Three recent whites

And so this frustrating period continues, for me at any rate, as while things are getting much better in London, they appear to be deteriorating across the pond. No flights happening any time soon. I'm very ready for this thing to be over and done with! In the meantime, the wine rack is offering some consolation.

G was given this Ovens Farm Sparkling Brut Rose 2018 recently, amongst other things, from a generous friend in Lincolnshire, which is where this winery is based. On the nose, I detected a sweet baked product, which could have been brioche or perhaps, keeping it English, an iced bun. There was a hint of sherbet, strawberries in the middle and a dry finish. Our verdict was that it needed more time to knit together as it still had a beginning, middle and end. Definitely worth revisiting in a year or two.

Next, an old favourite, the Saint-Romain Combe Bazin from Vincent Perrin. I actually got out the 2016 and the 2017 at the same time, so it's been quite interesting to compare them. I have more detailed notes on the 2016, which is a beautiful golden colour and has an absolutely gorgeous nose. It's rich, rounded and gastronomic. On the second day it acquired additional notes of honey. We thought it would be best drunk this year, as it has nowhere to go, and that it would go very well with chicken (perhaps with a creamy mushroom sauce) or with goats cheese. The 2017 is a little lighter and more floral, perhaps more of an aperitif. Always a pleasure. I have some sitting in the fridge right now.

Finally, we had this village Puligny 2015 from Florent Gararudet a couple of months ago. Again it was a lovely colour and had a lot of honey and lemon on the nose. It had a wonderful viscous quality and good acidity especially for this vintage which was sometimes lacking in that department. It was quite rounded, and I'm not sure I'd have guessed it was a Puligny, but to compare something to premier cru Meursault is surely no insult. G said it was "disastrously easily drinkable" and it had a lemon syllabub or even lemon curd tart thing going on. We thought it was very successful.

Lunch at Le Montrachet, Wednesday 11th Sept

On Thursday morning, we headed over to Puligny-Montrachet where ACC had an appointment with Madame Joly. Since G and I had visited her domaine as recently as January, we felt it would be too much of an imposition for us to tag along, so we killed an hour wandering round Puligny.

We checked out Le Pelugney (that is the correct spelling!), a new Belgian restaurant which looked quite good, actually. I was particularly interested in their "Crêpes maison flambées au Marc de Bourgogne". Across the square is the Olivier Leflaive restaurant, which had a creepy waxwork-type figure standing outside. I wasn't tempted to take a photo. The menu here didn't appeal and we were particularly disgusted by the offering of a "Duo" of cheeses which seemed unusually stingy for this part of the world - usually you get at least four!

After that, we made friends with an elderly tabby cat sitting on a mat outside its home in a very quiet back lane, which cheered me up immensely - normally we never see cats in Burgundy but on this trip we saw quite a few - and then we walked up to have a look at the vineyards before returning into the village to hit the wine shop.

Here we had a very enjoyable glass of Bourgogne Blanc 2011 from Bzikot while perusing the wine list. They literally went across the road to get it. It was interesting for me to try this, as I've been getting through large quantities of the 2008 vintage from this domaine. G bought a couple of premier crus, and after we left we suddenly thought maybe they hadn't included the two glasses of wine on the bill. It turned out that they had, but they were just three euros each! Not something that would be possible in Angleterre.

It was now time to head over the road to Le Montrachet where a table for lunch awaited us. The sommeliere gave me a wink which was possibly meant to be encouraging, as I was attempting to speak in bad French at the time, or could have been an allusion to the chaos caused on my last visit in May 2009 when I and the other female member of the party had to take matters into our own hands when it came to pouring the wine, and thereby created an international diplomatic incident.

While waiting for ACC to join us, G and I indulged in a kir, and when ACC arrived, he fancied a glass of cremant but it turned out that they don't do a cremant by the glass so he was forced to have champagne. We had the 28.50 euro menu which included lots of amuse-gueles including a little chicken nugget wrapped in filo and deep-fried which was possibly the most delicious thing I ate on the entire trip.

