Cam and Jules Ashmead put on an excellent spread for a few of us last night. The wines we washed down the food with were pretty handy.
Kicked off with a 2008 Pol Roger Champagne Blanc de Blancs. This is a beauty. Amply fruited, plenty of finesse, cut by minerally acidity and fresh and long. We moved onto a 2009 Coche-Dury Bourgogne-Aligoté with a superb Ravioli dish. It was very tight, unevolved and leesy. You got the usual Coche matchstick and preserved lemon flavours are intense and precise. The finish oozes minerality. A 2013 Hubert Lamy Santenay 1er Cru Clos des Gravières was absolutely delicious. There’s sappy orchard fruits, a touch of spice and plenty of salty mineral. It has great shape in the mouth and finishes crisp and long. A 2009 Sylvain Cathiard Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Aux Murgers was tight and unyielding at first so we gave it a splash in the decanter. It breathed up nicely and is a wine of great depth and flesh. There are sweet and creamy plum and cherry fruits. Just below the surface is some meat and iron. It is generous and fills the mouth with sensual, silky flavour. There’s good freshness to the finish. The 2004 Domaine Dujac Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts is green but certainly not mean. The palate has decent flesh and is quite silky. There are notes of cardamom, grated ginger, sweet red berry, smoke and green bean. I quite enjoyed the wine. The third bottle of 1978 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape we have had this year was stunning. It had a fresh nose of black fruits, spice, meats, dried flowers, earth and liquorice. In the mouth it is dense, deep and chewy. There are some black jube-like fruit flavours and a suggestion of Turkish delight. It finishes with good grip and there’s a delicious vinous sweetness. Length is most impressive. A 1999 Elio Altare Barolo was deep, dark and modern. It had notes of sweet cedar, tar, blackberry and plum. It was dense and full in the mouth with good depth of flavour and sandy tannins carrying the finish. A 2009 Bond Pluribus felt like the winemaker had forced the fruit to do something it wasn’t designed to in an effort to attract RMP’s attention. It was too ripe and had a dead fruit character. The palate has lashing of vanillin oak and baggy, hot fruit and a little bit of sweet and sour action. There’s concentration here but that’s about all. I don’t like it one bit. We finished with an outstanding bottle of 1983 Château Filhot. It was in great nick with a fresh nose of citrus blossom, honey, mandarin peel and lavender. It is sweet, full and rich but cleans up beautifully at the end, finishing clean, dry and minerally.