SPNS dinner, 6th December

I see that another month has passed without any blog posts, largely because I was away from London for 3 weekends in a row. There's a lot to catch up on.

Last night was the December gathering of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society. G and I arrived fashionably late (by two minutes) having braved Oxford Street which was full of people not looking where they were going, while Wannabe by the Spice Girls blared out of Top Shop. Tate Britain is clearly bang on trend with its post-apocalyptic Christmas decorations.

Meanwhile at the Savile Club someone was having a 40th birthday party and the far more melodious sound of a saxophone and double bass greeted us as we walked into the bar. I produced the first wine of the evening, this Delamotte Blancs de Blancs 2002 and the day immediately improved.

This was generally well-received - it was great fizz from a great vintage, fully mature, with some nice autolytic qualities (thanks ACC) otherwise known as the smell of digestive biscuits. It was yeasty, toasty and creamy and we all agreed it would be even better served with some canapes. That wish may be fulfilled next September as I have the remainder of the case set aside for a certain  big day!

We moved upstairs to the dining room and got cracking on this Puligny 1998 from Etienne Sauzet while we perused the menu. This was provided by P who got it at auction. Despite its lack of provenance, it was a beautiful golden colour and again fully mature, quite unctuous (or gooey, to use T's word of choice) and buttery on the palate, with a good finish. I had planned to save some to go with my starter but in the end that proved unnecessary, as T had brought along a rose.

This was Mun, Rosato Marche le Calcinara 2018 from Italy. It was a pleasing deep pink colour, bright and fresh, with red fruits and almost bracing acidity. P got raspberry sorbet on the finish. Perhaps not the most serious wine ever, but enjoyable easy drinking.

With our mains, we had two reds. In the blue corner was this Moulin-a-Vent 1999 from Domaine des Grandes Vignes, provided by ACC. This had a truly remarkable nose! Funky seemed the most polite best word to describe it. T absolutely loved it. It was certainly still alive and kicking, and P went to town on the descriptions - elderberry, liquorice, chestnuts and rose hips all receiving a mention. A fascinating wine with lots to talk about!

In the red corner was something far more traditional, this Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 1987 from Robert Mondavi, provided by G. This was a very dark colour, and had a lovely cedary nose. It was fully mature, archetypal cab sauv, probably quite high in alcohol, and nicely mellow now. It reminded me of a good claret and I liked it a lot.

No risk of getting these two mixed up

G had to commandeer a pink corkscrew to keep things moving along

The last wine of the evening, contributed by D, was this 1971 German beerenauslese. I nobly volunteered to write down its name and will attempt to reproduce it here: Hallgartener Jungfer from Weingut Georgshof. It was a remarkable dark amber colour, almost the same colour as the bottle, and for me, relatively dry for a sweet wine. I found it quite grapey while D detected honey. It was 11% alcohol and everyone's notes are enthusiastic. It disappeared remarkably rapidly!

P went off to get some cheese (a remarkable truffled number) and while he was gone, the thought of opening his reserve bottle of white occurred to some people who shall not be named. P was happy to go along with the plan, but sadly the wine itself, a Verget Puligny 2000, turned out to be over the hill, although T said it went quite well with his potted trout savoury.

After that, it was agreed that a bottle of Smith Woodhouse 1980 would be in order to go with the cheese. We'd given up making notes by this stage but G has helpfully supplied some for me. It had a restrained nose but delivered on the palate and was full, thick, sweet, plummy and really quite long. Given that it was "popped and poured", it showed very well and would have been even better with some time in the decanter. I've been feeling fine today - just goes to show it's worth drinking the good stuff. Thanks everyone for another very enjoyable evening!

SPNS dinner, 23rd Jan

Last Monday evening, four of us met up for another Swiss Pinot Noir Society dinner, held at the Perseverance pub in Marylebone. I arrived to find T and D sitting at a table at the back of the bar downstairs. We debated whether to order an aperitif while we waited for G, but we held off and our patience was rewarded as he arrived only a couple of minutes later.

The first wine of the evening was this 1997 Brut Saphir champagne from Louis Barthelemy. We weren't familiar with this producer but G came across this wine at another do, and then when he saw it on an auction list, snaffled the lot. Very good it was too - a deep golden colour, with a lovely nose, mature and yeasty. "Smells wonderful. Tastes as good as it smells" said T. High praise was recorded by everyone in the Book.

