By recent standards a light night

Two lovely friends around for dinner last night. [link2post id=”1240″]This is what we ate[/link2post], and the list below is what we drank.

Champagne Cuvée Nicolas-François 1996, Billecart-Salmon

Lots of fruit on the nose, ripe apples. There are hints of yeastiness and cold cocoa, it smells quite complex but rather tight at the moment. There is plenty of fruit on the palate, but it is really rather acidic. There is real complexity on the palate, but it just seems a bit tight and closed at the moment. Really stylish and intellectual, but as this ages it will become terribly charming.

Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Clos St. Jacques 2002, Bruno Clair

There is plenty of ripe, red fruit on the nose, fresh and charming. A vague hint of dustiness is also present, old wood perhaps? The palate has plenty of fruit with plenty of subtle flavours and is really quite complex, but just like on the nose there is a vague hint of dirtiness which spoils it a tiny bit for me. It was by no means bad, but it could have been better.

Côte-Rôtie Côte Brune 1991, Gentaz Dervieux

A rare treat to try Gentaz Dervieux these days, sadly it soured by there being a hint of corkiness to the wine. It isn’t completely impossible to taste, but is not really that nice to drink. There is obviously still plenty of fruit left, and it seems to have real complexity and elegance. Difficult to know whether the dry palate is due to age or the corkiness, corkiness is my guess and based on this I’d say it is clearly not to old, but doesn’t need keeping any longer. A real shame it is corked

Châteauneuf-du-Papes 1994, Vieux Télégraphe

en magnum

This is obviously quite ripe on the nose but not so ripe it is soupy. The fruit has a certain degree of maturity, although it is still full of life. It smells quite a lot of blackcurrants, but with some plumminess too. The palate is round, rich and ripe, a mouth-filling wine of charm and softness. This is really quite good and certainly up for drinking now.