Not your normal monday...

A text comes through on Saturday lunchtime, "there is a "tasting" on Monday evening and your presence is required!". Now when this comes from one of the chaps on this special trip to Burgundy all you do is clear the diary and hope that there is nothing crucial planned for Tuesday. The theme was 2004 and we were on Bordeaux with the odd interloper from California, Burgundy and Champagne. The venue was one of "the chaps" houses with splendid cellar and even more splendid wife who cooked up exactly what was needed to set us up for the evening.

The dinner wines...

The format was to start with some Champagne and then white Burgundy before embarking on the reds. All the wines with one exception later in the piece are from 2004 which following on from a tasting back in june of Burgundy 2004 ten years on was likely to be very interesting. Ten years is the accepted time to "look in on" a Bordeaux vintage and 2004 has a reputation for being medium in weight, traditional and possibly a little under appreciated. Following the "freak" that was 2003 and then being overshadowed by the excellence of 2005 was always going to be an issue! All the reds were double decanted before serving.

As the team assembled a bottle of Laurent Perrier 2004 vintage was consumed in quick time. The vintage is a good one in Champagne and this was very typical of the style, taught but not closed, youthful but enjoyable now. The white wine was then Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Combettes, E.Sauzet - a couple of bottles of - both showed well. There is a lovely mid-age maturity here, still some citrus and shortbread as well as a little white fruit then a lovely nuttiness on the palate, a lovely time to drink it. Such a good site.

We decided to start the reds with two St.Emilions - Chapelle de Ausone & Troplong-Mondot - the former was mellow and soft, very complete, soft red and black fruits and certainly not more than medium body, a little bit of what I'll call "good greenness" that added freshness, I assume from young vine fruit. The Troplong - an estate I have often found to be "too much" in terms of oak and extraction - was quite toned down. A gentle wine making approach was key in 2004 and this was on good form. Blacker fruited and weightier. There was a small discussion on price and certainly the Chapelle does not warrant 3 times the price. A good start.

The next commune up was St.Estephe. Ormes de Pez & Cos d'Estournel were the representatives here. The Ormes had a nose of slightly reduced beef stock and then after a couple of swirls it mellowed to show more fruit. The palate had red fruits and good freshness with acidity and a little pencil led, an interesting wine and at the price very good value (ranks with Phelan Segur and Lafon Rochet for me). Cos was a more serious package altogether. Deeper and darker fruited with classical cedar elements to a quite savoury nose, grown up and young at this stage, good balance and a promising future...impressive.

Now we popped over the atlantic and had - Dominus & Stag's Leap, Artemis. There was contrast here between the Artemis' opulence, density and open fruit and the more restrained, arguably more elegant Dominus. There was a split vote I think on this. The Dominus would be exciting to own but you also can't knock the easy pleasure and value of the Artemis. These two were certainly as young in developmental terms as any of the Bordeaux...

And now downstairs to the cellar for the St.Juliens - Lagrange & Leoville Poyferre. Lagrange was very "proper", a balance between decent enough fruit and a savoury side, neither a disappointment nor exciting, a "steady" wine. The Poyferre was very typical of this estate, quite extrovert and open, rich but not heavy and archetypal cool vintage Cabernet fruit, neither too young nor is there a rush to drink this, open and ready now, unpretentious but that is not to say simple at all. Good.

At this stage our host started to throw in some very generous curve balls. The first that was served blind to everyone except me was Cheval Blanc. With the odd nudge the tasters got there pretty quickly. I was impressed, the Cabernet Franc had a really edgy freshness and very poised red fruit (almost red currant) that really marks this estate. It is tempting to think it will only age in the mid term but I think this could just be a wine with a very big drinking window. One to watch.

Briefly back on the original planned line-up it was Pauillac time - Clerc Milon & Pontet Canet. May be it was the class of the Cheval Blanc and Poyferre that preceded it but the Clerc came across as a little crude and "blunt". Absolutely nothing wrong with it but a little foursquare and hard. The Pontet Canet was one of the most obviously young wines of the evening, rich and black but not over the top in extraction. Good but it left you feeling it will repay a couple more years.

There was a comment at some stage in the evening that we had omitted Margaux as a commune so our host took up the challenge and opened a bottle of Palmer. This had a serious and smokey nose as well as a persistence of red black fruit, not quite the elegance of the Cheval but I think given a few more years the smokiness will meld into the wine and this will take on the Margaux fragrance. It is certainly a good deal more serious than the 2007 I has recently. Very good, quite serious.

