Elystan Street - a first evening...

A rather splendid email arrived from Gary Birchtree (not his real name!) suggesting a dinner in the private room of Philip Howard's new restaurant Elystan Street on opening night. It was not a hard invite to accept. I have loved The Square (where he is now not involved) and Kitchen W8 (where he still is). The rest of the crowd was wine trade friends. The only disturbing part of the evening was discovering that I was the second oldest, only Mr Sherwood keeping be from the ultimate seniority.   

So we gathered, after a ten-minute stroll from Sloane Square tube for me, in the private room and were "treated" to 1992 En Tirage Extra Brut Russian River Valley Sparkling Wine. Our organiser who had sent this did two things one good (for him) and one bad. The good thing was that he arrived late having sent the wine on, the bad thing was sending three bottles. One would have been enough. An enticing nose but a dead palate, may be unfair in this company but probably better a while ago. Certainly not in the same league as the other "sparkler" later.

This was an evening about: Food, venue, company and wine. So to cover off the food it was all superb! There was no dish I would not have wanted more of (greed) or would not happily order again many times. The menu is below.

Ravioli of Langoustines with barbecue dressing, hispi Cabbage and sweetcorn.

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Roast calf’s sweetbread with truffled autumn slaw, seeded nut butter and mimolette.

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Rump of lamb with pesto roasted aubergine, garlic puree, green olives and balsamic vinegar.

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Roasted figs with goats milk ice cream, lemon and thyme fritters and olive oil

or

Cheese

It was time now for a flight of whites. The first and last of which were from (two) bottle(s) the Drouhin being a magnum. The Chablis 1er Cru Montee de Tonnerre 1999, F.Raveneau bottles were both good ones, the first possibly just edging it for energy. Wax and lanolin with a very "proper" Chablis nose, a little of that dry-honey character. Mature on the plate but still with good vibrancy, a cracking wine in a good place. Beaune Clos des Mouches 1996, Drouhin was an imposing magnum and one might say a brave one. There was a dash of coffee on the nose, this was broad but not loose, I'd have been in Meursault if blind I think. Mature and with a decadent texture, nice wine. We then switched to the Loire with Pur sang 2011, Dagueneau. I don't know the Dagueneau wines all that well but have enjoyed what I have tried. This was expressive, quite broad and open, a little tropical but with enough of the nettle character though not sharp nettles, warm ones if that makes any sense. It was a splendid trio all in all.

Les blancs...

Interestingly we were not "packing any Pinot" on this occasion so we moved straight to Nebbiolo with an intriguing trio, three different sites and three different vintages all in magnum. Young Nebbiolo is something people should not, in my opinion, miss out on. Barbaresco Montestefano 2008 from Produttori del Barbaresco kicked us off. This had a more open and more warm vintage feel that I expected. It was very easy to enjoy from this underestimated vintage. These are such good wines. Barolo La Tartufaia 2010 from Giulia Negri was up next, a blend of Nebbiolo from two crus - Serradenari and Brunate - showing a good degraded fruit and easy drinkability even now though it will age very well. Barolo Cannubi Boschis 2011 from Sandrone completed the Piedmont trio. There is a tar and texture feel to this, it has a tiny hint of toffee from wood but is ultimately both rich and balanced. Good spices too, a wine with a broad drinking window, as could be said for all these.

The three Piedmonteers...

It was Bordeaux next and a good threesome. La Lagune 2001 got us started and I have to say La Lagune isn't necessarily an estate that I get excited about, have they made some lovely wines? yes definitely but I mentally file it under "dependable" rather than "exciting". This 2001, in magnum as were the wines that followed, was delicious and certainly exciting. Lifted with a good bit of sappy liveliness and then a driven and energetic, almost red fruited palate...simply lovely. The La Conseillante 1999 was darker fruited and from a clearly less great vintage, it was good and very true to the house but just a little muddied in comparison to the La Lagune. Tasted and drunk on its own it'd be splendid. The most different of the Bordeaux was Palmer 1976 (a BBR bottling). A very hot vintage, think 2003 but without the heat spikes just consistently hot and dry. The nose had a citrus element, sweet and tarry, mellow in tannin, gently moreish. A wine it was terrific to try and a good drink too.

As we moved towards pudding or cheese we had an eclectic last flight. Two bottles of Clos de Bourg 1989 Moelleux 1er Trie from Huet had that lovely combination of zesty acidity and generous sweetness...a sweet wine I could certainly just drink alone and as an aperitif or with food (both pudding and/or cheese). Zippy apples and a dash of honey. Then Champagne - Moet & Chandon 1978 “Grand Vintage Collection“ (Disgorged 2004) - which reminded me of dry honey and a rancio character with good energy, a little of that "late-disgorgement" cocoa character. A lovely toasty finish, a wine at its peak now I think, well to my style anyway. Champagne later in a meal is a good idea I think. I am not sure why a bottle of Ornellaia 2000 was opened but I am glad it was, quite savoury and bold, a little bit of Bovril, good darker fruits and enough acidity.

