Wine group at MM's 24/04/2006 (TNB)

• Cortese 2004 (Lost Valley) Fresh, grassy, a bit vegetal. Fruity and a touch sweet. Top
• Gavi 2003 (La Chiara) Drier, quite intense. Hints at almonds and lime.
• Chardonnay Reserve 2003 (De Bertoli) Slightly corked.
• Chardonnay 2003 (Cullen) A touch reductive/sulphury. Forward fruit - pleasantly dry. Top
• Chardonnay Prelude 2003 (Leeuwin) Nice intensity. Aniseed. Fades a touch. Good value.
• Chardonnay Art series 2002 (Leeuwin) A touch of ginger. Rounded fruit like a top-class Macon. Nice intensity and clean, pretty dry palate. Very good. even
• Cabernet Merlot 2001 (Voyager Estate) Intense pure cassis, ripe with some quite dry succulent tannins. Fairly sweet impression on the palate. in its way.
• Cabernet Merlot Diana Madaline 2003 (Cullens) Sickly toffee-fudge nose. Sweet fruit. I don't like this.
• Cabernet Sauvignon Cyril Henschke 1999 (Henschke) Sweet soft-drink fruit. It expands a bit but I still find it too soft. For somebody who likes the style:
• Shiraz 2003 (Henry's Drive) Very sweet, some mushroomyness but so sickly - might almost be a desert wine. I really don't want to drink this. I can't even bring myself to give it stars on an "if you like this sort of thing" basis.
• Shiraz Prodigy 2002 (Katnook) Quite sweet - very soft fruit. Herby and lifted. Decent
• Shiraz Mount Edelstone 2002 (Henschke) Still a bit soft for my palate - has Mt E always been this easy? Certainly the best of the three. Bare
• Vin Santo 1979 (Villa di Vetrice) Almost Madeira-like. It suffered a bit on serving - it was rather sedimenty. Pleasant but fading a bit.
• Tokaji 5 puttonyos 1988 (Kereskedohaz) Almost dry - nice, but no better than it should be given the reputation of the vintage.

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Easter weekend 16/04/2006 (TNB)

• Leoville Barton 1983 Very classic cedary, mature Claret nose. Classic on the palate too, but there is an air of living dangerously, of corruption, and a general hint that the wine will crack up. Really needs food now and probably should be drunk in the next year or two.
• Leoville Poyferre 1983 Classic again on the nose, but a rather fresher, more stable palate with complex multi-faceted fruit. Once open for an hour or so it becomes fragrant and high-toned. Drinking well and no hurry to consume.

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15/04/2006 (RJB)

This was one of three Chapel Down wines (and a few refreshing and pleasing bottled beers) supplied by the winery.

• Bacchus Reserve 2003 (Chapel Down) I don't get to try an awful lot of Bacchus nowadays, although way back I used to attend the English Wine Fair and try samples there. I can't say I miss it much. This wine is floral, grapefruity and with hints of sauvignon-like flavours. Strangely for a cleanly made 11% white wine, it isn't the sort of stuff you want to drink a whole bottle of - it's not unpleasant, just that the acidity and fruit somehow manage to dull the tastebuds. Hopefully the Champagne style Pinot that was also sent will be more interesting.

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A well travelled wine 15/04/2006 (RJB)

Does wine travel well? This Champagne seems to have. Packing the car recently, I opened up one of the underfoot storage compartments to pack a bottle of fizz when I found - to my surprise - a bottle already in there. This, I worked out, had been in the car for the last couple of months (going everywhere the car went - a thousand miles or so - in the cold and in the warm). Unfortunately I didn't have another, untravelled bottle of this around for comparsion.

• La Demoiselle de Champagne Tete de Cuvee (Vranken) Lovely fizz, with good nutty steely age on the palate. Fine depth of flavour, although the palate does tire very slightly at the end. Really on very good form.

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With dinner at the Anchor Inn, Walberswick 06/04/2006 (RJB)

• Reserva Old Vines 2002 (Quinta do Crasto) Good fruit and depth of colour. Very obvious new oak on the palate. Good drinkable modern wine.

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