What wine are you drinking today ?

Sorry it was 2014 not 2006 - typo.

Vernay, Fleurs de Mai Syrah, 2016 IGP Collines Rhodaniennes

Smoky, maybe even a bit cheeky. My love for Syrah from the Northern Rhone is boundless and this bottle (from a mixed case by the legendary Vernay, on offer from the magnificent Yapp Brothers) just adds to the mix.

Casas del Bosque (Casablanca Valley, Chile) Gran Estate Selection.

Enjoying this Jurancon. Made of petit and gros manseng. It is dry but rich with cantaloupe, citrus and quince on the palate and a slightly sappy finish. Nice with Thai curry. Never had a wine like this before but a nice change from the usual. Very good.

A rather lovely Chenin Blanc from Touraine, which we bought from the vigneron while on holiday in the Loire Valley. 

Q

That’s the nicest thing about living in the Downs  - Fab sparkling wines including Bluebell Estates and Nytimber and for wonderful whites Allborne. The way things are going we might all be appreciating home grown. Forget that French Macaroon stuff!

Tonight’s tipple, 2002 Pommard Rugiens Domaine de Courcel. I had a quick look in the Eurocave to see if I had anything ready to drink there (the wine fridge is a hangover from my days living in a London flat, most of my wine now lives in a real cellar, I tend to look in the cellar for a wine and need to occasionally check the Eurocave to make sure I don’t miss out on a wine at peak.) There was a single bottle of this with no merchant label, presumably a bin-end impulse buy. 

Lovely Burgundy, Pommard can be very clumsy in the wrong hands, this is anything but. Decanted for 90 minutes before pouring, nose of plums and dark red fruits with earth and spices (cloves), lovely rich mouth-filling palate of plummy red fruits, earth and coffee, aromatic spices, secondary flavours showing, excellent tannin and acidity provide grip, flavour lingers in the mouth as does a perfume of the fruits and spices. Lacks the subtlety of the greatest Burgundies, but it’s a fantastic bottle of wine, lovely complex flavours, sweet fruits, really enjoyable. I wish I had more, it’s perfect now and will stay superb for at least another decade I reckon. The top 2002 Cotes de Beaune rouges are really lovely, mostly drinking stunningly well now (my D’Angerville Clos des Ducs has a mental note of try again in 2021 or so), and for top Burgundy not impossible to afford.

Eoink

Another great photo and description of a lovely wine. Thanks for sharing your view on it, your descriptions are very evocative. I think I have drunk a 1990s bottle of the same wine, although within a few years of it being bottled. In New Zealand we don’t have cellers. Where I live the water table is high so a cellar here would be under water!  I have a Eurocave type wine fridge but I don’t trust it for wines to cellar more than 5 years as I am forever opening its door to drink and replenish bottles with a resultant temperature fluctuation. I have some  wine stored off site in a professional cellar that way I keep my mits of it till it’s ready.

Anyway, keep up the great work. I’m jealous!

None because to avoid blood clots in the calf above my fractured heel I have to have an injection anticoagulant medicine which thins the blood as does alcohol.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Eoink posted:

 

Thanks KC, lovely to hear you enjoy my comments. You’re very lucky to live where (IMO) the best value Pinot Noirs in the world come from, the great Burgundies are finer than the best Kiwi Pinots, but they also are priced out of any normal person’s range, when I’ve drunk my  ‘90s and early-mid 2000s vintages I’ll never buy the same wines again, they’re now 4-10 times the price. The top Martinborough and  a few Otago Pinots are as good as top village/premier cru Burgs, and affordable as the Burgundies were back in the day, in my view Larry McKenna’s wines at Escarpment are the best value Pinots around.

Yes agreed

I am fortunate only living an hours drive from Martinborough. Other excellent Pinots apart from Larry McKennas Escarpment vineyard are Ata Rangi and Margrain. Also Martinborough Vineyards and if you can get it, Dry River. Alas these wines are now in the $40-$100 range, but considering the quality vs Burgundy, a real bargain in relative terms.

Speaking of NZ Pinot Noir...

Matua Marlborough Pinot Noir, 2013.  A very pleasant accompaniment to a family lunch of roast chicken and all the trimmings. A very nicely balanced wine,  just lacking some of the depth and complexity of the better(and much more expensive) NZ Pinots.  

Tonight's offering was a warmish insipid Merlot [probably] served up in a plastic beaker at the theatre, for £7.75. I wouldn't recommend it.

This made for quite a nice evening!

rodwsmith posted:

This made for quite a nice evening!

Wow - I bet! Highlights?

A couple of pints of ice cold Hop House Lager with lunch today .

Is that the one brewed by a Guinness?

nickpeacock posted:

rodwsmith posted:

This made for quite a nice evening!

