Notes from a small lunch following a nice run in old cars (German, as it happened, mid 70s 450 SL and 07 Z4M coupe)
2008 Blue Mountain Réserve Brut – quite possibly the best producer of sparkling wines in BC, this is made from 50/50 pinot noir/chardonnay, and aged on the lees for 6 ½ years before bottling. Mineral, lemon and yeast in the nose, excellent length, with a dry long finish and lots of acidity. Champagne ringer for sure and at half the price.
Lancelot-Pienne Champagne Grand Cru Cuvée de la Table Ronde (nv) – this extra brut was showing delicate apple notes, a fine mousse, and some mineral. Very dry, long finish. Good! Needs time. I don’t look on a non-vintage Champagne as being inferior to a vintage one. Quite the contrary – it is often better as the winemaker can ameliorate any shortcomings of a given vintage (too acidic, too flabby etc.) by blending in some wine from another vintage that offsets a given problem.
1995 Les Cailloux (Lucien et André Brunel) Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Centenaire – first bottle of this that I have opened since I took delivery in the late 1990s. Very interesting – first small pour looked like a uniform light garnet colour with a lot of orange in it. The nose developed from a slight medicinal hint to a briny anise and beef broth. We were wondering of we were experiencing a wine in senescence, though I doubted it as I was still slowly drinking my way through a case of the very good regular CNduP from the same vintage. This cuvee is almost all Grenache - this was only the third time they had made it (1989 and 1990 before) and it was 80% Grenache, 16% syrah and 4% mourvedre, bottled after 18 months in new oak barrels, without filtration. They usually make around 500 cases.
My thoughts of a fading old wine were dispelled by the fact that five hours later, it was still in fine shape and continued to show strongly when finished with dinner. I intend to open another bottle sometime along woth a bottle of the regular wine for comparison.