Starting with a first tasting in October and culminating with a final tasting in the days leading up to the Beaune wine-auction weekend, the winners were revealed at a dinner, this year held in Chassagne-Montrachet. This was the 34th such tasting and focused on wines from 20202. The official results were sent out last week – so enjoy – in French!

While I’m here – there was yesterday’s disappointment in the wine-department.

1996 Penfolds Bin 389
A wine that I’ve always been waiting to ‘come to me!’ When released, everyone said that this was a great 389 and I assembled half a dozen of them for the longer term. Pricing was £14-15 but you could often find them discounted for closer to £10 – I shudder to think what they would cost today. All the previous bottles were ‘okay’ but never singing, never special. This was this particular wine’s last chance from my cellar. A super cork – hard to extract but it came out in one piece with a satisfying ‘pop!’ Less than 1mm of wine colour had travelled the length of this cork – super! Except that this bottle was completely oxidised – I poured it down the sink. Apart from one (half) bottle that I remember finding a small crack in the glass, I have never had a red wine under 40 years old that was oxidised. I still have a tissue-wrapped 1996 Bin 707 – it’s maybe time to rid the cellar of that too!

(The 2018 Chablis that replaced the 389 was excellent – more on that tomorrow!)