Fabulous dinner with a group of wine Industry friends last night. Some brilliant bottles, some bottles that would have been if their pieces of bark hadn’t let them down.
Jérôme Prévost Champagne La Closerie Extra Brut Les Beguines LC17 : Green apples and lemons, with chalk and bread. Direct, compact, linear and minerally. Very chalky finish. Very crisp.
2013 Hubert Lamy Puligny-Montrachet Les Tremblots Cuvée Haute Densité : Incredibly youthful and quite wonderful. Piecing citrus and white peach fruits. Flinty mineral notes and some light florals. Deep and penetrating, compact and long. Wonderful cut and drive and so much dry extract.
2018 Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey Corton-Charlemagne, Grand Cru : Very tight and backwards. Super steely line. Light citrus aromas and flavours. A touch of spice. Compact, powerful and very long. Needs time.
2020 Alexandre Brault Corton-Charlemagne, Grand Cru . A strange wine, with an almost new world sweetness of fruit. A bit forward, with some honey sneaking into the flavour profile. The wine’s acidity sits off the fruit a little.
2018 Caroline Morey Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Chaumées : Relatively tight and compact but breathes up beautifully. Has some spearmint, green melon, white peach, and lemon. Perfectly ripe fruits play on a chalky base. It is fine, elegant and beautifully balanced. The finish is precise and persistent.
2020 Domaine Amiot Guy et Fils Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Champs-Gain : Looked a lot older than a 2020. Plenty of tropical fruits and some bruised apple sneaking in. A bit oxy.
2014 Jean-Claude Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru La Boudriotte : In a great place. Has some spearmint and dense, sappy orchard fruits. The palate is rich, powerful and layered. There’s plenty of spice and the finish is minerally and long.
2019 Domaine de Montille Meursault 1er Cru Les Perrières : This was fabulous. Perfectly ripe orchard fruits. Oozes minerality. Great shape and fruit intensity. Builds through the palate and has such great power and authority. The finish is complex and super salty.
1999 Domaine G. Roumier Chambolle-Musigny : Sadly, some mild tca detracts from what would have been a brilliant village wine. Has a dense core of cherry fruit and ample stony structure.
2009 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Cuvée Duvault-Blochet : This was elegance personified. Had a beautiful nose of rose petals, black earth and cherries. The palate was silky and detailed and showed a touch of spice along with a stony coolness. It is a wine of balance and proportion that builds and fans out.
1985 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage: Something wasn’t quite right with the cork. Some nutty aldehyde and perhaps some tca? The wine had notes of cedar, tart red fruits, earth and plant matter. There was plenty going on and it had good texture and great acidity. Would love to see this from a sound bottle.
1958 Francesco Rinaldi e Figli Barolo: Second time in as many weeks with this wine and another fantastic bottle. Complex aromatics of curry leaf, teak, leather, tar and raisins. It is a rich, heady and chewy wine. The fruits are ripe and raisined but with air something redder and fresher appears. It has such great presence and drive and savoury nuance. It is expansive and still has build and length is superb.
2016 Thierry Allemand Cornas Reynard: Near perfect Syrah for mine. So engaging and ethereal. Stony and cool, with briary fruits. Has some graphite and menthol and a hint of black olive. Structural elements are buried, and tannins simply occupy a space. Fantastic energy and freshness and each sip invites another.
2007 Château Rayas Côtes du Rhône Château de Fonsalette Reserve : Deeply pitched, dark and creamy. Luscious fruits, violets and other florals. Baked earth and smoked meats. Rich and powerful. Relatively low in acidity but fresh and vital.
2001 Poderi Aldo Conterno Barolo Riserva Granbussia: I’ve had a few oxidised bottles of this over the years, but this bottle was sound and right in the zone. Classic tar and roses nose. Richly fruited in the mouth, with a sweet, juicy core of fruit and plenty of savoury nuance. There’s mint and smoked meats and it has a glossy feel. Tannins are sinewy, yet relaxed and length is imposing.