This is excellent Kabinett, and a joy to drink once I got past my unreasonably high expectations from last year's Pettenthal Kabinett. It's still incredibly primary and youthful, and needs some air to pull itself together. Initial sips are all about bright fruit with a touch of florality, but air brings out more mineral and green herbal notes, and there's nice acidity on the palate giving it good balance and freshness.

This was a showstopper of a wine a few years ago when I last had it; hauntingly complex and at peak. Sadly this bottle seems a few years past peak. The aromatics are still brilliant, showing bright tropical fruit, exotic herbal and floral notes, and a touch of mature smokiness and petrol, but the palate is flat, tired, and the fruit there is faded. Alas. I'm at least glad I got to enjoy this a few years back when it was an incredible experience.

Well, there's my epiphany Corton-Charlemagne experience. This is a showstopper of a wine and a bottle I kept coming back to over and over again. The buttered popcorn notes that Adrian mentioned are here in spades, along with ripe citrus fruits, and a mineral undercurrent that emerges on the finish. It's a big, broad wine on the palate but never feels heavy or unbalanced, with the perfect amount of acidity and a finish that just goes on. Brilliant.

Stunning aromatics. It's a very tasty wine, but the wow factor here comes from the fragrance alone - a beautiful perfume of fresh red fruits, new oak, stemmy, spicy, and floral scents, and just a faint savoury earthy bass note. The palate sadly doesn't show the same depth as the aromatics, but it's still excellent and I had no complaints having this with the lamb empanadas.

I've had hit and miss experiences with this producer before, but this was excellent. Very fragrant with lots of spice and ripe red and black fruit on the nose, and a more savoury earthy edge on the palate, with some fine grained tannin clamping down on the back end. Very tasty now, though this gives the impression of having a lot of upside.

A touch more advanced than I'd like my 2011 white Burgs to be, but very enjoyable with plenty of rich white fruit, new oak, a touch of vanilla butter, and some chalky minerality. Has the richness and power I'd expect from a BBM, though the surprisingly deep colour and faint nuttiness on the nose are alarming.

Served blind. Grapey and lightly candied aromatics have me thinking this is Beaujolais, and Adrian's (disgusted) reaction confirmed it. Wasn't a fan of this.

Served blind, and clearly shows the hallmarks of Hermitage with its core of rich black fruit, grainy tannin, and plenty of weight on the palate. A touch of smokiness on the nose and the sense of finesse to the texture had me wondering if it was Chave, though it doesn't have the opulent and perfumed fragrance that I typically expect from Chave. Time in the decanter brings out more meatiness and savouriness, and this is drinking remarkably well considering its age.

This is classic Cornas; sauvage, meaty, bloody, rustic in both the flavour profile and the texture, and absolutely stunning. The fruit is still quite rich and vibrant and gets deeper and more intense with some air, but at every point, the savoury meaty and iron flavours are firmly in the foreground. It's unapologetically old school in style, still showing some grainy tannin and a touch of coarseness on the back end and without the finesse and delicate touch that some of the newer producers showcase. An incredible bottle, and a joy to drink.

Lightly corked. Bah, a real bummer as beneath there were still bright black olive and meaty notes apparent, and other bottles of this have been fantastic without the TCA.

Corked. GODDAMMIT.

A leaking bottle, opened to replace a corked '90 Klosterberg Kabinett. