Dinner at Megumi

This was a neat little dinner with a small array of some very good wines, all served blind. Fittingly for a meal at one of Singapore's best sushi restaurants, the Champagnes and Chablis really stole the show. This was one of the strongest line-ups of whites I have had in quite some time. The company was great, food was lovely - it was a wonderful night all round.

• 1999 Pol Roger Champagne Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 94 Points

  France, Champagne

  Back on form after two bottles that seemed to be shutting down - this was truly excellent. There was a suggestion of an oxidative edge on the nose at first, but that blew off nicely to show lovely accents of brown pears and red apples lined with some white meat and a nice, slatey minerality. The palate was deceptively soft and sweet on the attack, with ripe notes of apples and ripe pears, all very fleshy and pleasing. But as the wine took on air, it grew in the mouth, taking on a very fleshy, expansive feel, with lots of depth and power wed, at the same time, to a wonderfully precise, well-focused feel - something that I missed in the last couple of bottles. This had a real definition to it, with fine mousse, an elegant balance and a nice sense of structure. At first, I found it a lot more lemony, citrus and youthful on the midpalate, almost reminiscent of what it tasted like in its youth. As it warmed up though, the back-palate really filled out beautiful, with some nutty notes, nice creamy accents and then into more of those ripe red apples, all pierced by a streak of bittersweet minerality that carried the wine into a super-long finish. A really solid Champagne. The bottle variation bothers me a little, especially since this and another, less-impressive bottle that we had just a couple of weeks back were from the same source. What this show though is that when this is on form, it really hits the ball out of the park.

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• 2004 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut 95 Points

  France, Champagne

  This was a remarkably good. Good enough to put a great bottle of 1999 Pol Roger Winston Churchill in its shadow. It was actually surprisingly developed and open for such a young Cristal. It had beautiful nose, with lovely shades of cream and butter and coconut milk, white flowers, some yeasty aromas, then a touch of clove and nutmeg spice drifting around a rich core of white fruited scents. An amazing nose. Young Cristals can sometimes be all air and elegance and little else, but the palate on this one already had so much going on. It certainly had typical Cristal elegance, but it was surprisingly rich and generous; rich enough in fact for it match the impressively powerful and weighty Winston Churchill stride for stride. Here though, the depth was wed to a sweeping grace - while there was a pleasantly plump voluptuousness and lovely natural sweetness to the wine's flavours of ripe red apples and hints of strawberry fruit, it was all beautifully controlled and structured, with a lemony grip and a solid underlying minerality combining with a super-fine mousse to give the palate a real sense of finesse and style in spite of its generously yummy flavours. Think of a Herve Leger dress wrapped tightly around a beautiful hour-glass figure, with not an inch of extra flab anywhere. This was a sexy, stylish Champagne. A long and grippy, yet very elegant finish then glided away on a bed gentle minerality. What a great wine. Already complex and generous, but this has the bones to age for a long, long time to come. Bravo.

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• 2005 François Raveneau Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 96 Points

  France, Burgundy, Chablis, Chablis Grand Cru

  An incredible wine - this will live a long, long time in the memory. I must say that we had some seriously good stuff on the night, but this was the one wine that was truly breathtaking. Opened and left to sit for 45 minutes or so in an ice-bucket before service, the nose was a bit closed when first served - most probably because it was a tad too cold. However, it slowly unfurled as the wine warmed up in the glass to show layered aromas of cream and chalk, and then sweet melons and green apples, honey and flowers, all underlined by tremendous mineral undertone, with flint and seashells with a saline edge to them. A great nose, if just a tad reserved at first. It was on the palate where the wine really knocked my socks off though. This was really unusually open for a youngish Raveneau. It was carried on a stream of lovely clean, beautiful acidity, with a little lemony backdrop to the whole proceedings. But layered over this was a thick, oily-textured, rounded mouthfeel, full of red apples and brown pears and fresh cream flavours on the attack. It was at once super-elegant, very pure, but had a great, quiet depth that filled every crevice of the mouth. On first pour, it was clear that the wine had a long, deep, powerful finish, but like the nose, it was a bit indistinct when served too chilled. With time and air though, the long tail just opened up wonderfully, first showing sweet lemons, then apples and spice, stretching out in a creamily textured flow that, bit by bit, revealed an incredible spine of pure minerality - flint and stone and seashells, all in a a lovely saline pull, almost like standing beside the sea and taking a deep waft of salty air. On and on it went, coating every part of the back-palate and just refusing to quit. A ridiculous finish. This must be the best wine I have had this year yet, and quite possibly the new benchmark against which all other Chablis will have to be measured from now on. A truly beautiful wine, hitting its stride at a relatively young age. However, while this will not be the longest living Raveneau, it still has its best years ahead of it though. I would wager that it will be absolutely amazing in 4-5 years' time.