And that, as they say, was that...a thoroughly enjoyable evening and a lovely restaurant that I will certainly be returning too!! As for the company...well the wine trade remains a place for fun, often opinionated, folk...long may it continue.

Clos St.Jacques Masterclass @ 67 Pall Mall...

Now the last thing I am going to do is launch into a monolog on the merits of Clos St.Jacques. This area has been covered really well by a number of writers who have walked the vineyards and got under the skin of this site. What seems to be accepted is that, along with Les Amoureuses in Chambolle, here is a vineyard that is Grand Cru in all but name.

This tasting was held at 67 Pall Mall and hosted by Jasper Morris MW alongside Jordi. The focus was the vineyard rather than producer comparisons so, with one exception that came about by a reserve being used, there was no same producer and vintage side by side. There were some lovely anecdotes and Jasper added very well to the tasting with insights and tales. 

The "producers" roll call is a tricky one as barrels have been sold and deals done in the past. Now there are 5 owners who, significantly, all own a strip the length of the vineyard, this is so important as there are three soil types from "top" to "bottom":

Rousseau 2.21 ha
Esmonin 1.6ha
Bruno Clair  1ha (essentially the same as Clair Dau for notes below)
Louis Jadot 1ha
Domaine Fourrier 0.89 ha

The notes I have made on the wines are, as ever, written in a way I can relate to, I hope they may be of some interest. It is also nice to be writing a post where I have no agenda whatsoever. I always try to be honest but so often I have a bias, however hard I try not to. Wine is a people business and to think that knowing, or even wanting to sell, a particular persons wine does not have an effect is naive on my part.

None of the wines were double decanted, all just checked and poured. I think this is 100% the correct approach but it does mean that you find people's opinions of a wine (top, middle, bottom of the bottle) does vary:

1970 Clair Dau - A quite thick, cloudy, degraded colour. Soy and mushrooms, this has a slightly yeasty character. There is a shade of bacon about this and not bacon fat. Rustic and a little gloopy. Not much sweetness but nothing harsh. I feel this note comes across too negatively, it was a decent wine just fully mature.

1976 Clair Dau (magnum) - Developed colour but not too much so. Spicey, meaty, a little leathery, sweetness too, this is intense. It is a wine fully on the tertiary characteristics. Meaty and animal like. I liked it.

1976 Clair Dau (bottle) - This was fresher than the magnum, unusually, bricky and good with a long finish. Nice.

1978 Drouhin - Clean clear brown colour but finely precise. Poised and lifted on the nose, at its peak I imagine. Almost a note of coconut water which slightly reflected a feeling of a little overoaking. The aromas then became prettier and more poised, tea and pure evolved pinot notes. Good wine.

1979 Rousseau - A saline edge to this, a tiny bit of tangerine, mature, has a moreishly gritty (only a little) texture. Good right now. There is that Rousseau minerality.

1980 Clair Dau - Tea aromas, bricky, quite scrawny, has a dryness. On the palate this is, weirdly, much more masculine, rich and animal. Another wine that shows 1980 to be so much better than people might think.

1985 Fourrier - Slightly toffee'd, more texture to the palate here, very good if grippier and also grittier.

1986 Rousseau - A vintage where Jasper Morris noted it rained at picking time, and therefore some wines (the first picked) are rather better than others. Delicious in so many ways. Gentle, persistent and very fine. Red fruit shows well, the nose is stellar the palate also good but as can often happen it is not quite what the nose suggests.

1993 Fourrier - This has a markedly younger feel, more red/black fruit. Quite exotic in a a way, extrovert, in middle age if that, impressive.

1993 Esmonin - Easy to enjoy, not too grippy, lusher than many with almost a liquorice edge.

1994 Rousseau (magnum) - The vintage here is one that was nearly very good, growers being excited and then? It pissed down. This is super; saline, red fruits and balance, moreish and driven, superb nose, may be the weather shows in the mid palate, you could be very picky and say it is a little hollow but frankly I'd drink this whenever I could.

1998 Fourrier (magnum) - The quality of the grapes in 1998 was very mixed and required much sorting. Tea and oranges, this is light in texture and slightly divided the room, I was a real fan, it's a "drinkers" wine for sure. Very delicate but all the better for that.

