Pre-Chinese New Year Get-Together

A long overdue dinner get-together with old friends Eric & Anita, Terence & Marian together with newer friends Dano & Annie and new friend on the evening, Darryl.

Aperitif

• NV Gosset Champagne Brut Grande Réserve 89 Points

  France, Champagne

  Attractive light golden straw colour, pronounced mousse of fine and persistent small bubbles. Nose is fresh-cut apples with a nice biscuity follow-on and and some fresh dough. Palate is refreshingly acidic and leesy, balanced with baked apples and fresh almonds. Nice dry and quite pronounced finish. As always, a very enjoyable aperitif.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2006 Kistler Chardonnay Vine Hill Vineyard 92 Points

  USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley

  Opened but not decanted 4 hours before serving at HK restaurant room temperature (around 19C). Honeyed light gold colour. Nose of lightly toasted hazelnut, raw honeycomb, noticeable but not dominant oak but which needs time to integrate. Palate is rich, golden, honeyed and with a big follow-up of Cadbury's Crunchie Bar milk chocolate-covered honeycomb. With extended time in the glass there is a stunningly honeyed balance just this side of sweetness. Not much of the minerality and acidic cut I normally associate with the Vine Hill bottling. A bit hot at the moment because it is too young but then there is that classic big Kistler resonance that just rolls up and up like storm clouds preceding a twister. Everyone loved this...and thought it was a young-ish (2000?) Grand Cru Burgundy. I just thought it was what Kistler always delivers.... although possibly I wouldn't have pegged it as a typical Vine Hill. Anyway, I'm really pleased to have 11 more of the case and to know there is room for improvement with a year or two's more ageing.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2009 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 90 Points

  USA, California, Napa Valley

  Bright, white gold Sauvignon Blanc-like colour. Nose is very light lifted lemon zest and fresh-cut pineapple with gunflint and other minerals. Palate is sharp lemon meringue pie then a blast of bracing ozone mothwatering acidity with a back end of fresh-peeled "green" hazelnuts and more of that lovely bracing acidity mixed with lemon tree leaves in the sunshine. The oak treatment is very light and deft. Excellent but young.....and short on the finish at this stage. This was the first of my case and I'm really looking forward to the rest over the next couple of years.

  Post a Comment / 1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 1998 Château d'Yquem 94 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Sauternais, Sauternes

  From 375cl and drank to accompany a "trio" of Foie Gras, includine Patrick's famous Foie Gras profiteroles. Light golden honey colour. Nose is pure light honey, sweetness, nectar......nectar! Enormous rolling length and resonance. Powerful, muscular and just a bit one-dimensional...until the caramel cuts in and....and...oh, gosh. 94+.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 1978 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate 94 Points

  USA, California, Napa Valley

  Opened but not decanted 3 hours before serving at cool room temperature. Light dusky rose petal red transparent colour. Nose is tar, sweet raspberries, leather and several other complex layers as it opened in the glass. Palate is sweet, alive vibrant fresh acidity then quickly moving into confit fig, fresh prunes, old leather furniture that's been lovingly polished, and other tertiary components....but all wrapped in a fresh acidic frame and with lovely dusty and powdery fully resolved tannins. Enormous resonance inside the head on the finale and good length. Near-profound...so close to profound at certain moments but the balance lost the battle with the prunes element with extended time from the bottle and in the glass. Gosh, this is good.......

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 1988 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 93 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  Decanted 3 hours before serving at cool room temperature. Lovely enticing ruby red bright and transparent colour. Nose is light, lifted classic Pauillac with lots of sharpened lead pencil and cedar woods with damp loam underfoot. Palate is absolutely gorgeously lean, taut, austere, linear black fruit. Gorgeous classic claret for an Englishman. Medium length and resonance but more than compensated for by the deftness of winemaker's touch. Gosh....I loved this and so did everyone else, who voted it their near-WOTN behind the Ch. Montelena 1978.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 1994 Château Pichon-Longueville Baron 89 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  Dark ruby semi-transparent colour. Nose is classic pencil lead, graphite, cedar and deep but sharp blackberries. Palate is leaner and more dilute than the nose would suggest. More angular and shorter on length than the Pichon Lalande 1988 we drank alongside it...but who's complaining? Taut and tight, this has hardly unwound at all from the last bottle I opened in 2007 and I wonder whether it ever will.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 1993 Chateau Musar 90 Points

  Lebanon, Bekaa Valley

  Decanted for 5 hours. Dark translucent cherry red colour with hints of amber at the rim. Nose is bright, light, floral, very very fresh-picked strawberries......everyone said "Burgundy". Palate is light, nail varnish, red fruits...mainly strawberry and redcurrant and with a nice pencil-point sharpness. In this bottle the usual Eastern bazzar elements on nose and palate were very restrained indeed. Moderate length. In fact, not the best bottle of this I've had by far.......despite coming from a common couple of cases.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2003 Château Pontet-Canet

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  Decanted for 5 hours. Black, purplish semi-translucent but unevolved colour with prisms of really deep red. Truculent nose that refused to show more than hints of impressive black fruit and lightly toasted oak that will emerge with a lot more time in the cellar. The palate had a similar adolescent sulkiness that is best described at the moment as beauty without grace. Some length and tight-wound resonance that suggests greater things will emerge in the coming years. I suspect that this will way outlive most wines of the vintage but it needs a good few more years in the cellar before it even starts to show some charm. Too difficult to score at this stage (er...92 with considerable upward potential?).

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2003 Rolf Binder/Veritas Shiraz Hanisch 93 Points

  Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Barossa Valley

  Decanted for 6-7 hours in advance and drank alongside a Pontet Canet 2003 over Chef Patrick's fine French cheese selection. Has barely lightened or reddened from the inpenetrable black hole colour it displayed when last drank nearly 2 years ago. Nose has retained its surprisingly refined and elegant precision-ground quality remniscent of a young 1st growth. Palate has a luxuriant richness of black fruits, spice box, coffee, caramel and soft leather furniture together with the same precision, elegance and balance shown on the nose. Very deep-toned cathedral organ bass notes of brooding resonance on the very long and persistent finish. I still think this could evolve to something silence-creatingly good over the next 5-7 years.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

Great wines, good food, super company and brilliant to catch up with friends old and new as a way to get into the Chinese New Year mood.