It was nice to have the counterpoint of one last glass from the Gérard Mugneret, before diving into the 2004 Pascal Lachaux, Clos St.Denis – this CSD, from the start had borderline P to my taste – sometimes it’s there, sometimes not. This particular bottle was a little reduced and this reduction never blew off – it was on a modest level, but enough to mask any pyrazines. Interestingly for me was the clear extra width and depth and interest that this wine had over the 2010 villages Vosne despite coming from the weakest vintage in a long, long time – it really underlines that it’s hard to go wrong if you buy from good makers!

The 2002 Louis Jadot, Vosne-Romanée 1er Les Petits Monts – was its usual sinewy, but silky self. It doesn’t quite have the padding of its youth but it is a wine that has always remained open and ‘giving’. Jacques Lardière once told me that he thought P-M ‘hardly a 1er Cru, or at least a very modest one’ – lucky then that this wine used to be had for a modest price 😉 Still, far from modest drinking – yum!