2000 Jadot (magnum) - The inverted snob in me really wanted to like this. A very warm vintage. This is richer and cruder, a little heavier but somehow lacks class sadly, not bad but not clearly deserving of its place in this line up.

2002 Esmonin - A very sweet, slightly oaked and toffee'd nose here. Serious fruit as well though on both the nose and the palate, I find it a little covered in oak but many others didn't. If it integrates it could be quite something.

2007 Esmonin (magnum) - For me this was more driven than the 2002, it still had a marked cloak of oak but I would rather drink the 2007 now. There are elements of the easy enjoyment that this unsung vintage gives. This is a darker fruit character than I associate with 2007 but not the worse for it necessarily.

2008 Rousseau (magnum) - Just lovely. I almost feel I could leave it there. The 2008's I think will be a very pleasant surprise for many, it is a more classical vintage to my mind, very pinot, not lush, more focussed. There can be a grip too which I like (the Nebbiolo man in me may be?). Anyway back to this wine, its just very good, red fruit, grip the early hint of saline, very Rousseau. The room was, I sensed, half hoping that possibly Rousseau wouldn't dominate. Dominate may be too far to go but, as producer, it did show pure class.

That was the tasting done. I have one more note to add from a bottle that a customer and friend very kindly served a colleague and I last week. This was:

2000 Fourrier - Lovely bold but mellowed colour, pungent nose of all the right things, red fruit with a little mellow black fruit underneath, a tiny dash of spice...a complex wine in a lovely place, drinking well now but, to my mind, no rush at all. A lovely bottle to just drink, not showing the warmth of 2000, but may be a little of the richness that the season added.

So after all that tasting what are my thoughts on Clos St Jacques? Well I would argue the quality is definitely very worthy of Grand Cru. It is also true to Gevrey-Chambertin but without trying to be a look-a-like of the masculine "creature" that is Chambertin. Sure it isn't an easy wine to buy these days but to drink? All I would say is "yes please"...

A lot learnt...well done Jordi and Jasper

Petrus...a great visit...

The day after a splendid evening of Trotanoy at La Fleur Petrus (yes I am very late posting this) the C&B team gathered early in Libourne and headed out to Petrus for a full visit. It was a brilliant day, even the weather performed as I hope you can see in the pictures below. I had visited Petrus before but only during "primeurs" to taste the vintage. The last time being the "perfect" 2010...

The weather is a point worth going back to because 2014 is a vintage that to a large degree was saved by September sun and heat, the date of this visit was September 17th. They did not start picking in earnest for another week, it was pushing 30 degrees and very settled.

Elisabeth Jaubert shows us the vineyards...

Petrus is written about in many places - Neal Martin's book has a large and brilliant chapter on it - so I will not bore you here. It is an amazing site on a button of blue clay that is the high point of Pomerol. Interestingly the vines do not go deep but go into the blue clay that is 4-8 metres in depth. There are many parcels to the plot and the wine in recent times has been 100% merlot, a rarity even in Pomerol. One of the advantages to being on one site is that picking can be precise and as shift or slow as needed. It can be 2-3 days or 2-3 weeks.

Once the grapes are harvested in terms of winemaking things are kept "simple", approximately 50% new oak with racking every 3 months or so. Petrus uses three coopers for the barrels.

The Chai allows for lots of parcels to be kept "apart"

After the tour of the vineyard and chai we moved inside to taste the 2013.

2013 - Vibrant, rich, bright, it has an opulence as well as a nervousness, an almost stem-like crispness, cranberry and black berry. A stoney minerality that goes when the glass is swilled, tart opulence again, over time the middle will fill out. It is a relatively feminine Petrus.

We moved onto Clos Videlot, Jean-Pierre Moueix's stunning former home, for lunch around one large table with every topic covered. Olivier Berrouet and Christophe Jacquemin were both on great form along with Elisabeth and Virginie.

After some lovely Bollinger NV (a little bottle age I am guessing) and a Beaune Blanc 2008 from Drouhin the real "work" began as we had two vintages of Petrus in front of us, one from magnum and one from bottle. Having had a few older vintages through the generosity of customer/friends I was fairly sure I had not had these two before. There was a pause with everyone slightly hoping someone would dive in. Adam made a good call and said lets nail it down to a particular decade...are we talking 1980's? The answer was "yes" for both wines. I now stepped up to the plate and picked the left hand glass (the wine from bottle, not magnum) as 1985. My logic being it was balanced and elegant, seamless...I thought it was not a potentially "weaker" vintage - 80, 81, 84, 87 but not a "bold" vintage either - 82, 86, 88, 89...this only left '83 and '85 and I expected '85 is more complete and precise. To great relief I was correct...exam passed!