Wow - I bet! Highlights?

I adore White Hermitage, and the Sterimbourg is always a star (roughly two thirds Marsanne and one third Roussanne). Maybe not the equal (well, not the equal) of Jean-Louis Chave's wine, but definitely on a par with the Chapoutier parcellaires, which are all a bit over-the-top Marsanne-y to my taste (and wallet - not that I had to pay for any of this). 

La Chapelle remains on top form - elegant and not overblown, but powerful and mineral Syrah, and 2006 is still young but drinking well now. 

Other than that I really like the St Joseph, but it has always been my go-to appellation from the Northern Rhône for value for money - granitic, mineral, 'cool' and fresh expression of the pepper/violet Syrah character. I remain convinced that Syrah is not a 'hot' climate variety at all, and provided you can ripen it in sunshine terms, in many ways the cooler the better (ref Valais in Switzerland and Hawkes Bay in New Zealand). 

Caroline Frey (2006 was her first vintage) has really done great things (largely continuing what Gérard Jaboulet did) with the Jaboulet vineyard holdings. It is a shame, I suppose, that that the estate is longer in the hands of the Jaboulet family (such are French inheritance laws), but the Freys are no fools, and Caroline really seems to "get it".

Currently at family reunion in Hawkes Bay in the middle of wine country. Perversely enjoying this lovely Chablis by Gilbert Picq et fils, 2014 “Vaudecorse” with fresh shucked local oysters. The wine has mouth watering salinity with hints of seashell and rock pool which goes together beautifully with the plump oysters. Great tension and life in this wine. Heavenly!

A new one for me - Charles Thomas Cotes Du Rhone.  A friend picked it up for me coming over from France.  Makes change from my usual Guigal. Very nice too.  Not much of a nose to it but surprisingly smooth with a lovely taste of bramble and raspberry.  I'm told the grapes for this wine are organically grown. Crazy value too at under a fiver a bottle.

I always try and keep a couple of these in the kitchen cupboard.  The sweetness goes a long way if using less than perfect tinned tomatoes in any dishes when you would use both.  Also great as a chefs little eye opener whilst spending some time over that sauce.  

[@mention:73652630748744533] Chateau Lagrange 2012, this evening’s tipple. Opened and decanted at 5pm, glass poured at 6.30, 1st sip at 7.30. Initially a lovely pure blackcurrant nose, slightly muddy coffee tannins on the palate supporting a lovely cassis /black cherry creamy full-mouth flavour, followed by a lovely perfume of blackcurrant lingering in the mouth. After another hour or so the palate cleared to a lovely complex fruit taste with tannin/acid structure, it’s got sweet fruits and rich powerful creamy texture, classy young wine. Now five and a half hours after decanting it’s really lovely, complex fruits, great structure, and hints of development. 3-4 years more will have it showing some more complex secondary flavours, it’s a very good mid-rank claret.

I like the left-Bank Bordeaux 2012s, with good time in decanter they drink nicely now, and will be better in a few years. The better chateaus (most cru classés and others) managed to make good 1st wines despite the impact of the rain on the Cabernet, and they’re sensibly priced compared to the great vintages. 

We just had a fantastic weekend in Serralunga d'Alba, and Alba itself for the truffle festival. Well, you would wouldn't you?

2018 is bucking at least one trend in that it is excellent for the white truffles which are both high quality and plentiful, so cheaper than the last few years (when they have been disappointing), and also it is looking like an excellent vintage. (Unlike France where 18 has been a bit lumpy to say the least). Too early to call absolutely for Barolo, because the Nebbiolo harvest (underway) still has two-three weeks to go, but the forecasts are very positive.

We drank some nice wines!

But, then, we had some nice food:

Had a nice surprise at a work dinner last week.  The host and friend brought some very nice bottles.  The Ornellaia as off the restaurant's wine list so no choice of vintage.  It was way too young as expected and seriously outshone by the other mature bottles.  Of the others, the Monprivato, Corton and Margaux were all exceptional.

ekfc63 posted:

Had a nice surprise at a work dinner last week.  The host and friend brought some very nice bottles.  The Ornellaia as off the restaurant's wine list so no choice of vintage.  It was way too young as expected and seriously outshone by the other mature bottles.  Of the others, the Monprivato, Corton and Margaux were all exceptional.

 

This must be a VERY good friend to hoik a Chateau Margaux out of his cellar for you! Have you tried the Beune yet? Drouhin is a good producer but I've always Beaune to be a bit on the thin side when it comes to Burgundy and Pinot Noir is an expensive grape to experiment with (on my finances anyway!). Regrettably I've not had much Barolo - does it need a good cellaring like Chateaneuf or Hermitage? I'm guessing it's a pretty big, inky wine.