Fontannafredda Barolo 1961

Sitting on the outskirts of Banyuls, typing up tasting notes from last week, staring out at the steep-terraced vineyards and wondering what the future holds. The immediate future is easy: there are grapes by the millions to turn into wine. The distant future, not so much. Even October is a mystery. I hope, though, that someday a wine I had a hand in turns out as lovely as this in 50 years' time.

Rusty red but no brown.

Stoned, dried plums and strawberries on the nose with dust, hay and a zingy marmalade tang.

Soft, old and classy on the palate. Arguably a touch simple, but elegant and really gorgeous with roast lamb shanks. In spite of the softness, there's still a welcome and firm grip to the tannins whilst that dry fruit ripens up and lifts with the food, still showing off some proper juiciness. Charming.

****

Tasted 20 August 2011 at Shorehead.

Some notes on winemaking (or how not to hurt yourself too badly while working vintage)

I am by no means a winemaking expert. I wouldn't even say I was at an intermediate level - more an enthusiastic and curious beginner with three years' experience. Along the way I've picked up a few nuggets of knowledge that may help the aspiring young vigneron out. They're numbered in no particular order.

1. There is nothing cuddly in a winery. The tanks are steel, oak, epoxy or concrete. The hoses are reinforced and have stainless steel at each end. The bottles are glass. The pallets splinter. Pretty much everything is heavy or sharp or hard. Some things are all of those. Be careful.

2. If you forget rule one and do hurt yourself, don't bitch. Don't stop if you're in the middle of something. Everyone's hurt themselves. Everyone is bleeding or just scabbed over, with bruises forming and bumps rising. Anything short of a broken bone, lost limb or death can wait. Just try not to bleed into the wine and when there's a pause, find a bandaid.

3. Making wine hungover is something you only need to do once to learn it is the worst fucking thing in the world. Remember: self-inflicted wounds deserve and receive no sympathy.

4. Drink a lot of water.

5. You don't have to be a morning person, but you have to function in the morning, regardless of how miserable and grumpy you are. Everyone around you wanted an extra hour or two in bed and none of them got it.

6. There is no 'are we there yet?' attitude, there is only 'what can I do next?' attitude.

7. If there's coffee, drink it. You'll need it.

8. If there's wine at lunch (and there will be in France), take it easy and match it with water.

9. Try, if you can, to get a bit of breakfast.

10. If someone else is lazy, it's not your job to call them out. Their laziness will reveal itself. Focus on what you're doing.

11. Always double-check the valves. Wasting wine is a terrible, terrible thing.

12. Do your job and be helpful.

13. Learning what not to do is every bit as important as learning what to do.

14. When in doubt, ask. It's better to be annoying than to do something wrong.

15. Nobody likes a smart ass. That's applicable well beyond winemaking.

16. Don't stick your hand in the de-stemmer.

17. Make sure you know where the emergency stop button is on every bit of equipment you use. It's usually big and red.

18. Make sure everything is clean at the end of the day. If you half-ass whatever you're cleaning, you can fuck it up for everyone.

19. Don't fuck it up for everyone.

20. Have fun.

Chateau de Beaucastel Blanc Vielles Vignes 1996

I've been reading what a pain in the ass Roussanne is recently, how winemakers in the Rhône are grubbing it up and replacing it with the more robust and, arguably, less elegant Marsanne. I don't know if this is endemic, or just something wine writers feel they need to gripe about, as there isn't always very much to chat about in the wine world, and new subject matter is always at a premium (see the constant stream of 'next big varietal'  chat in the wine press - it's pretty dire stuff). The Perrin brothers make this Roussanne and have no intention, as far as I'm aware, of replacing it with Marsanne. That's for the best, as I feel this cuvée is by far the finest wine they make.

The beginnings of brass in with the gold and some green highlights. Still bright in its maturity.

Nutty on the nose, with bread-y star fruit and quince. With air comes honeycomb.

Honeycomb textured mouthfeel - waxy with honey smeared over toast, layers of quince and glazed peaches. There's some orange flower water there as well. As it opens up there's greater harmony, the individual notes fusing into something greater than its parts. That toastiness loses its burnt edges. Really superb stuff.

*****

Tasted 20 August 2011 at Shorehead

a sense of scale

A bottle of wine is a small thing.

