Yesterday evening we had the good fortune that some ‘wine friends’ were in town for dinner. Just to give an impression of the wines, we started with an apero of 1979 Thevenot Meursault-Goutte d’Or, I’ve had better bottles as there was a bit of persistent (but faint) musty oxidative note, but overal good sucrosite and tasty enough. With dinner we started with a 1999 Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet, this was in great shape – a quite powerful wine but balanced and tasty, even if the finish was not particularly long. The 2010 Ramonet, Chassagne 1er Les Ruchottes that came next was really a beauty; balanced, intense, complex and with a beautiful lingering flavour.
Our first red was a (decanted) 1990 Comte Armand, Pommard 1er Clos des Epeneaux – clearly it could have done with a little more time to settle as the sediment had been disturbed so delivered a cloudy wine – cloudy, but full of flavour in an iron/blood vernacular and with some grainy tannin still – probably accentuated by the sediment – good wine nonetheless. The next bottle was a beauty, the 1990 Rossignol-Trapet, Latricières-Chambertin was lighter in colour and clean and bright but it was the first sniff that hooked us – lovely. The palate was clean, detailed and very lovely indeed – as good an aged Latricières as I can remember – really super! Our last Burgundy was the 1969 Chanson, Grands-Echézeaux: the cork came out in one piece, but was really stinky – oxidised – just handling the cork made the smell cling to your fingers. I wiped out inside the neck of the bottle with some damp tissue and the wine below didn’t seem as bad, so I then left it in a cool place for a few hours before dinner. The first glasses poured had a great colour, deep and still showing a little red. The nose began with plenty of must, but kept changing in the glass – leather, spice, and sometimes, maybe even a suggestion of fruit! The savoury palate was nicely textured and complex with a saline length – in truth interesting rather than tasty, but far from objectionable. We finished with an excellent Italian whose name I forget! [Edit: Barbaresco Asili Red Label Riserva, Bruno Giacosa 2000!]
And a good read for today…