Next up, also from G, was a Rusalca Alba Crama Oprisor 2009 white brought back from his recent trip to Romania. Sadly, this failed to impress. I found it very bland and unexciting and others recorded that while not actively offensive, it was dull. Nothing going on. As we had a lot of other things to try, we didn't drink much of it. A shame, as I believe it cost a bob or two and was supposed to be one of Romania's finest offerings.

After that, we had a brace of wines provided by T, the rose specialist on the team. These were both Bandols from Domaine Tempier - 2008 and 2010. The 2010 was very pleasant, salmon pink, dry and refreshing. Everyone liked it for what it was. The 2008 was a more orange colour, and pungent on the nose. I preferred it, finding it more interesting than the 2010, but it faded quickly and we felt it was probably approaching the end of its life.

We then moved on to try the two reds side by side. First, a Vougeot 1er cru Clos de la Perriere 1996 from Domaine Bertagna, provided by me. I got this as part of a parcel of mixed Burgundies at an auction, so it squeaked into the SPNS criteria of costing below £20. It would usually cost a good deal more than that. G and I had previously had the 2005 vintage en demi and given it 10/10, so after the debacle of the corked Chambertin at the last SPNS dinner, I fervently hoped this one would turn out to be a good 'un. And indeed it was. It had a wonderful Cote de Nuits style, with lots of fruit and black cherries and was generally rich and serious. Everybody liked it. Phew!

Finally, D's wine, once again something really quite special and different. This time, it was the McGregor Vineyards Black Russian Red 1999. This vineyard is in the Finger Lakes area of New York State and the wine is made from grapes which originated in Russia. It reminded me of a claret, with big blackberry fruit and a sweet finish. It was big and dramatic, a real eye-opener. Very interesting to try against the Burgundy. 

Another great tasting, and it was good to be back at the Perseverance which has a relaxed atmosphere. I wouldn't get away with wearing my Dennis the Menace jumper at the Savile! The food was excellent and very good value, and Dom was very helpful and provided us with all the glasses we needed, being a high-maintenance bunch. This place is a real gem.

A mixed bag!

Last Saturday we had plans to go out for dinner with T at Number Twelve which is a nice Italian place in the Ambassadors Hotel just up the road. However, T did his homework beforehand and discovered that although they had cheerfully accepted my booking, the kitchen was effectively closed for August, and some dodgy-sounding alternative menu was being offered instead. G popped up there to have a look and confirmed that this was indeed the case, so I cancelled the booking and G made an emergency trip to the supermarket while I did an emergency clean of my flat. Admittedly this didn't take long, am just mentioning it to make it sound as though I wasn't delegating everything to him while I lazed about on the sofa...

T generously offered to bring something, which turned out to be very much in the spirit of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society: a Bulgarian rose fizz, vintage 2006, made by Edoardo Miroglio if my decoding of the swirly label is correct. It was a nice pale pink colour and I recorded that it had a delicate fruity nose. So far, so good. Sadly before I could get a mouthful without preconceptions, T had already made a start and used the word "penicillin" and then G took a sip and said it reminded him of paracetamol. It was difficult to be neutral with those descriptions in my head, and indeed it did have a slightly grainy quality just like badly-dissolved painkiller, particularly on the finish. We manfully finished our glasses with the aid of plenty of pistachio nuts, but the rest of the bottle remained untouched. Fellow members of the SPNS, you owe us one.

Fortunately I had an emergency bottle of Tio Pepe in the fridge, which went very nicely with our gazpacho - it's a decent workmanlike sherry, especially when on special offer at Waitrose.

With the main course, an assiette of charcuterie, we had one of G's 1978 clarets, in this case Chateau Chasse Spleen which is from the Medoc and the website tells me is 73% cabernet sauvignon, 20% merlot and 7% petit verdot. It was a lovely dark colour, had a fabulous nose of tar and liquorice, and was very soft on the palate. I got a lot of black cherry. Delicious and not in the least bit stemmy.

This went down very quickly so we followed it up with Chateau du Tertre 1978 which is a Margaux. The label caused some amusement with its reference to Arsac - according to Wikipedia, this is a commune in the Gironde and absolutely nothing to snigger about. It had a heady nose and I found it sweeter and more obvious than the Chasse Spleen. Apparently it's made from a mixture of 40% cabernet sauvignon, 35% merlot, 20% cabernet franc and 5% petit verdot. A discussion of the relative merits of cabernet sauvignon and merlot ensued and I promised to give T a BIG BLACK MARK for preferring merlot to cabernet sauvignon. Tchah! But while I didn't think it was in the same league as the other, it was soft and drinkable and very enjoyable.

