Notes from a mostly Burgundian dinner:
2006 Marguet Grand Cru Brut Champagne – showing a little colour and quite a bit of interest in the nose, and on palate a clean acidic finish. Very nice.
2007 Alex Gambal St. Aubin Les Murgers des Dents de Chien – ironically a couple of the other bottles of this I’ve tasted were indeed dogs, with significant premox issues, but this one was clean – primarily oak in the nose, good fruit and acidic and fresh. Very decent.
2006 Bruno Colin Chassagne Montrachet – not much nose from this one at first, but a clean buttery smooth feel in the mouth was pleasant, and after a bit I started to pick up some floral and honeyed notes in the nose that nicely rounded things off. Very decent.
With a mushroom terrine:
1993 Remoissenet Volnay – pale colour with browning edges, a nose that was slightly mushroomy/funky, and despite the fact that I found it to be a tad hollow in the middle, lacking fruit (no surprise at this age) and had the vintage signature high acidity, there was still enough there to keep me coming back for awhile to retaste it.
1993 Daniel Moine-Hudelat Chambolle Musigny 1er – sadly, this wine was spoiled – dead but not corked.
2005 Latour-Giraud Volnay Clos les Chenes – this replacement bottle was absolutely delightful. Spicy oak in the nose, with ripe fruit, good colour, and the spice followed through on palate where the wine showed good balance and length. Needs time.
With the main course our host brought out:
2001 Vieux Donjon CNduP – we tasted the next pair blind and by ill fortune I chose to start with this one, which showed absolutely atypically, especially in the nose at first, which had be swearing I was drinking a cabernet based wine. The Grenache fruit that was missing at first finally showed up and labelled it as a Rhone, and the tannins were quite soft. Mellow and smooth, I plan to advance my drinking schedule for this wine from my cellar!
2001 Les Clefs d’Or CNduP – this one was quite typically Southern Rhone it showed as younger than the Donjon, had significant black pepper and more tannin. Good, not great.
2000 Boekenhoutskloof Syrah – we got this one blind and it was predictably troublesome. Slightly sweet nose of ripe plum, but not over the top and nothing that would have headed you toward, for instance, Australia. Sweet in the mouth but balanced. I recall that we went for California before finally landing in South Africa – no high terminal acidity on this modern style wine to give away that origin.
We finished up with an oddity, obviously bottles recently in a 500 ml. tall cylindrical bottle as used for any number of current sweet wines:
1959 Ch. Las Collas (Rivesaltes) – made from Grenache and finished at 16% - not sure if they halt fermentation as they with Port, by adding alcohol, or not, as this wasn’t that sweet. The nose was very much like a Tawny Port, but with mocha and toffee additions, as well as a warm spirity sense that carried through on palate, where some orange peel and figs began to show themselves. Interesting wine.