Dinner at Greg & Sayo's

This was a long overdue get-together for the four of us where Greg and I had promised to pull some seriously nice older wines and Sayo cooked a great Thai dinner of duck breast and pigeon followed by French cheese....a cigar.......

• 1999 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon 89 Points

  France, Champagne

  Light white-silver colour. Low mousse and subdued bubbles. Nose is really gorgeous....light toasty brioche, yeasty but also high notes are there too. Palate on the front end is too heavy with alcohol at the moment and slightly burning but with a lovely honeyed and resonant finish. A work in progress....in its awkward adolescent stage, based on this bottle.

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• 1996 Remoissenet Père et Fils Le Montrachet 95 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Montrachet Grand Cru

  Exceptionally deep rich gold colour......looks like an old Sauternes in the decanter (decanted for 30 minutes or so). Nose is BANG!.....compote peaches and apricots, oak, very deep fruit freshness, vanilla pods, low-toned nail varnish remover, rich and heady honeysuckle and white honey....absolutely alluring.....almost botrytis there, so rich and honeyed but absolutely balanced and fresh. Palate is so soft and caressing, honeyed and velvety.....elements of smoked meat and incense too...unctuous and incredibly soft. Enormous length and huge resonance in the head on the finish.....thunderous, reverberating resonance. As the very long evening progressed the smoky, incense quality on both nose and palate came more to the fore together with increasing fresh acidity. I would probably have scored this higher had we not drank most of it with fairly spicy Thai food.

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• 1985 Château Léoville Las Cases 93 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

  Near-transparent deep crimson-purple colour just lightening to transparency at the meniscus. Nose is an immediate waft of damp loamy earth, heady cedar resin, deep rich spices, old packing boxes and lots of persistent red berries fruit. Palate is very heady and immediately resonant in the head from the first touch on the tongue.....soft, resolved tannins and still very racy vibrant acidity...very velvety tannins and hints of Ying Yeung (Chinese half tea/half coffee) with Carnation condensed milk. Lovely sweetness of fruit on the back end....still fresh red and black fruits. Gets sweeter and more fruity with extended time in the glass and with incense emerging. Medium length and resonance on the finish but enhanced by beguiling smoky incense. I would drink this up whilst it's still at its height....absolutely gorgeous.

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• 1988 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 94 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  Cloudy, opaque plum-red colour with slight transparency at the meniscus. Nose is OMG!...earthy, loamy, ooh....aaah....pencil lead, cedar forests and the smell of summer rain on dry lawns. Palate is precise acidity, tons of fresh red currant fruits....good soft but firm tannic frame. The fruit is very persistent even with extended time in the glass....evolving into deep red and black cherries. Big soft rolling resonance and reverberance on the finish. Everything is resolved here....quintessential mature claret and quintessential Pauillac. Just lovely....and for me it marginally beat the 1985 Leoville Las Cases we drank alongside it (although it went monotone right at the end of the night and I wouldn't hold onto it for much longer).

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• 1993 Château La Mission Haut-Brion 92 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

  Perfect-looking bottle I bought five years ago. Deep, bright, semi-transparent ruby red. The nose is a lovely springtime evening walk through damp cedar woods, intense graphite and pencil lead...really intense on the pencil lead...and very unusual for generating resonance inside the head just from the nose. Palate is medium weight but pitch-perfect acidic and tannin poise and balance. Just lacking multi-dimensionality on the mid-palate but then huge thunderous rolling waves of resonance on the finish...crashing into a milky mocha coffee and cassis endless finale. Flattened out with extended time in the glass. A really pleasant surprise because I had half-expected this to be beyond its life given the generally awful year. A great example of an affordable fully mature 1st-Growth claret.

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• 2001 Château Guiraud 91 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Sauternais, Sauternes

  Very dark bronzed-gold colour. Nose is very honeyed and almost over-ripe bananas, temple smoke, caramel and burnt creme brulee. Palate is golden bronzed sweet caramel, deep rich buttery butterscotch boiled sweets, barley sugar stick, very dark demerera sugar and hints of molasses. Finish is medium length and nicely but not profoundly resonant. This became all golden honey, burnt rich creme brulee and exotic temple smoke with extended time in the glass. I possibly underappreciated this as we drank much of it over a strong cigar and the last glass at 2.00am.

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....and suddenly it was 2.00am.