I remember working in a wine shop in the lead up to the Christmas rush, waiting with trepidation for pallet after pallet of wines, whiskies and assorted other festive liquids. A fully loaded pallet is, or should be, 56 cases. If the cases are 6-packs, then it's 112 cases per pallet. It was a small shop. It still is, actually, and the sight of two pallets waiting to be brought into its tight confines in short time could ruin an otherwise cheery morning. It often seemed an insurmountable task. A pallet was pretty much the largest measure of quantity we used. Occasionally there would be chat of shipping a whole container (which holds several pallets), but those chats were rare and inevitably ended with a shrug and a 'nah'.

When I worked as a sommelier, pallets of wine were rare and impractical. We received only two in my 14 months at the restaurant, of wine we shipped directly from France. It took some planning to clear room in the cellar, with various nooks and crannies excavated to stash a 6-pack here and there.

The last 3 vintages I've worked in France, I've grown accustomed to the scale and volume of the wine we make. 50 and 60 hectolitre tanks are filled over the course of a day or two of emptying comports full of grapes into the de-stemmer, which leads to the pump, which leads to the tank. Remontage through fermentation, racking, daily density samples and tastings meant that those tanks were not idle once filled. We continue to interact with them throughout vinification. I grasped their size and dimensions within the boundaries of winemaking.

At the end of a day's work we'd often open a bottle of a previous vintage and maybe comment on how this year would be different. Would it be better? I understood, intellectually, that the liquid in the tank would someday be the liquid in the bottle. It's such an obvious thing, and yet there was a level of comprehension that was missing; a blank spot between the tank and the bottle.

On Thursday and Friday last week, that blank spot was filled in with great detail. The bottling truck arrived and in spite of the occasional  technical difficulty the bottling line was set up. It was modular, with lots of bright stainless steel and more moving parts than seemed practical. Filters, pumps, conveyors, front labels, back labels, bottles, boxes, corks, caps, etc. all present in staggering quantities. A bottle of wine is a small thing, perfectly formed for its task, yet the number of things that go into that, to give that impression and provide that perfect form, is daunting. For me it was, anyway. Our job was to bottle around 15,000 litres - we needed to clear space in the tanks for this year's harvest.

My station on the line was boxes. I had to unfold cases and lay them on the line for my partner to fill with six bottles, then lay down the divider atop those so that the last six bottles could be placed on top of the divider. My partner then folded the case shut and pushed it through for it to be sealed, coded and loaded onto a pallet. We switched places for the last tank, with me handling the bottles. None of this occurred at a leisurely pace. We packed three cases a minute, thus filling a whole pallet in less than twenty minutes. Before my very eyes the tanks I knew only in and of themselves were emptying into bottles and the scale took me aback. Just one of those 60 hecto tanks equalled 8,000 bottles of wine. That's almost 12 pallets worth. Mas Cristine is not a huge winery. A 15,000 litre bottling line in the Roussillon is at best small-to-medium in terms of volume. And yet for this former wine merchant, the one who would sigh in exasperation when a delivery driver showed up outside the shop with two pallets, to bottle and box over twenty pallets worth of wine in the space of a day and a half seemed extraordinary.

After that last day of bottling we went home and, as usual, cracked open a bottle of something. I brushed the label with my thumb and traced the seam of the glass up to the foil cap. The cork removed, I rolled it over in my fingers and squeezed it, feeling it give slightly. I nosed my glass, looked again at the label and thought that a bottle of wine is a small thing.

Vintage 2011

I'm writing this from the luxurious surroundings of the departure lounge at Prestwick International Airport. The wine list is atrocious. Even the Duty Free here is a wasteland of industrial muck. I might have to order a pint to drown my sorrow at this state of affairs. The good news is that I won't be here for much longer. My flight leaves for Spain in a little over an hour. From there, it's just a quick bus ride over the foothills of the Pyrenees and I'll be back in the Roussillon for the 2011 vintage at Mas Cristine, Coume del Mas and Consolation. I'll be working the harvest for five weeks. From all accounts, it's going to be a big one. The vines I saw in July were laden with grapes, which is ace as '09 and '10 were a touch on the small side. If all goes to plan, I'll be blogging the wine-making process as much as possible over the next month and a bit. As usual, the wine-y stuff will be here and various less wine-y adventures will be at my other blog over here.

Right, I'm off for a quick pint.

