Celebrating One Year at Pine Close

I can barely believe how time has flown - it has been a full one year since we moved in to our first home. This little dinner was unplanned, but it was a fitting celebration to mark the year - Martin and Joyce, Leonard and Jillian and William coming over to sample a range of the best the famous Old Airport Road hawker food moistened by some nice wines and drams of beautiful 30 year Longmorn Single-Malt.

• 2010 Rene Carroi Sancerre 90 Points

  France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Sancerre

  This was unexpectedly good. It started out with a rather pretty nose, somewhat straddling Sancerre and the new world, with lots of flinty, stony mineral scents, some grapefruit and pomelo, but also just a touch of gooseberry at the edges. Very attractive. The palate was a lovely foil for our slightly spicy table of Singaporean food. Here, zippy acidity and lovely minerality ran through fresh, rather subtle flavours of pomelo, grapefruit and gooseberry touched with a bit of spice at the finish. Simple, but well balanced, with just a bit of heat at the edge proving a little distracting. Really nice food wine though. Very decent value wine.

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• NV Berry Bros. & Rudd Fine Old Rare Sherry, Manzanilla Pasada Lustau 94 Points

  Spain, Andalucía, Manzanilla de Sanlúcar de Barrameda

  From a half-bottle, this was entirely excellent, starting with an absolutely fantastic nose. Classy, complex, almost subtly so, yet expressive and insistent, the bouquet showed richly layered scents of rocky mineral, gentle washes of spice and dried herbs, roast nuts and figgy fruit along with slightly fresher apple notes. Just lovely - quite a bit gentler, more subtle than most top-end Manzanillas, yet somehow more complex and intriguing as well. The palate was brilliant too. Mature, soft, resolved, yet absolutely balanced, with perfectly integrated acidity melting into gently mouth-filling flavours of figs, nuts and pears. At the mid-palate, these were met by more of that incredible stony minerality moving in a synchronised, harmonious whole all the way into a inexorably long, lingering finish flecked with smoky spice notes. A sexy sherry, dripping with seductive elegance. I enjoyed this tremendously.

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• 2007 Domaine Rebourgeon-Mure Volnay 1er Cru Santenots 90 Points

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

  Good, but oh so tight. Most 2007 red Burgs, save perhaps the very toughest of Grand Crus, have come across as remarkably giving and friendly. This was another story altogether. It started with an expressive nose, very Volnay here - full of flowers, musky spice and earth riding alongside some sappy dark cherry aromas. Nice. The palate though was so much tighter than I would have expected. In true Santenots style, was rather big for a 2007 Volnay, but stilll had the clean transparent feel of the vintage, with a nice ring of dark cherries and earth on a bed of fine, but firm tannins. Unfortunately, unlike so many of its peers, this was wound up ever so stubbornly and not showing well, a bit awkward even, with the fruit struggling to come up for breath amidst the structure of the wine at times. Pretty good underlying material, but this needs plenty of age yet.

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• 1991 Zema Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Family Selection 93 Points

  Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Coonawarra

  This was lovely - it was one of those wines that, looking back, got me smacking myself on the head for buying only one bottle. If not the most profound or complex, this was certainly one of the most delicious Aussie Cabs I have ever had. It had a beautiful nose - dark chocolate, cocoa, plums and cassis soaked in a bed of savoury, mossy earth and damp tobacco leaves - it could almost be a Bordeaux on that nose if not for the tiniest bit of eucalyptus at the very edges of the bouquet that hinted at the wine's origins. The palate was at a wonderful place, and so crazily delicious that I just could not stop drinking it. It was just a pure mouthful of cassis and dark cherries framed with snappy acidity and velvety tannins that made it just brilliantly drinkable. With bits of earth, undergrowth and tobacco floating around adding complexity, this was gorgeous. It may not have the depth and breadth of a top Bordeaux, but this was one of the best Aussie Cabs I have had for the longest time. I am not sure this will last much longer, but it was absolutely at peak and singing. Sigh - only one bottle unfortunately.

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• 2004 San Giusto a Rentennano La Ricolma Toscana IGT 91 Points

  Italy, Tuscany, Toscana IGT

  A monster of a Merlot. There was obviously quality here, but a couple of hours in a decanter barely budged it. I really liked the nose here. Very Merlot, yet very Italian, it showed aromas of plums, dried dusty earth and little pinpricks of spice seasoned with a lovely touch of Italian herbs. The palate was extremely, extremely young though. A rich wine by any measure - lots of depth and breadth, with a real presence to its plums and dark cherry flavours, yet so well balanced that it was never weighty, sweet or overblown. Really good quality here, but this was so incredible tight, almost monolithic. The dark fruit was met at the mid-palate by another dusting of dried earth and a layer of very fine but really firm tannins before another subtle hint of Italian herbs emerged, but one would hardly call it complex, with the fruit and underlying structure dominating just about everything else on the wine. This needs another 10 years at least.

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