Wine group at A.D.'s 28/02/2005 (TNB)

• Riesling Lenswood 2001 (Geoff Weaver) Spicy riesling petrolly nose. Pretty dry - good length. But fairly simple and light.
• Riesling Adelaide Hills 2001 (Nepenthe) Again petrolly - rather richer. Quite good concentration. Dry. I wonder how this will go given it is already so petrolly. plus
• Chardonnay Santa Barbara 2000 (Au Bon Climat) Honey and caramel. Butter. Less intense on the palate. Good
• Santa Ynez Chardonnay 1999 (Au Bon Climat) Less ambitious and benefits from that - in fact reasonably concentrated and intense.
• Catena Alta Chardonnay 1999 Unusually intense vanilla nose. Damp straw - quite heavy-textured.
• Reflect Chardonnay 1999 (Au Bon Climat) Honied and rich. Charred nose and oily fruit. Big and long. Impressive in its way (which is not my way). Bare
• Syrah 2001 (Montes Alpha) Berry nose. Oddly rasping finish.
• Syrah 2000 (Montes Alpha) Minty. Similar - finishes a bit abruptly.
• Montes Folly 2000 Minty. A bit toffeed. High-toned. I'm not wild about this.
• Cuvee Sylla 2001 (Borie de Maruel) Liquor blackberries. Medium-weight palate - oddly bitter finish. Might be going to be rather good. (I keep getting this wine in situations where I can't sit back,drink a couple of glasses and think about it. I must try and do that at some point.)
• Observatory Syrah 2001 Dry, pure, well-made. Balanced. even.
• Observatory Syrah 2000 Liquour raspberry again. A bit thick. Softer and lacking the attack of the 2001.
• Syrah 2001 (Boekenhoutskloof) Hints at mint again. Oddly twisty. Yet more balanced than the Chileans. plus
• Jurancon VT (Clos Guirouilh) Quite fresh, fruity, straw-like. High-toned. Rather nice. even
• Jurancon Petit Cuyalaa 1990 (Clos Guirouilh) Pleasant and gracefully old - perhaps going a bit flat. Top

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With LJM in Cambridge 19/02/2005 (RJB)

I spent the day moving paving slabs (heavy and intense) and making fish stock (light and intense). The stock was poured over some cod, sea bass, spinach and creme fraiche (this isn't Fine Wine Dairy, but it does pay to get decent creme fraiche) and then baked in the oven with a little grated parmesan. Stroganoff, excellent cheeses from the Cambridge Cheese Company and a passion fruit tart from Maison Blanc in Oxford (that my daughter was very passionate about) followed.

• Champagne Brut 1989 (de Venoge) Good fizz which is perhaps just beginning to tire. Medium weight and with a hint of oxidation. Top
• Champagne Grand Brut 1992 (Perrier-Jouet) Rather simple after the de Venoge – lighter weight. Some complexity emerges after a while in the glass.
• Wiltinger braune Kupp Riesling Kabinett 1994 (Egon Muller) This was the sort of bottle you would avoid even on the most generous of bin-end offers: the label stained and some evidence that the wine was seeping through the cork and dribbling down the capsule. However, the wine inside was lovely. This was as tight a Riesling as you could hope to taste with classic minerality and finely tuned acidity. A really fine effort with time ahead.
• Chateau Talbot 1982 One of those wines where the first sniff tells you that you are in the presence of something special. Glorious sweet St Julien fruit with a palate that is on first taste deceptively simple. None of the ‘typical Talbot whiff of the barnyard’ that Broadbent notes, but rather, on this showing, a wine of great purity and lasting structure. Superb, and at a glorious peak.
• Chateau Cadet Piola 1985 From magnum. I guess this was always going to be a come down after the previous wine (I rather naughtily tasted them in this order when others at the table were more conventional in their drinking order). This is reliable stuff that is drinking well with its tarry, coffee and chocolate overtones. Good claret that, enjoyable though it is (I am drinking it whilst typing these notes), gets relegated, for now, to the luncheon division. A good
• Beerenauslese Grande Cuvee 1991 (Kracher) From a half. Delicious and aging rather well. Good apricoty acidity and with a sweetness that is verging on being oversweet, but which is contained within the framework of the wine. I think this will age into something truly great.

