There was no rationale for this dinner beyond sharing what the proprietor describes as “FTA” or “Fucking Triple A” wines. Davy had a couple of bottles he was very excited to share blind. The rest of us brought something we thought appropriate for the grandeur of the occasion.
Four of us dined at La Trompette in Chiswick. I have written about the food there only recently and shall not cover it again. It was characteristically excellent. I think we did a better job of ordering food to match the wine.
Once again, they offered us a fixed price for two starters, a main, dessert and service. Once again, the experience was superb.
I feel very blessed to have dear friends with whom I can share the ups and downs of life, as well as wonderful food and wine. So let us count our blessings.
Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Les Mottelettes 2018, Pierre Paillard
12.5% abv. Pale-ish colour. Bright, engaging nose with super energy.
On the palate the energy continues. There is line to it, but also a little breadth. This is not self-indulgently grower-y, nor is it linear. My handwritten notes say “precision and lightness”.
Someone at the table commented that they could not imagine having a friend without a favourite Champagne village. The truth is I do not have one. I kept my head down and smiled. I hope I was not found out.
There is a nuttiness in the mid and end palate. I am told this is a classic Montagne de Reims Chardonnay character.
Something profoundly life affirming and harmonious lives in this wine. Proper kit. An appropriate start for our dinner.
The vines were planted in 1961. This is aged in barrel. This vintage is zero dosage, which sparked some conversation at the table as to whether it tastes zero dosage.
I am quite convinced it is virtually impossible to tell by tasting the level of dosage in a Champagne to any finer than 4 or 5 g/l. The excellent book Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold has a whole chapter on how unreliable our sweetness perception is.
What seems to be true is that zero or very low dosage champagnes tend to fall off quicker. This has a ton of energy. The question is how long it has got to go.
Often with wines I love I want to see how they age. With wines such as this I suspect the real joy lies in the youthful energy and line. I should not be waiting for it to become anything other than what it is.
Chassagne-Montrachet Premier Cru les Baudines 2015, Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey
13% abv. Lemon colour. Lovely nose with some cut grass. There is a reductive note but not an aggressive one. Certainly not aggressive by this producer’s standards.
At first the palate does not quite match up to the nose for me. It has great line and balance. It is good, very good even. But somehow it does not charm.
This started some discussion about where the sweet spot in the PYCM line-up sits. My view is that the 1er Crus may be overpriced compared to the lower tiers. The Bourgogne Blanc and the villages St Aubin really deliver, especially at release prices.
After some time, these speculations were set aside. The wine started to unveil itself. Now there was a tingling of the collarbone and some real excitement.
A fellow diner said it reminded him of those days in the 1990s when Oddbins sold Ramonet. Sadly, I was not there. I applaud the sentiment. Sterling stuff.
Schist Syrah 2012, Mullineux
13.5% abv. Served blind. Purple garnet colour. A quiet nose with some heather. Burgundy or Northern Rhône?
On the palate, olives, iron filings, a tannic lick at the end. Then just a hint of sweetness. The palate definitely says Syrah.
This is so good. There is structure. There is breadth. It tells a story.
It is revealed. Ah, fantastic. This is the second time I have tasted this. Both times were with Davy.
Some discussion arose as to whether this is on the way out. I do not think so. No, no, no.
This is great. The only thing wrong with it is that I did not go long on these when BBR kept putting them on sale a few years ago.
Côte-Rôtie Maison Rouge 2012, Domaine Goerges Vernay
Hint of green apple on the nose. It is not, is it? It is, it is. Curses. Corked, corked, corked. Down the sink it goes.
This left us with a conundrum. We did not have enough red to soak up all the food we had ordered. We had a corkage deal. Fifteen minutes remained until the very good wine shop at the end of the road shut.
Shall I make a run for it? We take a look at the wine list. There is a very interesting looking Faurie. It is priced not much higher than current UK retail.
This makes tonight’s dinner a little dearer than planned. Happily, this is a group that prizes joy. We plough on.
Hermitage (white cap) 2012, Bernard Faurie
13.5% abv. Ordered off the list and popped and poured. There is something here. Green Chartreuse? I might be sensing it. It might be autosuggestion planted by Davy.
Dark fruit, cassis, density. That spherical fruit. My handwritten notes say “so long and enjoyable and marvellous”.
This is a fully complete wine, with beautifully restrained tannins. No rush to drink these, I am sure. If I had some in the cellar I would be thrilled.
My sources tell me the white cap is made with grapes from Greffieux and Bessards in Hermitage.
