Celebrating Again!

Leaves and Spoons
Raw white fish & daikon with ponzu and ginger oil
Crayfish ravioli with lemongrass velouté
Leaf salad
Poached beef with star anise
Venison osso buco à la Ken Hom
Autumn fig & goat 's chess tart

• 2009 Billecart-Salmon Champagne Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon 94 Points

  France, Champagne

  Stunningly good Rose that balances freshness with toasty bottle age and autolysis character. Refined and elegant, but also very strawberry and opulent in nature. Reflecting the vintage, this is a tad overly ripe. The balance and refined bead keep everything under exquisite control. Pretty difficult to fault.

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• 2002 Zind-Humbrecht Riesling Rangen de Thann Clos St. Urbain 90 Points

  France, Alsace, Alsace Grand Cru

  Very developed in style - deep gold colour, rich toffee apple nose. The palate is huge but slightly tired. It is massive (15%) and yet stll retains generous residual sugar! The effect is one of richness and opulence, but for me, the acids just do not match the extract, sugar, or alcohol. There is absolutely a touch of alcoholic heat on the back palate. It is an amazing wine even now, but I would have liked to drink this ten years ago. Even so, a privilege to drink, and a unique wine that demonstrates the range of expression that Riesling can provide.

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• 1999 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage Blanc 94 Points

  France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage

  Typically oxidative on the nose, but this bottle displayed aldehyde aspects, manifesting in a dead-ringer for a Jura sous voile wine! This character dominates the nose, and while I like that style of wine, in this instance, I felt like the floral aspect noted three years ago was subsumed in this character. The palate itself was another matter entirely! Massive fruit, opulent texture, huge dimension, low acid, endless finish. Quite an extraordinary wine that, while oxidative to a degree, shows huge complexity, nuance and a creamy texture. Showing no hint of drying out, but drinking at a mature to late mature stage. One taster thought it would have shown better a decade ago. Absolutely perfect with a Crayfish Ravioli, following the rich with rich line of wine matching. So, in a way, slightly difficult to score, say a 86 point nose with a 96 point palate, so somewhere in the middle - to my taste a 94, but some will score lower.... (86-96)

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• 1990 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Hommage à Jacques Perrin 98 Points

  France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

  Absolutely a point at the moment. This is the essence of the Beaucastel style, and is an untimate expression of the heights Mouvedre can achieve. While still tannic and rustic, the bottle has clearly reached a stage of maturity that combines extreme bottle age complexity with vibrant fruit. Wet tree-bark notes combine with black berry fruit, leather, undergrowth, mushroom, moss, earth, hung game, and provencal herbs. Beautiful modulated finish. This is clearly one of the great wines of the South of France. It is a poster child for what John Gillman writes about when he talks about the transparency to the soil that Beaucastel can develop with a couple of ecades or more of bottle age. Drink or give it another decade to send it into the "old bones" stage, only reserved for the greatest of wines. This (and most of the other wines opened over the weekend) amply demonstrate what can be achieved by cellaring age-worthy wine.

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• 2000 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Ermitage Cuvée Cathelin 97 Points

  France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage

  A rare privilege to drink what may well be a 100-year wine. At the age of 24, this is still so tightly wound and primary, although there is also plenty of bottle age apparent - it's just developing at a glacial pace!
  
  Dense purple, and (still) in a monolithic phase. So massive, and so expressive of Syrah - the blackberry fruit and black pepper notes are classic, but they are all still subsumed in a structure of huge and primary dimension. The nose develops very well over the evening, showing a variety of nuance, but they are simply hints of what will eventual come once the wine hits its ultimate expression.
  
  It is less-open than the regular cuvee - riper, richer, and very much in an opulent cult style, but it does not sacrifice the expression of terroir in favour of ripeness and intensity. It is less opaque tha it showed eight years ago, but I suspect that with this style of wine making, the transparency will come in (a long) time. Almost the definition of vin de garde.
  
  A very great wine and a privilege to drink, but I imagine its apex of perfection is between 10 and 20 years in the future!

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• 1994 Rolly Gassmann Gewurztraminer Oberer Weingarten de Rohrschwihr Sélection de Grains Nobles 92 Points

  France, Alsace

  Richly textured, very botrytis influenced. The Gewurtztraminer varietal expression is there if you look for them, but very much in the background of the botrytis. Beautiful texture, and absolutely mature. It will endure, but I believe it is at, or slightly past its peak. Great length, beautiful style, but while clearly an outstanding wine, is not a transfixing experience.

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