The Shed...part 2…blind bottles

This is a follow on from a previous visit to the shed in Notting Hill. It's a great fun place to go and I thoroughly advise a trip to see them. Mr H (not me) had organised the evening, we were four in total. We got chatting away so I haven't written about the food which is a bit soy an error but then you can't do everything. The brief was simple, an old world bottle to be served blind. Mr G was requested to do an aperitif or a sticky. 

Sock vs Foil...

The apertif was served up and the games began. We did pretty well, we settled on Champagne (or posh Franciacorta in my case, think top Ca' del Bosco etc) and we were thinking it was in the 8-12 years old range. It was Dom Perignon 2006 which frustratingly I have had quite recently at a Dom Perignon 2002 to 2006 tasting. It's a lovely wine with a marked savoury seriousness. I think it will become a complex, nuts and mushrooms bottle over time, a generous and good start to the evening.

Now to the reds and it was our co-ordinator to go first. The bottle shape should have been a good clue but this chap is no fool so there could easily have been a change. I plumbed for 1995 top St.Julien and the others were all in Bordeaux. It turned out to be Haut Brion 1994 and thinking back did have some good classicism about it. It's a strong showing from a slightly sub par vintage (always a savvy place to buy rom good estates). The character was very Pessac. Lovely.

Now it was my turn and I was confident it would go down well but I wondered where they might place it. There were a variety of punts…Brunello, Burgundy and Barolo all getting votes or mentions. The vintage seemed hard to place which I totally expected. The wine in question was Barolo Villero 2004 from Brovia, a producer I buy a fair bit. The red fruited purity does make it a confusing one as it is easy to talk yourself into other regions. It's a wine that it good now but will age every well, it's in 2nd or 3rd gear now.

So onto the final red, this bottle came straight out of a suit case as another Mr H had just arrived from Heathrow for dinner. We did pretty well here, Bordeaux was a firm selection and whilst I didn't get the commune, I think someone did, I did get the vintage, Pape Clement 1990 is not a wine I have had before and is an impressive bottle, degraded fruit and lovely elements of tobacco, a little leather and some spice all on top of an easy structure.

Don't miss out on pudding at the Shed!! Then pub for a quick Laphroig and home, a splendid evening, just what wine should be about. Looking forward to another trip…A Shed in Muswell Hill…now that would work…for me anyway...

The Line up

Dinner in St.Emilion...not just any dinner...

The "Shelfie" to end all...

As a break from the rigours of tasting the En Primeur 2015's we got a very kind invite from a friend and customer who lives in St.Emilion a fair bit of the time. He's no stranger to these blog pages either. Having been once before we knew it would be a treat, especially when combined with Ian's brilliant cooking. We were ten in total with half that number being colleagues, there also being a rather famous Danish winemaker...by the name of Peter (no prizes for guessing that one) in attendance.

To kick off it was Pol Roger Cuvee "Sir Winston Churchill" 1996 En Magnum this was delicious with Anchovy and onion tartlet. The wine is clearly all the younger for being in magnum, I would have said far younger if served blind. There was a toastiness but not a heaviness that you often get with "Winnie". Blind tasting became a theme from here with every other wine except the Sauternes served in blind "themed" pairs! 

Pair 1 - whitesThe first theme was the vintage - 2010. I had remembered a discussion with our host so had a firm feeling that there would be a Raveneau and there was, the Chablis 1er Cru Montee de Tonnerre 2010 being simply delicious, just entering drinking territory with that lovely beeswax and stones nose...I loved it. The next white producer I have been expecting was Roulot but with the theme being 2010 and the way the Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru En Remilly 2010 from Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey En Magnum tasted I was fairly sure it wasn't Roulot as that would have been like a rapier. Joe (Muller) got the producer, the C&B team groaned as we'd be hearing about this forever. The En Remilly was delicious, open, generous without lacking drive at all...very fine with a long life ahead of it.

Pair 2 - first Reds
The vintage was again the theme but already there were disputes over right bank of left bank. I suggested we nail the vintage first. Clearly it was set as a trap because it was one of those vintages known to be good on one bank over the other but the wines from the "wrong side of the tracks" was clearly an over performer. We reduced it down to being 1996 (left bank vintage) or 1998 (right bank)...wrongly we went 1998 first as it was 1996. The two wines being  - Palmer 1996 and La Conseillante 1996. The Palmer was simply superb, primary in a way, just what it should be, dense floral fruits and exactness, a lovely wine to drink over the next two decades. The Conseillante was impressive, a lovely opulence, not the depth of the Palmer but that would be unfair. A nice pair.

Pair 3 - two younger reds
Now we were firmly put on the spot with two glasses in front of us and a "right then, what are they?", all we were told was that there was a theme and they were younger than the 1996's. Nebbiolo got a shout, Burgundy was certainly in the mix. Possibly fortified by the delicious Chicken liver parfait my competitive - "can't let Muller win the day" - nature kicked in and I decided to follow a hunch and said Red Burgundy on the left and Brunello on the right...I was correct and should have stopped there. I then said so it is 2001 or 1999 - right again! I went for the hat-trick and said 1999 but alas it was 2001. I did though get that it was Poggio de Sotto. There was then a battle for the red Burgundy, Joe and Peter ganged up together and were fairly sure there was a de Vogue mark on the wine, they were right and eventually got the Bonnes Mares.  So the two wines were:

Bonnes Mares Grand Cru 2001, De Vogue - so very elegant and primary, pretty, good acidity, red ripe fruit, long, moreish and so blooming drinkable!

Brunello di Montalcino 2001, Poggio de Sotto - a cracking bottle of wine, such lovely gentle but vibrant red fruit with little black cherry, great acidity and lift and a tiny dash of Saline. Wine of the night for one of our number not known for his love of Italy (he's learning).

Pair 4 -  the pair that wasn't
There had been a fair bit of chat through the dinner about the fun one can have with genuinely "off" vintages - even Marsan 1991 got a mention (do some research!) - so our kind host decided it was time for one last pair with the delicious wine friendly (not easily done) cheeses. The first wine was delicious, lovely right now, not dense but mature and complex, it was Haut Brion 1993...alas it's partner in crime, Latour 1993, was corked. The Haut Brion alone though made the off vintage case very well. Terroir shows as much, if not more, in the lesser, more difficult, vintages. There was another bottle grabbed and served. It confused us because we wondered if we were still supposed to be on the "off vintage trail", the confusion coming from the fact the wine was so good. It Lynch-Bages 1982 and clearly we were NOT on the off vintages. I had the very wine from magnum recently and this was every bit as good!

A stunning lemon and almond cake followed for pudding and with it the Coutet 1988 worked a treat, a great time to drink this with just a bit of development showing...and with that we had to head back to Bordeaux...to have taken a break from the tasting to drink these great wines with lovely food and great company was a real treat. This is the finest wine drinking address on the right bank! Thank you!!