Dim Sum Club does Suckling Pig at Park Palace (Again)

This was Peter's last lunch with us before heading off the Melbourne for 6 months, and we had a fittingly good send-off, with some lovely food and great wines.

• NV Krug Champagne Brut Grande Cuvée 93 Points

  France, Champagne

  This was a very good bottle of Grande Cuvée. It must have had some bottle age on it - there was no etched code on the bottle, meaning that it would have been disgorged sometime in 2011 at the latest, before Krug started revealing disgorgement dates. Indeed, there was a lovely Krug nose here, which you do not always get in young bottles of Grande Cuvée, with nice creamy accents and a little toasted bread aromas alongside, apples and lime zest, a little floral lilt, and a touch of earthiness and slatey mineral. The palate had a lovely texture to it, almost melting into the mouth with a super-fine, gentle mousse wrapped around a core of green apples, lemons and lemon peel. The flavours were still rather primary, especially when compared to the nose. However, this had clearly shed some of the youthful austerity and lemony-ness of young MVs to a show a lovely pure beam of flavours, with typical Krug power and substance wed to an impeccable balance lent by well-integrated acidity. In fact, it was almost unusually soft and gentle as it slid into a nice long finish too, with a little trail of mineral and spice pulling away through the backapalate. Very nice stuff.

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• 1985 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie Brune et Blonde 94 Points

  France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie

  Absolutely gorgeous. This made a very nice 1985 Gaja Barbaresco on the same flight seem pedestrian in comparison. There was such a beautiful nose here, with a truffly, earthy base, then some root herbs and a little meaty hint, but what really stood out were its soaring notes of mature red fruit wreathed with lovely floral aromas. Wow. The palate was absolutely lovely, and drinking so well too. It was perfectly poised and balanced, with juicy acidity and silky tannins lending a lovely structural element that undergirded red fruited notes of cherries and wild berries - all really pure and very, very yummy. These were met with spice and violet flower notes winding around the midpalate, adding up to a really lovely complexity. It finished with a slightly herby linger, with rooty notes trailing away nicely into the distance on a layer of slightly dry tannins. Brilliant stuff - a really nice wine caught right at its apogee. I do not remember these Brune et Blonde bottlings from Guigal ever hitting the heights, but this was fabulous.

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• 1985 Gaja Barbaresco 93 Points

  Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barbaresco

  Very solid, quite enjoyable, but not a wow wine at the moment. This started with a pleasantly funky nose, with meaty accents and some wilted flower alongside some soy sauce and balsamic tones. With time, these blew off a little to show dark tones of plums and black cherries, some menthol and herb and a nice melange of wood spice and smoky tar. I liked that. The palate had a muscular depth to it, with bright acidity and fine tannins still giving some behind the rather rich dark cherry flavours, with nice little nuances of orange peel, spice and tar, and then little floral hints at the finish. This was a rather dense wine, with a typical thickness in the mouth that got half the table guessing Gaja Barbaresco at first try. A lot of other tasting notes seem to suggest that this wine is at or past its peak, and it did seem a little old at first, especially with the balsamic, soy-saucy funk on the nose. However, it just got fresher and fresher and more youthful in the glass as it took on more air, even suggesting a touch of reserved austerity at points. Indeed, the last glass was by far the best. This was a solid wine on the night, but still missing a little something, and I would actually wager that well-stored bottle will show a lot better in the next 5-10 years. It will give a lot of pleasure if you are to open one now though, but I would recommend popping it way before hand to breathe, or at least a pretty lengthy decanting.

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• 1996 Gianni Gagliardo Barolo Preve 91 Points

  Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

  Decently good, but far from ready. The nose was pretty attractive, with red cherries wed to some earthy and meat, and then classic notes of fired flowers, herb and menthol. There was a touch of distracting glycerol, but it still came together quite nicely. The palate was clearly too young to be fully enjoyed however. It was still very tight, not exactly with the full grippiness of a really young Barolo, but with tannins and very high acidity that were still quite assertive, serving to give the wine's dark cherry and blackberry flavours a very tightly wound feel. There was a hint of underlying fullness and generosity behind the structure, along with pleasant little complexities of savoury meat and earth and, on the long finish, a nice curl of smoky spice. All said though, this would have been a lot better drunk 6-8 years down the road. On the day, one got little glimpses of quality, but this was nowhere near full bloom, especially when compared with the much more matured pair of 1985 wines that came before it.

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• 2004 By Farr Chardonnay 92 Points

  Australia, Victoria, Port Phillip, Geelong

  Very good indeed - this was as close to Meursault as I have ever come with a new world Chardonnay. In fact, served blind, it had all of us arguing about which Cote d'Or commune it came from and whether it was a village or her Cru - it just did not cross our mind that this could be anything but a Burgundy given its balance and poise. I would have sworn it was Meursault on the nose, what with its aromas of butter and chalk and flinty mineral alongside white fruited notes, with some ripe apple accents at the fore. It was only when it warmed up later that some sweet coconutty oak and a distinct sake-like whiff rice crept in at the fringes of the bouquet. Really nice stuff though. The palate was nicely resolved, as you would expect a Burgundy at an equivalent age to be, there was a touch of heat at the fringes, but it was still decently very balanced, with white-fruited flavours of apple flesh and a hint of sweet lemons laced with nice, juicy acidity. It finished nicely too, with some chalky mineral notes and little motes of spice mingling with its buttery tones. Again, sweeter stone fruit notes and more honeyed tones and stone fruity emerged as it got warmer, but this never had the in-your-face ripeness that would make you call it an Australian Chardonnay. Really nice stuff, drinking quite perfectly at the moment.

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• 2008 Scholium Project The Prince In His Caves Farina 91 Points

  USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Mountain

  This was either a completely unique / or a downright spoofy wine, depending on how open you are to oddities - it actually took me awhile to decide whether or not I liked it. We could still more or less guess that it was a Sauvignon on the nose and palate, but think of a Sauvignon Blanc that is pushed so far to its extremes that it was barely recognisable. Like comparing the late great Michael Jackson before plastic surgery (circa Off The Wall) and after (circa This is It). To say the nose was expressive would be an understatement - this pretty much exploded from the glass with rich, ripe, fruity notes of stewed peaches and nectarines and grapefruit, just punctuated by enough ripe gooseberries and guava aromas to make it recognisable as a Sauv Blanc. What really struck me though where deep wafts of aromatic Indian spices, cumin and fennel et al, that drifted out from amidst the sweet fruit scents. Actually very attractive. The palate was as idiosyncratic. The attack was perhaps the most peachy tasting I have ever had on a wine - almost like Mos Burger's peach milk tea. Beyond that, it was big and sweet, with the stone fruited notes again met by more classic notes of guava, gooseberries and a touch of grassiness on the midpalate; but imagine all this being dialled up to Level 10, so that it was rich, thick, almost viscous, all this into a spice-laden finish. For all that though, the wine was somehow still balance, with a ring of green appley acidity that kept it well on its feet. I suspect that there was either no malolactic fermentation or that it was stopped early - good choice too. no malolactic, This was a really different wine. All in, I really could not fault anything about the wine. It may not be something I would usually like, but I must say that this was pretty enjoyable on the day and actually pretty good in its own wacko way.

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