Clos Pons Costers del Segre

I've not scored these simply because that's how I noted them at the time. This is a range sent to a friend of mine at the request of another friend of mine without the knowledge of the first friend. So when they arrived, no one had any idea what they were. As far as I know, they are unrepresented in the UK. That may have been why they were sent.

Sisquella 2010

Garnacha Blanca & Moscatel

White flowers, petals & peaches - touch of Flint.

Fat & waxy on the palate. Fleshy and a bit fibrous, with that White fruit giving way to orange flower water and then orange peel for a bit of bite and grip on the finish. Bright, summery stuff.

Roc Nu 2008

Baked red fruits, warm forest and summer fields. Bit of hay and earth.

Palate is soft, briary with a polished woodspice to it. No hard edges until the end, where a bit of a dirty bite reveals itself.

Alges 2009

Quite jammy red and dark fruit on the nose. Pulpy.

Lots of bright, dark fruit on the palate. More restrained secondaries- simpler but more pure and less dirty than the Roc Nu.

Tasted at Luvians Bottleshop 28/6/2011

Dedicato a Walter Cabernet Franc 2005 Poggio al Tesoro

Sometimes, quite often in fact, I wonder why some Super-Tuscans exist. I don't question their inherent quality. Off the top of my head I can reel off 20 or so wines I feel are genuinely fantastic. But too often I'm finding they taste of two things - what they're made of and how they're made. That's fine for entry level, varietal wines. But wines at the higher end should express so much more than that - there should be a nuanced sense of where they come from - and so many of these Super-Tuscans fail to do that. Technically they are excellent, but quite a few of them lack soul.

I've never met a wine named Walter, by the way.

Just beginning to show some age on the edges.

Sweetened spearmint and blueberries on the nose.

The palate is like having a paintbrush loaded with dark fruit, tobacco leaf, dust and compote swiped across your tongue and then shoved in your mouth. Not in a bad way. This is delicious, but a little too perfect. It could be from anywhere, and I find that a little unnerving.

****

27/06/2011

Blaufränkisch Burgenland 2009 Moric

The first time I tried this wine was at SITT 2011. There were many fantastic wines tried that day, though this stood out. I'm not overly familiar with Blaufränkisch, and novelty combined with quality is one of the holy grails of, not just building a good wine list, but really enjoying wine and broadening the palate. This is their entry level offering - some of their cuvées can be quite pricey, but based on this introduction I reckon they're probably worth it.

Violet edges but quite dark at the core.

Ripe cherry and strawberry wrapped in a dusty cloak.

It starts floral, violet-y, then those bunches of crunchy, juicy red cherries  come bursting through followed by dark, gripping backwards dusty saddle leather, squid ink and then a sour tang of more cherries. Reminds me a touch of Bierzo. Love the contrast between the brightness of the fruit and the darkness of the secondaries. Also never heavy. Powerful but light. Brilliant wine.

****(*)

22/6/2011

Fonseca 1983

Tired port is one of the sadder things in fine wine, up there with prematurely oxidized white Burgundy and sherry's continued lack of respect.

Quite faded, but still purple shades.

Oops. Snorted it by accident. Weird. Light strawberries soaked with vodka and plum schnapps.

Hot, very spirity and sadly unbalanced. Shame.

*

Tasted at Shorehead 20/6/2011

Vin Santo Vertical

Not going to lie: I'm a big Vin Santo fan. I'm also a big Isole e Olena fan. This wine is a lot more expensive than it used to be, but so's petrol and a pound of beef. All things being equal, sometimes I'd rather spend a little more and enjoy a little more.

Splitting hairs between these two wines bothered me. They're both good. I'd be happy with either of them at the end of a meal.

Isole e Olena Vin Santo del Chianti Classico 1998

Biscotti and salted caramel nose. Peanuts and toffee.

Bursts with dried figs and nuts - toasted and roasted, but perhaps a bit short.

Isole e Olena Vin Santo del Chianti Classico 1999

Deeper, richer and sweeter than the 98. Sexier. Rich. Dripping with caramel cashews, biscotti, toffee. Very rich. Delicious. Possibly heart attack inducing.

Both **** - *****

Tasted at Shorehead 20/6/2011

Inniskillin Sparkling Icewine 2002

It is a source of endless amusement that this wine even exists. In fact, there's quite a lot of Canadian sparkling ice wine kicking about. I remember an old friend and colleague once joking that everything tastes better with bubbles. 'Oh sure, '82 Lafite is great, but give me '82 Lafite through a soda stream and then you'll have a fucking wine' was his common refrain. I only think he was half joking.

