Dinner at Crown Wine Cellars, Hong Kong

We invited three couples of friends who hadn't previously met to get together over dinner, partly so I could have an excuse to selfishly open a range of my wines I've been keen to try for the first time or to re-visit after a while. It quickly turned into a really relaxed and fun evening.

• NV Gosset Champagne Brut Grande Réserve 89 Points

  France, Champagne

  Light straw-gold colour. Not much mousse because served in wine glasses. Attractive streams of bubbles. Very soft and toasty nose. Similar elements on the palate, with the softness having an almost creamy character which is very distinctive and attractive. Depth and a rich body too. This is a consistently very enjoyable champagne with a distinct personality. It is hard to find anything near as good for the price.....perfect when you can't quite justify opening something five times the price.

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• 2006 Kistler Chardonnay Vine Hill Vineyard 93 Points

  USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley

  Silver-green very light gold colour. Nose is....gosh!...really open...fresh apricots, an attractive slightly smelly socks element, onions frying lightly in butter in a copper pan. The palate is geoooorgeous melted salty butter then crushed roasted lemons and a lovely oyster shells minerality followed by a pleasant metallic element.....a lovely saline and pronouced oyster shells finish. Resonant and reverberant with considerable length. This was really excellent and a notch above previous bottles from this case. It was many people's wine of the night and i wouldn't really argue despite the, for me, superior Sauzet Batard Montrachet that followed it.

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• 2000 Etienne Sauzet Bâtard-Montrachet 95 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru

  Yellow straw colour....but not too advanced to be worrisome. Nose is incredibly sophisticated: profound, multi-layered but very understated with melted different butters, light oak, citrus leaves, several fugues on smoke....very heady and resonant....gorgeous and mesmerising. Palate is again tiptoe-light but profound: the front palate has quiet verve then lovely soft, smooth and perfectly integarated oak followed by citrus and a deft touch of oyster shells and other mineral elements. Huge, powerful but diaphanous resonance and reverberance inside the head on the finish. Wow.....incredible example of that rare characteristic of "lightness and power" you experience with a great white Burgundy....and unusually femininine in that respect for a BM. This was a lot more subtle than the excellent Kistler Vine Hill 2006 that predceded it but the BM has an extra "walk in the clouds" finesse that is absolutely mesmerising. Wow.....95-96. So much better than a bottle I drank from the same case in April 2012.

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This was always going to be the difficult wine pairing course and I nearly got the chef to change it in advance......but then I thought of Ch. Musar Blanc and it worked perfectly.

• 1989 Chateau Musar Blanc 94 Points

  Lebanon, Bekaa Valley

  Decanted for 5 hours. Deep amber apricot gold in colour. Nose is wow..... golden ripe fresh apricots, oak, incense smoke similar to an old Red Ch. Musar, nuances of Cognac. Palate is good acidic attack on the fore then velvety , peach skins then nice oily mothfeel followed by thick and viscous but contradictarily light burnt Seville orange. Very complex and completely more-ish.....it seems much younger than its actual age. No oxidative element in this particular bottle. To my delight, it went exceptionally well with a rich Roasted Butternut Pumpkin soup, that really drew out the fresh acidic element of the wine. Actually, all this was just a prelude that sucker punched you for the incredible heady and explosive resonance on the finish that reverberated for minutes and was still floating like mist in my cranium in the morning (intermingled with the Ch. Rieussec 2001). The finish is a 96-point experience. This wine bemused and beguiled everyone.

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• 2001 Gibbston Valley Pinot Noir Reserve 91 Points

  New Zealand, South Island, Otago, Central Otago

  Bright-jeweled transparent ruby-red colour. Very open and attractive nose of strawberries and light sous-bois. Palate is a super-smooth velevety mouthfeel with a perfect integration of powdered tannins and ripe small strawberries with a balanced acidic and red cherry cut. Elegant and light but surprisingly substantial at the same time. Moderate finish. Still surprisingly young and with a lot of evolution ahead of it. A crowd pleaser on the night, especially with the lightly grilled rack of lamb.

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• 2002 Quartz Reef Pinot Noir 91 Points

  New Zealand, South Island, Otago, Central Otago

  Deep-jeweled transparent ruby red colour....darker than the 2001 Gibbston Pinot Noir Reserve that preceded it. Nose is also deeper toned and slightly more substantial, a bit more oaked....very integrated, rounded and elegantly perfumed. Palate is light and perfumed but substantial black cherry fruit with excellent elegant fresh balancing acidity. There is substantial depth of black and red cherry and strawberry fruit behind the elegance of the facade. Moderate length......this is still quite young. Fun to drink alongside the Gibbston....this is slightly deeper toned piano notes.

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• 2009 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay Napa Valley 89 Points

  USA, California, Napa Valley

  I hardly drank any of it.....we added this to the list for those having fish for their main dish, which few did. Of the small glass I tried, it was overwhelmed in our short-term memories by the power of the 2006 Kistler Vine Hill and the finesse of the 2000 E. Sauzet Batard Montrachet. However, this is a super wine and its understatement is a very positive aspect. Great QPR and a long life ahead of it. Will improve with 1-2 years' more age.

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• 2001 Château Rieussec 96 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Sauternais, Sauternes

  Decanted for 4+ hours. Peach-gold colour. Nose is immediately wondrously elegant and integrated...peach fruit, stones and skin in an hundred variations....light....poised...lovely Botrytis element.....and alluring whifts of intermingled smoke. Palate is full, unctuous "golden" pesronified in a wine......liquid gold....liquid golden sunshine.....liquid transport of delight. A lovely caramelly frame has developed in the past year that gives it gorgeous structure and definition. This is not a sweet wine.....more a caramelly wine and all the better for it. So smoky and caramelly on the end palate. Resonance is near-endless......never thunder-crashing but so persistent. Silence-creating. Absolutely gorgeous and my best bottle so far. This came perilously close to matching the 2001 Ch. D'Yquem I drank a few months ago.......it will be fascinating to plot their parallel paths of evolution.

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Great company......thanks guys!