To drink, ACC suggested a bottle of St-Romain 2004 from Domaine Chassorney at 47 euros. I hadn't come across this domaine but he told us it was the real deal - biodynamic, unfiltered and cloudy. The sommeliere clearly approved of this choice. I managed to take a sneaky picture of it. It was like no other burgundy I've ever tasted; if anything, it reminded me of an old, dry Vouvray. Very interesting. We also discovered that "snacke" means in the form of a snake, and that Cafe Liegeois is a sort of coffee ice cream sundae - very nice indeed. The total bill, including a bottle of old friend 1er cru Auxey-Duresses from Roulot, came to 205.50 euros. We spotted that they had left ACC's glass of champagne off the bill and drew this to their attention but they said not to worry about it, which I thought was very decent.

By the time we'd finished, it was about 2.15 and time to head off to our next appointment when all I wanted to do was lie down on a park bench and sleep. Memo to self: next time I go to Le Montrachet, don't schedule anything immediately afterwards. Best lunch of the trip!

Domaine Marie-Christine & Vincent Perrin dinner, 17th Oct

Last Wednesday I attended this dinner held at the Perseverance just off Lisson Grove, held under the auspices of the Burgundy Portfolio. Also there were my brother and sister-in-law, G, Baron McG and a number of other familiar faces. ACC was our host and Vincent Perrin himself was there to talk about the wines.

I've visited this domaine twice, in January 2010 (notes here) and in January 2011 (notes here) and have always liked the house style which is elegant and allows the terroir to express itself.

We started with a glass of the white Saint-Romain "Combe Bazin" from 2010 which was very enjoyable and still had that floral quality which I liked about the 2008.

Some gougeres appeared but didn't hang around for long. Top marks to my sister-in-law for comparing them unfavourably with mine, admittedly mainly on grounds of size.

Then we sat down and got on with the main business of the evening. With a starter of wood pigeon and chicken liver terrine, we had two village Volnays - the 2010 Cuvee Marie and the 1999.

There was a clear colour differentiation - assuming I had my glasses the right way round, the 2010 is on the left and the 1999 on the right. I found the 2010 hard to judge at this stage as it's still very young. The 1999 had, as you'd expect, much softer tannins, a velvety textrure and a hint of tinned strawberries. The second bottle of it (there were 14 of us so two bottles of each wine were consumed) seemed to have dried figs and raisins on the nose and was very ripe, suggesting a certain amount of bottle variation.

The next pair of wines, drunk with the main course, were this 2008 Volnay 1er cru La Carelle Sous la Chapelle and a 1998 Volnay 1er cru Les Gigottes, which is a monopole ("not to be confused with a monopoly" said ACC) and therefore of great interest from the perspective of the Premier Cru Project.

The Carelle was very smooth and those at my end of the table detected redcurrants. But for me, the Gigottes was the winner of this bout with its cedary nose and black fruit flavours that reminded me of the kind of claret I love - hopefully I won't be excommunicated from future Burgundy Portfolio events for saying that. I succumbed to temptation and ordered some the next day.

Notice also the change in label style. 1445 refers to the date when the Perrin family began making wine in Volnay. Vincent is clearly a moderniser with his new bold typeface.

I really do enjoy the food at the Perseverance and this evening was no exception - the main course was roast venison with red cabbage, parsnips, port and juniper.

Finally, with the cheese course, we compared a 1999 Volnay 1er Cru les Gigottes (monopole) with a 1999 Pommard "Chanlains". I found this Gigottes quite intense and brooding and on balance felt that I preferred the 1998. The Pommard had notes of liquorice, dried currants and fruit cake. G really liked it and went for some, while I already have some of the 2010 tucked away so it will be interesting to compare them in due course.

The cheese course consisted of an extraordinary chunk of ripe Stinking Bishop servied with oatcakes and chutney. Baron McG, connoisseur du fromage, commented that Stinking Bishop must be "twinned with Epoisses". There was certainly quite a resemblance, no bad thing.

All in all, a good time was had and it was fascinating to compare the young and the old and drink them as they're intended to be drunk, i.e. with robust food. Thanks to ACC for organising and to Vincent Perrin for making these lovely wines.