaire in Montpelier Street just off Knightsbridge. I've written before about how offputting I find La Fromagerie in Moxon Street, with its incredibly heavy shoulder-dislocating door to the cold cheese room and a general sense that somehow you're not worthy to be allowed in there. I don't think this is just me being paranoid as G has noticed it too. So I was expecting this Parisian cheese shop located in the area of the London mega-rich to be super-snooty.

Au contraire! When I visited on Friday evening, the assistant was friendly and quite happy for me to have a look round by myself. After I'd spent a few minutes mooching about, taking care not to swipe priceless cheeses off the shelves with my rucksack loaded with 5.5 kg of beef, I enlisted her help. We had a serious discussion regarding the components of the ideal cheeseboard - I knew I wanted some Epoisses, some Beaufort, some Bleu des Causses, and a goaty thing, but fancied one additional wild card cheese. She suggested a sheep's cheese - bien sûr! - and I got to taste a wonderful pungent and smoky example of the genre which was the missing link. I'm not sure what the name of it was but will find out next time I'm there. I also got an evil dried-up little goaty thing for G - this is chevre sec, which is sold by weight so this particular one cost about two quid. I'm now the proud owner of a Pascale Beillevaire loyalty card and received a "little present" in the form of a chocolate mousse. All in all, a delightful experience and I think it may become a weekly habit!

I failed to take any photos of pudding, but made the world famous Petits Pots (to a closely-guarded family recipe) which is also basically a chocolate mousse. To accompany this, we had this Mas Amiel 1975 provided by G. This is a sweet red wine from Maury, an area in the Roussillon, one of the few wines that goes well with chocolate. Which it certainly did!

Finally, the piece de resistance was provided by ACC - a kirsch and a poire william liqueur, both with some serious age on them.

Good example of the Inverse Law of Labels

We think the kirsch may have been made in 1950 as there's a punched out 50 on the label (just below the second M of Commerce). These two made a very enjoyable end to the occasion - another five hour special!