Apparently, Inniskillin use the Charmat method to carbonate, meaning a secondary fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks before bottling. I have absolutely no idea how that is chemically possible. Inducing secondary fermentation with residual sugar levels between 180 and 320 grams per litre is quite a feat. But these guys managed it, and have been doing so for a fair few years now. The results are deliriously fun but stupidly expensive.

Polished brass with lazy bubbles..

This is just silly. It's utterly delicious, and quite good with the tart. But it's still silly. I suppose any wine that leaves you giggling like an idiot is quite good. Not worth £55 a half bottle good, but good.

****

Tasted at Shorehead 20/6/2011

Dönnhoff Kreuznacher Krötenpfuhl Riesling Spätlese 2006 (from magnum)

Magnums are awesome. Large-format bottles, in all their shapes and sizes, hold the wine trade in child-like glee. Show me someone in the trade that doesn't get at least a small thrill at trying a wine (or whisky, or brandy, or beer) from a big bottle and I'll show you someone that never deserves to drink from one. I remember selling double magnums of Delamain XO, complete with their own decanting cradle, to a restaurant where it was not uncommon, after hours, to find myself, the owners and my colleagues lying on our backs, underneath the bar, waiting for the trebuchet (because cradle doesn't really do it justice) of cognac to pour that sweet nectar down our throats.

It hurt the next morning.

Anyway, magnums are awesome. Even when the wine isn't all that great.

Still quite a lot of green to that gold.

Rolled oats, honeysuckle and citrus flowers on the nose. Sandy.

Palate is big, rich and a touch sweaty. Fleshy and quite delicious but lacking a bit of grip. As it opens, that flabbiness asserts itself a bit more, sadly. There's a lack of vibrance, a lack of hum, a lack of acidity and structure that lets this down and makes me question its age-worthiness. Bummer.

***

Tasted at Shorehead 20/06/2011

Cos d'Estournel 2002 (from magnum)

St Estephe intrigues me. For all the chat about garagiste right-bank extraction and new oak and whatnot, for me the new world of Bordeaux can be found in this Northern Medoc appellation. I often find it to be the Coonawarra of Bordeaux - with great big bunches of exotic spice and expressive, juicy fruit. Arguably, this is the wrong way round. Surely Coonawarra is more reminiscent of St Estephe. Possibly. In fact, probably. But for some reason, in my head, new switches places with the old and it's St Estephe that seems derivative.

Incredibly dark in the glass; a hair's breadth to impenetrable.

Dark wet pipe tobacco, roasted black currants, cherry jam glazed ham and tons of winter spice.

Very dark and savoury. Grippy and meaty - pepper salami and pipe tobacco. Wild and exotic spices abound. Underneath all that, wrapped tight, is some bright, tar-coated cassis. It sucks the mouth back in on itself with a finish that goes on for a fair few minutes. Lots of life ahead, though whether that fruit will outlast the tannin is open for debate.

****

Tasted at Shorehead 20/6/2011

Volnay Premier Cru 2002 d'Angerville

The more 2002 red Burgundy I try, the more it charms me. 2002 was a big deal at the time, though the hype of 2005 and 2009 have gleefully eclipsed it. This is a good thing. It leaves well-aged Burgundy at reasonable prices for me.

Ruby wrapped in black velvet.

Fleshy, wild strawberries on the nose, coated in fresh tarragon and sage. Touch of citrus.

Brilliantly pleasing. Piercing and pure bright red fruit, sexy but still with toothy tannins. Loving that brilliant silkiness. So good. Lovely integration. Rises up with the lamb as well, reaches a kind of superb harmony. Not too flabby. Delicious.

****

Tasted at Shorehead 20/6/2011

Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste Hune 1997

My very first month in the wine trade, I was shown a bottle of this wine and told, 'this is the greatest dry Riesling in the world'. It was the 1994 vintage. I didn't really understand what I had been told. Academically, I suppose, it made sense to me, but I had so little understanding of the context surrounding it that its place in the pantheon of wine never really sank in.

I have never had a mature Clos Ste Hune: a bottle at its peak. It remains a goal of mine.

My goodness that looks young. Nowhere near 14 years old. Still flecks of silver and pale gold - the light dances through it.

Nose of Flint and lime with oats. Whiff  of honey.

