Chinese New Year Dinner

A really enjoyable and relaxed get-together the Friday evening after Chinese New Year with Jean-Paul & Isabelle, Daniel & Helena, Fred & Wing Yi and Angela & me. JP did a great job organising the menu to match the wines.

We decided on something completely different from Champagne to get started.

• 2006 Domaine Roger Belland Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Morgeot Clos Pitois Rouge 88 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru

  Double-decanted a couple of hours in advance then served as an aperitif instead of champagne as a bit of a change for the Chinese New Year. Bright and vibrant semi-transparent ruby red colour. Nose of wild forest strawberries combined with rasberries and a touch of sous-bois. Palate is similar fruits enveloped in a nicely fresh and vibrant acidicy and warm tannins frame. No great length but very enjoyable. Should age well for a few more years.

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• 2001 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage Blanc 90 Points

  France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage

  Medium gold straw in colour. Reticent, slightly too cold for the nose......honey, Crunchie bar, hint of turpentine, warm straw, warm French oak comes out with time. Palate is uctuous, viscous, honeyed, white flowers, evocative of honeysuckle scent on a warm summer night, back end has wafts of fresh-cut cricket fields. Seriously weighty. Some length but possibly too young to produce any resonance inside the head.

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• 1983 Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon Special Selection 92 Points

  USA, California, Napa Valley

  Blood red colour that is totally opaque - looks like a 2000. Nose is barnyard, sweaty jockstrap in a pleasant way. sweaty saddle, lots of dark berries fruit and amazingly fresh for its age. Palate is sharply delinated blackberries with a drying autumnal blackberries end. Lovely acidity and poise. Cassis! Resaonable length and with some resonance in the head on the finish. Held up well in the glass on the nose but the palate collapsed after an hour into acidity and tannin, suggesting this really needs to be drank up now. I enjoyed this a lot but the Montelena 1987 was a step up.

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• 1987 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate 94 Points

  USA, California, Napa Valley

  Black and totally inpenetrable in colour except for being crimson opaque at the edges. Nose is very refined, velvety, earthy, pencil lead, touch of green capiscum, black boot polish....complex and really enjoyable. Coffee and caramel come out with longer time in the glass. A much better nose than the Caymus 1983 it was paired with. Palate is lovely tongue-tingling blackcurrant acidity with fully resolved tannins and is a perfect expression of Cabernet Sauvignon-driven Californian meritage blend. Some tobacco leaf on the back end. Great and persistent finale with some resonance inside the head although just short of silence-creating. I could drink this all night. Has many years ahead of it but drinking beautifully now.

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• 1982 Château La Lagune 94 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Haut-Médoc

  Double decanted 3 hours before serving. Saturated and weak cork that was just intact. Beautiful bright fresh-looking deep crimson semi-transparent colour with no bricking. The aroma wafted into the room on decanting...full of rich blackcurrant and loamy earth aromas. Nose on opening was pencil lead and graphite then on serving was a little more muted....graphite, damp tall-ferned hillsides, pencil lead, slightly haughty, aloof but perfectly poised. Palate on opening was freshly acidic with supple but still firm tannins and full of tertiary sensations of wet Typhoo tea bags, fresh prunes, tinned prunes, confit figs, kirsch, fried Lin Go red turnip cake (appropriately Chinese New Year delicacy) and strong Cuban cigar leaf on the finish mixed with some sweetness. By serving time, the predominant tertiary characteristics on the front end had abated and the front end was very fruit-driven rich blackcurrant.....extremely precise. Middle palate was a bit of oak and then a lovely tobacco-driven long back end. Slow-mounting rolling thunder resonance inside the head on the finish.....and it just rolled on and on. Wow......the length just keeps creeping up on you in a very noncholant way. This fell slightly short of the profundity of the last bottle I drank from the same source 10 months ago. I was a bigger fan of this than others but even for me it lost out on the night to the fresh charm of the Ch. Montelena 1987.

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• 1990 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou 84 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Saint-Julien

  Semi-transparent deep crimson red. Palate is graphite........but nothing more.... it all seems like a piano note played badly flat........wet cardboard is there too, as JP observed. Not corked but smells "not clean". Palate is "OK' but very one-dimensional and something like an aristocrat toiling in a potato field. The wet cardboard element just kept getting worse. Totally disappointing although I detected an odd volatile quality last summer when I drank a much more satisfying bottle with the same team as tonight.

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• 1986 Château Calon-Ségur 88 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Saint-Estèphe

  Translucent, freshly bright crimson colour that belies its age. Nose is really classy, earthy, damp soil, a walk through a damp and dark woodland, high notes of graphite and pencil lead counterpointed by bass notes of black liquorice candy. Palate is much thinner than the other wines tonight and a disappointment after the promise of the nose. Very short finish. No resonance. I had expected better from it.

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• 1989 Gaja Barbaresco Sorì Tildìn 93 Points

  Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco

  Decanted (and mainly consumed by JP) the night before. Deep red completely transparent colour. Nose is .....absolutely gorgeous.... high toned nail varnish and strawberries, all very high toned, almost eye-wateringly so....then tar and rose petals and deeper oil of pot pourri rose petals.....ristretto espresso crema notes at the end. Captivating. Palate is light, ethereal, silky, elegantly balanced but feathery and just short of diaphanous.....but very, very good. Growing resonance that keeps on growing. A great end to a super evening of impressive wines and I might have scored it higher had it been a full bottle to savour.

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Great fun and yet another lesson in the pleasure to be had if we leave our good wines long enough to show their best.