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• 2000 Domaine William Fèvre Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 94 Points

  France, Burgundy, Chablis, Chablis Grand Cru

  Boy this was good - young, fresh and vibrant for a 2000, it was a at very nice place on the night. The only problem it had was that it came right after a gobstoppingly good bottle of 2005 Raveneau Les Clos, which more or less overwhelmed the poor William Fèvre. Still though, this was a really solid Chablis in its own right - the most engaging Fèvre wine I have had in a long time. The nose still smelt quite young, with a touch of oaky vanilla and toast on it, but beneath these, there were beautiful notes of cream and butter, white flowers, honey and ripe red apples, with a lick of spice and some lovely chalky mineral underlying the whole thing - I would have sworn this was a Puligny Grand Cru on that nose. It drank like a great Puligny too. There was a lovely, creamy texture to it, wed to beautiful bright flavours of lemons and red apples blessed with the bloom of youthful acidity, and laced with some beautiful minerality, with flint and seashell garnishing the edges of the palate. Even with the minerality though, I was quite unable to pick it out as a Chablis until the vintage was revealed - only then did I begin to suspect the more Northerly exposure given the lovely freshness this had in spite of the vintage. The finish here was what I liked most about the wine. It was long, creamy and buttery, with a lovely lingering depth on the back palate spiked by spice and mineral and a splash of with lemony acidity. Glorious stuff. I must say though that the wine shut down a bit after half-an-hour or so of opening, leaning out slightly and taking on a slightly leaner, more austere character. It made me suspect that this will do even better given a few more years in the bottle, assuming no pre-mod of course - which is always a very big "if" with this house.

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• 1983 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage 93 Points

  France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage

  Still very nice, but I cannot help feeling that this has seen better days. The nose was very mature, with tertiary notes of boiled herbs and salted vegetable, with a touch of green menthol notes, all draped over a nice core of sour plums, strawberries and dried rose aromas, with a little meaty undertone running through the bouquet. Quite nice, even pretty at points, but clearly going a bit green and herbal. The palate was rather more youthful thankfully. For one thing, it did not have the green of the palate. Instead, there were lovely matured Northern Rhone flavours of black cherries and sour plums with more savoury notes of olive tapenade and cooked meat, still wrapped in lovely juicy acidity and fine, slightly powdery tannins that gave the wine a nice chew on the midpalate. There was lovely clarity and freshness to the whole palate that I really liked; indeed, this had a certain Burgundian elegance to it that got a lot of us wondering when served blind. It was a wine of some character too, with a nice curl of spice and earthy mineral adding to the mix on a long finish. It was only at the very end that it seemed a bit austere, with a slightly drying twist of tannins coming to the fore. This would have been really something 4-5 years ago I think. Even now, it was a real pleasure to drink, just that its powers seemed to be on the wane.

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• 2002 Domaine Francois Lamarche La Grande Rue 92 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Grande Rue Grand Cru

  A well-made wine, but rather too young. The nose had a lovely sense of place to it, with fragrant aromas of earth and wood spice and menthol, with ripe berries and plums, some floral notes and a little meaty backdrop that was just starting to emerge. There was a hint of oak showing in sweet vanilla pod accents here and there, but not quite enough to distract from the overall feel of the bouquet. Indeed, it was almost consensus around the table that this was a Vosne when served blind, probably on just the nose alone. The palate may not have been the most impressive 2002 Grand Cru I have had - the tannins were a slightly mushy for the vintage, and it lacked the depth that the very best wines have. However, the wine clearly had pedigree. There was a lovely transparent feel to its flavours of black cherries and blackberries, with the fruit laced with nice, bright acidity. It was still quite structured, with a chewy texture that started setting in on the midpalate, where some earth and meat mingled with the black-fruited notes. The finish was even grippier, showing rather young, tight, even austere - with the fruit fading into the background and warm notes of wood spice, orange peel and menthol came to the fore. Some may complain that this was not big or powerful enough for La Grand Rue, but I think it had good raw material, even if it lacked some of the fineness that has slowly come in Domaine Lamarche's wines in recent years. Overall, pretty good on the day, but this was a wine that really needed another 5-6 years in the bottle. It would be nice to try it again then.

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• 1990 Domaine & Selection Volnay 1er Cru Taillepieds 92 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Volnay 1er Cru

  Domaine & Selection is a micro-negociant label started by Johan Björklund, the owner-propreietor of l'Hotel de Beaune. He has worked variously with people like Ponsot and Coche-Dury in crafting carefully (so he says) selected bottlings. I am not sure exactly what his source for the 1990 Volnay Taillepieds was, but I thought it was a solidly good wine without being anything really special. I did like the nose, it had a very floral prettiness to it, along with fragrant notes of toasty earth and spice, dark cherries and wild berries - a really lovely, fragrant bouquet. The palate was rather less expressive and, in fact, less attractive than the nose. It was still youthful, with the dark cherries and berry flavours still having a primary edge to them, and the wine was still clearly marked by chewy tannins and fine acidity, especially towards the finish. There was a good feel to it though, with a rather thick, powerful texture and a very full, substantial feel for a 1er Cru. It had impressive length on the finish too too, just opening up a little more on the back palate to show little notes of orange peel and toasty spice and some earthiness right at its tail. This was a particular well-stored bottle with a great ullage on it. With something similar, I would wait a good 4-5 years more on the wine. It is a pretty good wine, if just a bit on the stolid side, and should reward the patience.

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