So with one wine to go, the non 2004, what did I think of the vintage? Well these wines had all clearly been well stored and we had no cork issues whatsoever which is always a relief. I was impressed, I expected the wines to have less in common with each other but there was a similarity of weight and stage of development. The wines did not seem too light but at the same time there was no over-extraction. The wines were all appreciable now but I think they will age nicely before ultimately mellowing gracefully. I think that if you own the wines you've got classical claret to be enjoyed from now on.

As talk turned to the trip that might follow the Burgundy Bonanza, mentioned above, our host had one last trick up his sleeve - Yquem 1994. This was decadent and full, not as sweet as Yquem can be, I think blind I would have had it as 80's rather than 90's. There was a creme brulee richness and some apricots as well as spice. A brilliant evening of many laughs...

If only every Monday...

Only the Yquem 1994 was is missing...

The perfect beef...

Your normal Monday scene...

Zucca then Golf then...

A slightly chaotic blog this one but a few memorable wines have been drunk so here we go.

Starting with a delicious dinner at Zucca with a great wine lover. Two good bottles were opened. A very nice, if still simple due to its age, bottle of Bernkasteler Badstube Spatlese 2008 from Prum and then a serious bottle in the form of Grands Echezeaux 1991 from Rene Engel. The Prum was decanted which is necessary at this early stage, still simple it had lovely ripeness and vitality, really wakes up the taste buds. There is a long life ahead for this, I would probably next look at it again in 3 years time. The Grands Echezeaux was really something, nothing like a wine of 22 years old in honesty. I would say this was just starting to hit the second phase of it's life, vibrant and complex but still with forceful fruit really beautiful. 1991's along with 1993's really are lovely. The Truffle pasta and then Mallard went brilliantly with these wines.

The following morning it was off to the Wildernesse Golf club in Sevenoaks for a round with friends as their guest. We got lucky with the weather and after a good front nine things sort of fell apart for me this meant it was cigar time. I got out a nice mellow, easy, morning Robusto - Saint Luis Rey Regios from 2012. The round was really enjoyable and after a quick beer we then ventured off to The Vine, also in Sevenoaks for some lunch. The food was spot on, all the dishes tasting delicious and working well with the wines. We hadn't really co-ordinated much and ended up with four reds. They were an interesting selection starting with Charmes Chambertin 2005 from Tortochot, not a producer I know at all. The wine was primary but not closed, clear and clean red fruit with a tiny bit of tannin. Many of the 2005's do appear to be showing more than was the case 6-12 months ago. This is a wine that will age well but I don't see it being an epic. Lovely, relatively simple and a nice drink. Next up was the oldest bottle of the day and both the most unique as well as interesting. Troplong Mondot 1962 is not something you see everyday. I have to admit to having a real mental block over this estate. I am, in polite terms, not a fan. I find the wines they make now to be a little monstrous in character and extraction and just not the sort of thing I like to drink. This though was very different, elegant and with red/black fruit, poured straight from the bottle it drank well immediately and over the next 30 minutes, much longer and it might have faded but it was both fascinating and impressive for a vintage that is decent but not a patch on it's predecessor. The last two reds were both red Hermitage. The first Hermitage 2008 from Tardieu-Laurent, this was my offering and before you think why such a young Hermitage? I'll explain. In 2008 the plot that this wine was from was harvested even later than Chave and the elegance of the wine really impressed me recently so I thought it was time to re-visit and share it. It showed well, very primary but with a lovely feminine red fruit in amongst the more "butch" darkness, it was good but then I was somewhat trumped by the next wine! Hermitage 1998, Chave. Absolutely delicious, only really getting into 3rd gear but very easy to appreciate. I love the wine at this stage because it was mellow but is in now way either primary or older, just in a zone of loveliness, really superb. So two young wines that showed well and two more mature examples that were delicious, you can't ask for much more than that.

After a couple of days of normality it was time for another wine merchant friend to come over. This just means more bottles to open! We started with Hattenheimer Pfaffenberg Riesling Spatlese Jubilee Label 2009 from Schloss Schonborn which is a wine I have followed for some time as I think it offers stunning value and lovely richness. This showing did not disappoint. I am trying desperately to leave some for a little while but not managing it very well at the moment. The next bottle was infanticide, Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses by Nathalie & Giles Fevre, even decanted it didn't give a way a great deal but did have a lovely texture and was very try to Chablis I just kind of wish I hadn't opened it. On to red and a wine I know very well, Barbera Cerretta 2008 from Giacomo Conterno which was great with Mrs H's brilliant, if labour intensive, chicken pie. It just has guts as well as elegance and fruit, tricky combination to pull off. We then went onto one last bottle and I have to say I was really impressed. The wine in question was Slowhand Pinot Noir 2009 from Muddy Water in Waipara, NZ. The clarity of the red - strawberry and raspberry but in no way bitter - was staggering, not far off the kind of character you get from Felton Road. I will certainly be having more of that!