Palate is a little teenager-y, just on the cusp of shedding it's lean, crisp and crunch side and just beginning to show deep, rich roasted oats and limes with stone running through the seams. The structure is still precise, running from youth at the beginning of the palate to young adulthood and just the beginnings of maturity at the end of the palate.

***(**)

Tasted at Shorehead 20/6/2011

Corton Charlemagne 2000 Bonneau du Martray

I am fortunate enough to have tried this wine a few times. I even noted it once. Every time I try it, it seems young. I have a friend who's convinced that wines from this domain need a minimum of 3 hours decanting before they reveal just how much there is and I believe him. Sadly, I've never really had the luxury of time for such ritual.

Still very young, bright gold.

Toasted and nutty nose, with an almost sherry-like zip to it.

Still quite closed and young on the palate. Piercing, intense and incredibly tight knit. Almost knotted. Ripe and bone dry all at once, with the creaminess and richness all waiting while tightly wrapped with spiced pineapple in crushed seashells and chalk. Will come back to this.

****(*)

Tasted at Shorehead 20/6/2011

R. Lopez de Heredia Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva Rosado 2000

Aged rosés are not my area of expertise. I'm familiar, thankfully, with quite a few aged rosé Champagnes, but still rosés with age are another story. Quite a strange story, at that. As wine-drinkers it seems almost like heresy. Rosés are meant to be youthful and fresh, drunk chilled and in great quantity during the summer. Age them? You may lay them down for a nap, but not for much longer. So this is very much uncharted territory for me. I have no point of reference, and as such can only really judge this wine on how it fits with the rest of the Tondonia wines, which tend to stand alone anyway. As such, it is the weakest of a strong range but still remarkable in its own right. Real wine geek stuff.

Salmon pink and pale copper with a hint of green. Really nice brightness.

Nose of Seville oranges and mulched strawberries. There's a touch of mushroom cap and earth as well. Raspberries and their pips.

Seeringly dry. Freeze dried strawberries with stems, ceps and turf. There's orange peel as well, with some notes of cured ham. It's precise, with good structure. Bracing, and certainly needing food.

***(*)

Tasted 16/6/2011

Burgundy 2009 tasting at The New Club with Justerini & Brooks

January saw me visiting the New Club in Edinburgh to taste Burgundy at the invitation of one of the world's most famous merchants. Now, six months later, I'm sharing my notes. Why did it take me so long? I'm not entirely sure. I could claim that I wanted to avoid the tedious hype that surrounds En Primeur, but that would be fibbing. I'll chalk it up to laziness, I suppose.

The tasting itself was straight-forward. There was no deep mulling on my part regarding the vintage: it's very good when it's good and very disappointing when it isn't. The whites are not, on the whole, for keeping.

My note format is a bit different here. I grade on a 3 point scale rather than 5. This is a system I use when tasting in an official 'buyer' capacity, and can be fairly flexible. Plenty of perfectly reasonable wines get no score just because I don't think they fit whatever list I may be buying for - in this situation it was for a merchant with an extensive Burgundy range in need of refresh. I also had a few private clients in mind. The stars represent how strongly I feel we should buy something, with one star being the 'it would be nice', three stars being 'we have to buy this' and two stars sitting somewhere in the middle. Three stars tend to be wines I'll fight for, and they are not necessarily the most expensive.

Table 1: Les Heritiers de Comtes Lafon

Mâcon-Milly **

Bright and juicy on the nose

The palate is a touch tropical, but avoids flabbiness. Great value.

Macon-Chardonnay, Clos de la Crochette

Bit more candied fruit on the nose, with a hint of anise.

Fatter in the mouth, though still kept in line by the acidity. That anise note comes through as well.

Vire-Clessé *

Sweeter on the nose than the other two, almost honeyed.

The palate comes in waves of lemon drops and honey with great mouthfeel and texture.

• A really impressive range that delivers Cote d'Or quality and yet remains true to the Macon.

Table 2: Bachelet Monnot

Santenay Blanc **

Butter and spearmint nose. Quite fresh.

Continues to the palate with fresh mint minerality wrapped in soft butter.

Puligny-Montrachet, Les Referts 1er Cru Les Referts *

Quite a fat nose of boiled sweets and cardamon.

Still lively, with a bit of bottle-shock perhaps? Nice finish though.

Puligny-Montrachet, Les Folatières 1er Cru ***

Candied with a mix of eastern spices.