The wine from magnum was left to the others, I was keen not to take any of the gloss off my respectable performance. The magnum was 1989, a more savoury, bigger, bolder wine with more richness but not over the top sweetness. I found the 1985 more complete at this time but that is the age and fact it is bottle not magnum. It was a truly brilliant lunch and we headed back to the airport without really wanting to!

The Square on a Wednesday...a great dinner...

None to shabby for a Wednesday!

So for this dinner we were six. I had done nothing to organise it, just turned up with a bottle, I knew everyone coming and knew the ingredients were there for a lot of fun and some rather splendid wine…I was not disappointed. We were:

- A collector / drinker with a passion for older/mature wines. (Many of these wines!)
- A collector / drinker with a passion for most wines and mainly in magnums!
- A wine writer and enthusiast.
- A Chateaux owner/producer, Wine merchant & Negoce.
- A broker/negoce.
- Me.

The venue also helped massively - The Square - as it was on top form. I regret not picturing the food as the Crab Lasagne (a Square classic) and the Grouse (possibly the best I have ever had) were both spot on and complemented the wines perfectly.

We started with - Clos de Goisses 1990, Philiponnat - A deep colour for Champagne, almost a slight pink orange hue, I have heard of Clos de Goisses being decanted and as this spent time in the glass I can see why. As with good white Burgundy this grew from a delicately biscuity but quite oxidative nose into something sweeter and easier with time.

As the first courses arrived we then had a pair of white Burgundies to contemplate.
Meursault 2004, Coche Dury & Le Montrachet 1991, Ramonet. A very good contrasting pair. The Coche was a delight, lemon and citric acidity with a small dash of reduction, it's cleanliness made me think of sorbet. It got better and better in glass but was linear to the end, a young wine but starting to open, very 2004, taught and poised, impressive. Never "just" a "village" wine from that man. The Ramonet was fascinating. I have looked back through the blog and realise now (one of the main reasons to do this exercise!) that I have been very privileged in having this wine from 1988, 1990, 1993, 1994 before. There is a commonality but also the desired vintage variation. The 1991 is a savoury wine to sip and think on, not gregarious or showy. A savoury almost saline hazelnut is in the there as well as tea and pine resin. Traditional and all the better for it…what a start.

The next three wines were served blind, all we were told was that there was a link and it quickly leaked out that all these wines were older than everyone at the table. Bordeaux was obvious. There was an even split of guesses for left and right bank. I was one of the wrong ones. The wines right to left as we drank them were Cheval Blanc 1949, 1948 and 1966. It was great to have three wines showing well, only the 1949 did not show much on the palate but the nose was superb. 1949 was deep in colour with a rich nose, lovely and hard to believe it is the age it is, the palate was just muted and tight. 1948 had a high-octane nose of exuberant cherry and compote fruit. There is a volatility that made this so extrovert and a little quirky, there was no way you couldn't like this wine, spice, herbs and a meaty density on the plate just made it amazing. It only started to fade when there was very little wine left in the glass (a stage I found myself at easily!). 1966 was incredible, cepe and other mushrooms initially but this left with time. There was a darker fruited succulence about this, I so wish that more St.Emilion was like this. Incredibly youthful in colour and wonderful fruited plate. Long and persistent, so complete that it is hard to write about. As mentioned above the Grouse with these older wines was just perfect. The character of Cheval Blanc was there to see, such a great site, it just makes you all the more sad about the pricing of the estate these days. People should be loving this estate and buying it almost blindly ever year but so wrong has been its positioning been that that is almost certainly insanity.

Next up was the bottle I took - Musigny Grand Cru 1998, de Vogue - alongside another red Burgundy - Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses 1990, Drouhin. This was a lovely pair, briefly the wines were blind and people got close. I was really impressed by the 1998. I had thought it would be too closed. The 1995 that I had recently thanks to one of this evenings attendees was delicious on the nose but very tight. This 1998 put on weight from the moment it hit the glass, the purity of dark cherry fruit initially was trademark de Vogue. The Drouhin had a lovely soft easy sweetness, "persistent finesse" I have in my notes, fully mature but in a fruited way, really delicious.

With several petit fours we had a pair of "sweeties" - Disznoko Tokaji Aszu 2002 6 Puttonyos and Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Beerenauslese 2009. The Tokaji was really good, oranges, creme brûlée and finesse, not too much rancio character but the trade good acidity to lift these flavours. The Schaefer was precise but at the same time generous, a dash of spritz and some real energy, white fruit. To only think that BA etc needs endless time to mature is a mistake, the vast majority are not a waste to drink young.

A delicious dinner and lots of good conversation, some quite vociferous as a debate should be…this dinner will live long in the memory. Many thanks especially to our organiser who provided the lions share of these wonderful bottles.