Ten NV Champagnes 25/08/2001 (RJB)

• Champagne Brut Special Reserve (Bollinger) A few bottles of this on fine form at a party. Beautifully balanced with clean acidity and a touch of maturity. Not the creaminess I usually associate with Bollinger - but I could (and did) drink a lot of this.
• Champagne Brut (Ruinart) The first of five Champagnes tasted together. Nice minerality but rather coarse and simple.
• Champagne Brut Premier (Louis Roederer) Outclassed by the next wine. Rather lacking and a touch green - perhaps it needs more time. This used to be one of my favourites, but not like this.
• Champagne Brut Reserve mis en cave 1996 (Charles Heidsieck) A fine effort - Charles Heidsieck really must be one of the top NV producers at present. Just a beautifully balanced medium weight wine that is a pleasure to drink.
• Champagne Brut Ponsardin (Veuve Clicquot) The widow not as good as I would have hoped - as with the Roederer it perhaps needs more time (but why are they being released like this?). Simple seeming.
• Champagne Brut Booths (Jacquart) Basic fizz made for Booths supermarket - not as good as Jacquart's Brut Mosaique, but reasonable.
• Champagne Brut (Piper-Heidsieck) A good bottle of this - lightish weight and elegant. plus .
• Champagne Brut White Foil (Pol Roger) Ah! Good stuff, but perhaps more should be expected from this producer. Nice bubbles, and held together well. Lighter style. This is the 'reserved for Great Britain' bottling - whatever that means.
• Champagne Brut (Canard-Duchene) Dull basic stuff. just
• Champagne Brut Charles VII (Canard-Duchene) Lightly creamy but with a coarse not crisp finish. plus perhaps

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Brian Croser presents Petaluma wines 23/08/2001 (TNB)

• Riesling 2001 (Petaluma) Lemon and grapefruit, herby notes. Fairly dry, quite closed at the moment. Good
• Riesling 1999 (Petaluma) Classic spicy kerosene emerging on the nose. Lime and honey hints. Good concentration and acidity. Good
• Chardonnay1999 (Petaluma) Fine peachy, gingery fruit. Quite elegant and long. Good acid.
• Chardonnay 1998 (Petaluma) With its vibrant acidity this gives the impression of being younger than the 99 - it's a little closed at present but otherwise in a similar style. All in all I slightly prefer this to the 99 and it has a little more cellaring potential.
• Chardonnay 1997 (Petaluma) This is a bit more in the mainstream style of Australian Chardonnay: concentrated but a bit fat and less mineral than the two previous wines.
• Chardonnay Tiers 1997 (Petaluma) Interesting to comare this to the "standard" chardonnay: this has that same slightly fat quality of the vintage but has a finer, more perfumed nose and a bit more on the palate. Good length. I would like to taste the 98 Tiers.
• Chardonnay 1992 (Petaluma) Buttery, slightly honeyed, good balance and length. at peak but no sense of it falling apart.
• Coonawarra 1999 (Petaluma) Fairly dry, tannic, structured, but in the end not a terribly complex wine and I can't see this becoming very exciting with age.
• Coonawarra 1997 (Petaluma) More mulberry fruit and slightly porty. A bare
• Merlot 1996 (Petaluma) Berryish, reasonably elegant in the house style. Top

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Wine group at E.McC's 16/08/2001 (TNB)

• Schlbockelheimer Kupfergrube Kabinett 1994 (Staatliche Weinbaudomane) Spicy nose, grapefruity palate. Refined, good length. Nice to see the State Domain are still making good wines.
• Riesling Furstentum 1997 (A. Mann) Slightly neutral nose with little suggestion at the moment of riesling character. Perhaps just closed. Made in a style with a hint of residual sweetness but not to excess. Rich long fruit. Seems at this stage to lack much mineral character.
• Riesling Schlossberg 1997 (A. Mann) Curious musky (not unattractive) nose. Ripe fruit but fairly dry and decent length.
• Riesling Smaragd Von den Terassen 1997 (F.X. Pichler) Slightly mothball nose with peach and apricot. Dry but full. Long. Quite classy
• Riesling Durnsteiner Kellerberg Smaragd 1997 (F.X. Pichler) Slightly mothball nose again. Rich but tightly wound - I feel there is a lot hiding here waiting to emerge. Long refined fruit. Perhaps even
• Chateau Soutard 1985 Nutty, mushroomy nose. Lovely sweet fruit, well structured for 85. Will be lovely. Just about
• Chateau Soutard 1983 That nutty character again on the nose. Pleasant forward fruit. Very drinkable but a little straightforward and lacking real length. Unless this is hiding something it is weaker than the surrounding vintages.
• Chateau Soutard 1982 Deep berry nose. Still quite primary (blackcurrant and cherry) but lovely hints of cigar box emerging. It has that very concentrated fruit of the vintage. Really good. Top
• Chateau Canon 1982 Brambly, soft, ripe fruit, irony finish. Voluptuous, attractive. Quite approachable now but with years in hand.
• Vin de Paille 1994 (L et S Boilley, Jura) Straw nose. Nearly dry. Decent length but simple. This is pleasant, but I don't find it much more than that. Others rated it more highly.
• Vin de Paille 92 (Chateau de Arlay, Jura) Very curiously scented. That straw character marked again. Interesting but odd.
• Sandeman 1972 Spicy and spirity - otherwise a slightly nondescript nose. Slightly cooked fruit. Marked acidity. Rather delicious chocolate and raspberry fruit emerges after a while. I believe Sandeman did not declare this vintage!