Far more developed structure - gripping but balanced acidity that puts all that rich pineapple and citrus fruit in the right place. Makes the Referts look flabby.

Santenay, Les Charmes *

Powdered sugar and rhubarb with strawberries on the nose.

Really lovely mouthfeel - textured like strawberry pips.

Maranges, La Fussiere 1er Cru **

Dark, intense cranberries on the nose.

Great texture and depth, wrapping up that dark cranberry fruit rather beautifully.

• These were a happy surprise. I don't think any of these would be out of place on our list. That's not saying we should buy the range, but that maybe a red or a white here and there would be good.

Table 3: Jean Noel Gagnard

Chassagne-Montrachet, Les Chenevottes 1er Cru

Flinty nose with edges of pineapple.

Fleshy fruit texture of quince, orange and pineapple. The flint from the nose never appears.

Chassagne-Montrachet, Morgeot 1er Cru

Richer on the nose - white fruit and butter.

Disjointed on the palate with an aggressive, coarse finish. Not ready to write it off as it could just be a bad bottle.

Chassagne-Montrachet, Les Caillerets 1er Cru

More harmony on the nose - balanced pineapple

The palate is bright and fleshy but no flabbiness - the acidity keeps it in line.

Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru **

Very tight nose - piercing lemon and pineapple fruit.

Already signs of good integration. Waves of citrus and rich, fleshy, textured secondaries cascade one after the other. Really fine, but it should be.

Chassagne-Montrachet Rouge 'L'Estimee' *

Nose is floral, but a touch confected.

Quite exotic on the palate. More-ish. Better than Clavillon? More approachable, but not as structured.

Santenay Clos de Tavannes 1er Cru *

Quite simple, though pure, red fruit on the nose.

Good, classic, juicy, crunchy cranberries, raspberries and strawberries on the palate. Nice, fruit-forward stuff.

• As a range, it's solid, but not overwhelming. The Batard was lovely.

Table 4: Vincent Dancer

Bourgogne Blanc 2009

Fresh nose with toast and oyster shells.

Clean and crisp with mint, flint and green apples.

Meursault Corbins

Bit dumb on the nose. Perhaps a touch of cheese?

Surprisingly light & simple. Unimpressed.

Chassagne-Montrachet Tête du Clos 1er Cru

The nose and palate seem tainted by off ewe's milk. Poor.

Meursault Les Perrières 1er Cru

Better, but not great. Lemon and rocks. Little definition.

Pommard Perrières

Big nose, confected edges

Too light on fruit and heavy on tannin. Very disjointed.

Pommard Pezerolles 1er Cru

Sweaty nose

Agressive, stalky palate.

• Considering how universally awful the rest of the wines were, I'd like to retaste the basic Chardonnay, just to make sure it's not shit.

Table 5: Martelet de Cherisey

Puligny-Montrachet Hameau de Blagny 1er Cru

Seems to have refermented. Smells and tastes of scrumpy.

Puligny-Montrachet Chalumeaux 1er Cru

Less like scrumpy, but still very much apple-y.

The palate is nicely textured. Seems a touch expensive.

Meursault-Blagny La Genelotte 1er Cru *

More apples, but not fermenting. A touch of spice as well.

Nicely rounded on the palate and quite rich. Are their holdings all near apple orchards?

Blagny Rouge La Genelotte 1er Cru **

Red apple skins on the nose with loads of eastern spices.

Savoury, textured and backwards. Promising stuff.

• They're expensive and taste of apples. That makes no sense to me. The red was really good though.

Table 6: Follin Arbelet

Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

Quite light on the nose, surprisingly.

Candied palate. Not showing well at all. All glycerol and boiled sweets. Shame.

Aloxe-Corton *

Red apple and cranberries on the nose.

Crisp and crunchy palate of red apple skins and ripe cranberries and red currants.

Aloxe-Corton Clos de Chapitre 1er Cru

Bit dumber on the nose - similar but perhaps a touch more floral.

Backwards but compelling red fruit and crushed rose petal.

Corton Bressandes Grand Cru **

Punchy soured cherry jumps into the mix now, riding the crest of bright red berry fruit on the nose.

Morello cherries, chantilly cream, cranberries all knitting together nicely and showing great length.

Romanée St Vivant **

Craisins (yes, I just used Craisin on a tasting note. Awaiting cease & desist order from Ocean Spray) with bright cherries.