Monte Bello 1995, Ridge
12.5% abv. My wine, last of a six pack. So far they have been variable. Some wonderful, some merely excellent.
In one particularly sad encounter I had failed to double decant. The first 30 minutes were rather dreary, and I had set it aside. Later a fellow diner told me to retaste. My gosh, it had woken up.
I did not let such foolishness occur this time. I double decanted at home around 4pm.
Well my gosh, the wine gods smiled. FTA indeed. The best bottle of this I have tasted, I think.
On the nose, pencil lead, cedar. A hint of menthol perhaps. On the palate, lovely fruit core, dark fruits and blue fruits. The acid and the tannins play off against each other perfectly. There is a long, long finish that just keeps going. Yum yum yum.
Château d’Yquem1989
From half. Bought as part of a mixed auction lot. There were two bottles of this and this was the darker.
Incredible depth and length. A hint of marmalade bitterness at the end.
This was just on the wrong side for me. I did not finish my glass.
A thoroughly lovely dinner. Honestly, just what I needed. A healthy reminder too that joy can sometimes be found on wine lists, as well as in our cellars.
Excellent post, Leon! You covered everything important but if I may be so bold, I have a few additional comments
The Champagne was excellent. It had the weight and density one wants from a Bouzy Chardonnay but was elegant and charged with energy. I do not think Bouzy Chardonnay makes particularly stable wines and, with this being a 2018 (most of which are up for it now), I totally agree this is a wine to neck – and having a hilarious time doing so.
I thought the texture of the PYCM was seriously classy. That, and its nose, reminded me of the Ramonet 1er’s I bought for twenty coins in the 90s. They were nigh-limitlessly fine and each one was a profound experience. This wine was too. You may debate the sweet spot in terms of what you are willing to pay for PYCM but I did not pay for this, and I thought it was very, very fine from start to finish. This is why we drink white Burgundy.
Now, you think the Mulineux has a long time left. Indeed, when we first tried it together you claimed it had 20+ years left in it. Madness – you are too under the influence of Wine-Page’s forum’s necrophiles!
I would not be surprised if this had lost significant lustre in five years’ time. If you ask any experienced commentator on South African wine, they would think we were fortunate that this wine was quite so lovely at its current age. The prevailing view of the Saffer journos is that South African Syrah ages in a disappointing manner.
I recognise that the Mullineux are highly skilled when it comes to extraction in their winemaking; the wines are therefore packed with antioxidant polyphenols. However, a wine needs more than tannin to age. I very much got the sense that fruit on this wine was beginning to wane. When that goes one is left with thin, acrid, dried out tannin juice – like the unquestionably, absolutely, objectively dead 2001 Côte-Rôties you opened at Cornus for my birthday meal.
This certainly has years left, maybe up to five, certainly not ten, and no, no, NO WAY twenty-plus. You need to try more of these non-Cornas/Hermitage Syrahs of significant age and not be blinded by necrophiles or the quality of the producer and open your eyes to the fact that their shelf-life is not without limit!
And that was why I bought the Maison Rouge 2012. Currently, it is one of the finest Côte-Rôties one could wish to drink, but it is beginning to get doddery. This time next year it will be noticeably crapulent, and beyond that, dead. Côte-Rôtie, especially elegant and beautiful Côte Blonde’s like this are best from about nine to thirteen years old.
I am not saying the wines are lacking in any way because they have limited ageing windows; no criticism is intended at all. Some wines just do not last as long as other wines. Hermitage and Cornas can last and last. Côte-Rôtie and South African Syrah? I strongly counsel popping their corks before they are about sixteen.
The Faurie 2012 showed that Syrah from Hermitage can age, and it was a stylish, complex, scented beauty. I would suggest, however, that whilst this was deliciously lovely now, it will not get terribly much better, if at all, and we really caught it at a perfect age. What a wine to find on a restaurant wine list at that price!
I thought the Monte Bello was fab. Complex, both savoury and sweet, very long and, especially at this lower alcohol level, I felt the character of the few adjoining-vineyards that it is grown in showed itself very markedly. I thought the same when I first tried this wine on release almost thirty years ago. Wonderful stuff – no wonder it wowed the Frenchies in Steven S’s judgement of Paris. Thank you for bringing that!
Super notes as ever Leon. I love the emotionality of your notes. It’s rare and fabulous.
Some fighting talk there from Elitist Review’s main contributor. I can’t think of an aged SA Syrah that was still going strong. Actually, would a blend count? An old Sadie Columella might do it. I shall reserve one for us.