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08/08/2001 (TNB)

• Zinfandel Paso Robles 1991 (Ridge) Good colour, intense blackberry nose, with herby overtones. Sweet, ripe fruit with some vanilla on the palate. Still quite structured and with decent length. No great hurry to drink this but it is probably at peak.
• Grands Echezeaux 1987 (Gros Frere et Soeur) Lovely crunchy red fruits, a typically mouthwatering, drinkable, good 87 Burgundy. It was horribly oxidised next day, which suggests it is close to the end of its life but this is drinking well right now.
• Tokay Pinot Gris, Clos des Capucines, Cuvee Ste. Catherine 1994 (Weinbach) Weinbach's confusion marketing strikes again - Clos this, Cuvee that. Splendid wine though: lychee, caramel and bacon-fat nose, long fruity palate, more residual sugar than ideal to my mind but decent acidity and possibly it might even come into slightly better balance in a year or two. Still a top
• Bricco del Drago 1995 (Poderi Colla) I wanted to try this again, having had it at a tasting. It is mainly Dolcetto with a little Nebiolo. The nose is blackberry liquor (typical Dolcetto with extra richness from old vines) but the palate is dry and quite long with lots of tannins and decent acid. It is not showing great complexity now, but it has got character. Scrapes
• Rioja Reserva 1996 (Muga) Piercing blackberry fruit. Soft fruit with quite a lot of acidity. Modern style. Pleasant enough. Good
• Cotes du Rhone Les Laurentides 1998 (Domaine Gramenon) Lovely nose of slightly medicinal Grenache fruit and, as it opens up, Provencal herbs. Silky fruit of really good concentration and old-vine texture hiding good structure. This is splendid wine that easily rates

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07/08/2001 (RJB)

• Coudoulet de Beaucastel 1988 Toby's recent note suggested it is time to drink up this wine, so I thought I'd open one to see. My bottle also towards the end of its life - some volatility creeping in. Mind you, I wrote a similar note in 1999. Still, a reasonable mature Cotes-du-Rhones.
• Coudoulet de Beaucastel 1989 Unlike the 1988, still drinking on top form. Lots of mushroomy, earthy mature notes.
• Cotes-du-Rhone 1988 (E. Guigal) I'm slightly surprised that this is drinking better than the 1988 Coudoulet. Some berry fruit lurking in the mature undergrowth. plus
• Wiltinger braune Kupp Riesling Kabinett 1994 (Egon Muller) Lovely, gloriously balanced. Fine fresh acidity with lovely racy lemony flavours. Not showing any real signs of age.
• Chateau Cadet-Piola 1985 From magnum. Liquorice maturing claret. A bit lightweight perhaps - primary and secondary flavours not having produced quite the tertiary flavours one might have expected. Some signs that it was being a bit more expansive towards the end of the evening (it wasn't the only one).
• Savennieres 1985 (Domaine de la Bizoliere) I bought a couple of cases of this wine a while back very cheaply - and to be honest it's a bit of an enigma. Bottles have had various degrees of woodiness that falls just short of a corky smell. On this occasion the woodiness was not very much in evidence (It is a fault, but bearable when not in excess - it tastes a bit like a woody apple). Good acidity.
• Chateau Sociando Mallet 1987 Good light to medium weight mature claret - perfectly drinkable, but not great. What one would expect from this chateau in this vintage - a good effort.

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Wine group at D.W's 01/08/2001 (TNB)

• Cremant du Jura, Clos des Grives NV (C. Charbonnier) Curious fizz: very yeasty nose, reasonably long gamey palate. Has character.
• Cotes du Jura, Clos des Grives 1998 (C. Charbonnier) Intense grassy, mature seeming (but no - just that Jura slightly sherried character), slightly vegetal, low acidity. Mineral. Jura wines have a style all of their own - at least it's different!
• Gruner Veltliner Alte Reben 1999 (Brundlmayer) Grapefruit and floral-scented nose - hints of aniseed. Long, rich palate.
• Gruner Veltliner Alte Reben 1998 (Brundlmayer) Luscious nose. Long grapefruit palate. Another good wine.
• Gruner Veltliner Alte Reben 1979 (Brundlmayer) Peppery, fine, fruit subdued now (some said faded) but reasonably long. Not everybody agreed, but I thought this was rather a charming old wine.
• Calon Segur 1988 Mushroom nose. Becoming pleasantly cedary. Good acidity.
• Ducru Beaucaillou 1988 Hints of that lovely rose-scented fruit that older claret can have. Relatively forward and elegant. Some said this was disappointingly insubstantial, but I feel it scrapes
• Canon 1988 Classy, undergrowth sort of nose. Dry, classically French palate. Good.
• Rausan Segla 1988 Slightly furniture-polish nose at the moment. Big fruitcake palate. Very well structured and with good acidity. Seriously good claret that still needs a few years.
• Leoville Barton 1988 That classy undergrowth nose again together with a developing cedary, smoky palate. Slightly smaller-scaled than the Rausan Segla but nearly as good.
• Domaine la Bernarde, Cotes de Provence 1995 Lifted, warm cherry nose. Soft, fruity palate. Low acid and tannins. Pleasant but simple. An easily spotted ringer in the flight of clarets.
• Tokay Reserve 1989 (Rolly-Gassmann) Apricot kernels, dry, concentrated and reserved. A good
• Tokay Reserve 1983 (Rolly-Gassmann) One has to make allowance for it being late on in the meal but this bottle of this wine seemed a bit faded compared to the excellent example I remember from a few months ago. This bottle no more than top
• Rabaud-Promis 1988 There was much debate as to whether this was slightly corked. I think it was, but a rather classy Sauternes nose was still evident. Probably rather good.

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