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A Gentaz dinner 19/02/2005 (TNB)

• Champagne 1976 (Diebolt-Vallois) Showing its age with a tendency towards maderisation but very drinkable with yeasty rich fruit and good length.
• Rousanne 2003 (Ogier) Like a Viognier almost, nicely intense. Top
• Cote-Rotie 1998 (Ogier) Pure black-cherry fruit in profusion. Good concentration and so on, with a slightly cassis character that seems quite common in modern wines. How will this age I wonder? Probably quite well although the whole package is a bit soft for my taste. Top perhaps more.
• Cote Rotie 1993 (Gentaz-Dervieux) Fragrant, lightweight (a very poor vintage of course), no very great length, needs drinking soon but it still has lovely minerality and is very stylish. Top almost more.
• Cote Rotie 1992 (Gentaz-Dervieux) Meatier, longer and generally a bit more substantial than the 93 with a slight bitterness on the finish that will probably ease further although the wine must be close to peak. Again so individual and so much a terroir wine. I love it. Bare
• Cote Rotie 1991 (Gentaz-Dervieux) Backward, dense but fragrant and long. Coming towards peak. Really lovely.
• Cote-Rotie 1990 (Ogier) This has rather a baked fruit character that I am not so keen on. It is hard to taste against great wines like the Gentaz, but only a top for me.
• Cote-Rotie 1989 (Ogier) Fragrant, dry and long. More mineral and complex than the other Ogier wines. Really lovely and should be drunk on its own away from the Gentaz wines that tend to upstage it.
• Cote Rotie 1989 (Gentaz-Dervieux) An absolute star that could even benefit from another year or two. Tremendous weight, and concentrated minerality but all in balance. Fantastic. Top
• Cote-Rotie 1988 (Ogier) Needs a swirl or two in the glass but characteristic Cote Rotie violets emerge. Very good. Top
• Cote Rotie 1988 (Gentaz-Dervieux) This has a solid core of fruit, and the minerality and complexity that all the wines possess. It is a touch harder and a touch less strong all round than the 89 however. Bare
• Cote-Rotie 1987 (Ogier) Fragrant, balanced, easy-going wine with a nice dry finish. Good
• Cote Rotie 1987 (Gentaz-Dervieux) Corked.
• Cote Rotie 1986 (Gentaz-Dervieux) Awkwardly dry and rather short. Would go down quite well with food perhaps but not great - hardly surprising given the vintage. Top
• Cote Rotie 1985 (Gentaz-Dervieux) Asian spices (as R.P. so often says). Fresh (almost youthful still) with fantastically long fruit. Gorgeous. Top
• Cote Rotie 1984 (Gentaz-Dervieux) Oxidised - might be an odd bottle so I won't rate it but of course at this age from this vintage they might all be this way.
• Cote Rotie 1983 (Gentaz-Dervieux) More awkward than the 85 - it lacks that wines easy balance. But this is really complex and the minerality is perhaps even more pronounced. Intellectual wine and really good.
• Cote Rotie 1982 (Gentaz-Dervieux) More open and leafy, lacks the poise of the best vintages but does give a long mineral mouthful.
• Maximin Grunhaus Abtsberg Auslese Fuder 133, 1989 (von Schubert) Top stuff but a little flabby and keroseney for a special cuvee from this producer. Top
• Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese 1985 (J-J Prum) Mineral, broad, intense with a restrained, crystalline purity. Brilliant.

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Last night 17/02/2005 (TNB)

• Chassagne Montrachet Ruchottes 1996 (Ramonet) Pale tangerine colour in a decanter. Intensely gingery on the nose (as Ramonet's wines often are) but to a grotesque degree. Rather horrible palate - probably just oxidised but in a rather odd way. A day later the oxidation aspect less apparent but still extravagently gingery and with a dull flatness.
• Chassagne Montrachet Baudines 1996 (B. Morey) Much more what one expects - plenty of acid, quite juicy, nice fruit.
• Haut Bailly 1996 Quite leafy liquid tobacco. This seems to have gone backwards a bit since I last tasted it - clearly needs a few years but good drinking now too. (just)

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