We then moved on to a comparative tasting of digestifs: G's ancient vieille prune versus my marc, and finally the dreaded prunelle. The vieille prune won the day, as you'd expect given its age and price - it was very elegant and light. I adore the bottle, which is definitely joining my bottle collection when we finally finish the contents (so far great restraint has been shown).

T said that the marc seemed toasted after the vieille prune. We all felt it stood up well and G thought it had had 20-25 years in oak and was probably made in the late 70s. T found a lot of fruit in it - grapes and raisins. I hope that it restored his faith in marc after an earlier, less fortunate encounter.

Finally, the prunelle. I'd had high hopes that T might like this and I could palm off my remaining two bottles on him, but I should have known he'd have better taste than that. It was extraordinarily sweet after the other two, and just rather unsophisticated. I note that G has written "Riedel must make a prunelle glass" which is indeed a fair point, although somehow I doubt that even a special glass could rescue it.

At this stage T became desperate and began drinking my Chambord black raspberry liqueur, which not even I drink neat but save for kir royales, while we had a lengthy discussion about which club if any I should join. I remain tempted by the Oxford and Cambridge due to the reference to Happy Vintage Port Friday Afternoon on its website, but even by my standards, I'd have to get through a hell of a lot of bargain basement vintage port to recoup the membership fee.

All in all, an excellent evening and thanks to T and G for their fine or at least interesting contributions!

Meeting of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society, 14th May

On Friday it was the much-anticipated third meeting of the Society. Some complex bottle-swapping and book-collecting arrangements were effected and I joined ACC for a quick G&T at the Carlton beforehand, causing much outrage among the staff at my attempt to a) keep my wine with me and b) keep my coat with me. A portrait of Michael Howard smirked at the proceedings, but sadly no members of the Cabinet were present for me to pelt with mini-Cheddars.

Then it was off to our venue for the evening, the Savile in Brook Street where we met the other members of the Society - G, T, P and D. I was unable to take any photos as cameras are banned, but that's probably just as well as it would have been disruptive and I might have missed out on a refill while I was faffing about.

The idea behind the Society is that each member brings a bottle which is supposed to be in some way obscure or interesting. One is not supposed to spend mega-bucks, although some members have shamelessly infringed this rule in the past and surprisingly the rest of us were not minded to kick them out.

Sitting in the bar, we kicked off with my contribution, a 2002 blancs-de-blancs champagne from Jean Comyn who is a fairly obscure producer and therefore just about fitted the bill. Comments were recorded in the book and on the whole were favourable although the general opinion was that it would be better in 5 years' time. It would be one to tuck away for a while, if I still had any.

Then we went upstairs to the dining room where we had two bottles of Vina Tondonia 1998 rose provided by T.

This was a revelation - we all sat there saying we'd never had any pink wine like it. It was remarkably dry and fully mature, and altogether rather serious for a pink. Everyone found it interesting and I get the impression from the book that most of us liked it, although I can't read ACC's scribble even at this early stage in the evening.

Next up we had two reds side by side: G's Barbaresco 1982 from Bruno Gracosa and D's Seneca Shore Merlot Kylix Cuvee 2001 from New York. This was a fascinating comparison. The Barbaresco was much paler than the merlot, and quite a shock to the system on the palate - very dry and mature. The merlot was full and rich and something of a crowd-pleaser. P and T were vocal in its praise, and disparaging of the Barbaresco ("would remove paint from a wall or two" was one comment) but ACC described the merlot as "frontal" which sounds vaguely rude but he's right - it had an upfront immediate charm but not much of a finish.

We had a quick claret from the club's list to go with the savoury, which was fine but overshadowed by its eminent predecessors.

With pudding, we had a bottle of 1997 Chateau Guiraud, a Sauternes which ACC had procured for a bargain price from a branch of Somerfield. It still had a gaudy price label on it. This was very enjoyable sauternes and comments in the book are positive (T: "Brill!" I can't believe T actually wrote that!) and only G sounding a note of doubt - "not complex".

Finally, we moved on to the star wine of the evening, P's Moscatel 1900. This was a dark brown colour, and stunning. It had a serious intensity and wonderful balance, and the finish went on forever. I was fascinated trying this serious madeira after all the other not-at-all-shabby wines we had drunk, to find how comprehensively it beat the competition. Everyone raved about it in the book apart from ACC who had fallen asleep by this stage (it had been a long day, apparently). "Heavenly", "nectar" and "double plus good" were all used.

P was awarded the prize for wine of the evening, and T was awarded the prize for the wine most in the spirit of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society, both well-deserved accolades. Bring on the next meeting!