Ripe, rich, sweet red fruit with flower petals and a solid, dark backbone.

• Very disappointed in the Corton Charlemagne, but the reds were strong. The village Aloxe Corton could very well fill a gap.

Table 7: Robert Chevillon

Bourgogne Rouge ***

A touch backwards and farmyardy on the nose.

Lovely, rounded, generous but not flabby palate. Soft and delicious.

Nuits St-Georges Vieilles Vignes **

Fantastic nose. Bright and perfumed.

Gorgeous palate of floral red fruit - feminine red Burgundy and damn fine at that.

Nuits St-Georges Les Bousselots 1er Cru ***

The bright red trio: cherries, cranberries & strawberries in boisterous abundance. Perfumed edges.

The palate is compelling; peppermint tea wrapped around those berries from the nose with a great, dark backbone.

• We should buy all of these. The most impressive range of the bunch.

Table 8: Bruno Clair

Marsannay Blanc **

Nose is bright, pithy lemon.

Great, zingy acidity with lemon and lime rind texture. Gripping, zingy and impressive.

Marsannay Rouge Les Longeroies

Fleshy & forward. Lacking structure. Disappointing. Any chance of Vaudenelles?

Gevrey-Chambertin

Light, floral nose.

Soft and pleasant on the palate, with crushed red berries and a gentle finish.

Chambolle-Musigny Véroilles

Slight hints of mint and cedar on the nose.

Comes through on the palate - good integration with the fruit and nice length.

Gevrey-Chambertin Petite Chapelle 1er Cru

Good nose with soft fruit - simple but suggesting more to come.

Ripe strawberries with powdered sugar (is this an aspect of the vintage?) and great, vibrant acidity.

Gevrey-Chambertin Cazetiers 1er Cru ***

Very deep on the nose - dark and foreboding. Exciting in that.

Fruit a touch light at the moment, but there's an underlying power there. This will grow into greatness as there's a brightness and promise of things to come. Hard to explain, but this will be legendary stuff.

• Some great wines - I feel the Santenay Blanc is well worth buying in quantity, and the Cazetiers is far and away worth the premium.

Consolation 'Petit Gris' Carignan Gris/Blanc Vin de Pays des Côtes Catalanes 2010

I need to place my usual disclaimer here - I have helped make the wines here since the 2008 vintage and am intending to continue that tradition. With this particular cuvée, my involvement included monitoring its fermentation, taking its density readings and making sure it didn't get too hot. So, really, I had very little constructive to do with it. Still, these wines are close to my heart, and there is a certain amount of bias in my notes. Take everything I write with a pinch of salt. You should probably do that anyway.

Carignan Blanc is a mutation of Carignan Gris, which is a mutation of Carignan, which doesn't need a 'Noir' after it because that's just what it is.

Light silver with greenish gold highlights.

Melon and limes on the nose with notes of lemon rind. Perhaps a touch of hay and sea salt. Cool and fresh.

That melon and mixed citrus comes through richly on the palate but then draws back in, tightening with a nice, precise, acidity. Fleshy mouthfeel that treads that line between waxy and fibrous. I see this as kind of an exotic, Mediterranean 1er Cru Chablis. The length is superb.

Enjoyed this with homemade fajitas on homemade tortillas and it was a fantastic match, able to hold its own and shine with the spice of the food.

*****

Tasted at Shorehead 24/7/2011

Chateau Haut-Brion 2001

I must confess, I'm in-between jobs at the moment. This has staggered my tasting somewhat. Fortunately, I have good friends who persist with tasting and against all odds continue to invite me to join in on some of them.

Should the wine world and my income continue along along their current courses, notes like this will get rarer for me. I can't afford First Growths anymore (to be honest, I never really could) and not many of my friends can either. Those that can have different priorities - mortgages and their children's education for instance - than I do. So I'm enjoying what I can, and grabbing every opportunity that comes up.

Touch of rust to the rim, but ruby rust, not amber. Still very deep at the core.

Graphite, charcoal and a touch of pipe tobacco wrapped around plum plum skin and brambles on the nose. Hints at juiciness.

Pure, bright plummy fruit filtered through granite, pencils and cedar. Bright, gripping acidity and integrated tannins provide firm, but never mean, structure. The fruit and secondaries cascade from the beginning to the end. Classic and poised with lovely lift. Still eons to go, but surprisingly lovely at the moment.

****(*)

Tasted 11/6/2011