Disgorged February 2014, 3.5 g/L dosage. Reminds me of the Laval that I had yesterday, which is, in my view, not a good thing. Lean, tart, and chalky, with some sour red fruits on the palate. Needs some body.

Lot 1011 (I believe; my handwriting is a little illegible). Ponderous, bready, and heavy. Mostly nondescript and boring. Lots of bread, but not much lift. Unoffensive, but there's so much good champagne out there, what's the point?

Served double blind. Very little acidity, with just a little bit of spritz on the palate. A little tropical and some high-toned aldehydic character. A lot of alcohol on the palate too. I guessed young Alsatian pinot gris; in fact, no one at the table got to GV, since this didn't have any clear green characteristics, and no one at the table had the "testicular fortitude" to call a wine that tasted like this GV.

Served double blind. I can't get past the lactic nose on this wine, and even weirder, the sour cream and onion chips flavour on the palate. Besides that though, there is good acidity and fruit here. I did manage to land in Chassagne, but thought this was a 2012 thanks to the riper, waxy fruit.

Served double blind. Light colour with lovely, crunchy red fruit on the nose. Delicate, pretty, and delicious, with red fruit on the palate as well. It's a very light wine with a hint of strawberry and some minerality -- had me going straight to Burgundy. Everything seemed to align with red Burgundy, in fact, I didn't pick up any volcanic sulphur aromas at all. Nevertheless, this is simply an incredibly delicious wine. I wonder how it'll age...

Served double blind. No signs of brett on this bottle; it was super clean and showed some clear notes of cabernet franc (and the earthiness and leafiness sent me to the Loire right away). The fruit here was filled out, and there was almost a slight sweetness to it that had me thinking this was probably a recent, riper year. I was surprised to find out that this wine came from a relatively older, leaner year.

Served double blind. I was wavering between Sancerre and Muscadet here and settled on the latter because I really didn't pick up any green sauvignon blanc notes here. On the other had, everything else seemed more Sancerre. There's a bit of white fruit on the nose and palate here, as well as just a hint of sweetness. The acidity and minerality isn't as bracing as I'd expect either. In any case, this is a tasty, rounded but lean wine, with good acidity and freshness.

Served double blind. A really intense wine, with lots of plummy fruit and a hint of barnyard. The palate I'm not particularly keen on, since it shows quite a bit of heat and alcohol on the back end. The fruit is sweet and there's a kirsch-like quality here. For what it's worth, I ended up in CdP for this wine. Imagine my surprise when it was revealed as Oregon pinot. It's not a happy result.

Served double blind. Seems like I had this wine over six years ago and disliked it a fair bit. Well, amazing what having it without a label does for you. Poopy, but not in an offensively overdone sort of way, and along with that is a generous amount of red and black fruit that's quite sweet. Touch of brininess as well. The palate is also quite plummy, but it's not overdone or hot here.

This has always been one of the few 2004s that I feel hides the green taint fairly well, but it's there if you're looking for it. Earthy with a hint of that weird brown spice that you get when that greenness ages. The palate again has that disjointed brown spice flavour, and the fruit is faint, but still present. It's clearly showing its age (this was served double blind to others, and everyone thought it was older). Slightly faecal on the palate, and a big bunch of acid. Drinkable, but more interesting than desirable.

This needs a lot of air. It was pretty underwhelming and headscratchy when I first opened it, but it certainly got better and more profound with air, and in the glass. Copious red fruit and spice on the nose and palate, there's almost nothing else here right now. With some time, the high-toned flavours seem to settle down a little bit, and that certainly also helps bring out the high pedigree of this wine. There's some real structure and good stuff hidden under the baby fat; it will need lots of time to show.

Served double blind. Mostly a mass of black fruit, it was not the easiest thing to get to northern Rhone on this wine. Medium minus poopiness. There's mostly spice, but not as much of the meat and brine as I'd like. Eventually I did get there, mostly from just the heavy spice flavours. I thought it was Cornas, but in hindsight, that probably wasn't a great guess since this didn't really have many feral characteristics.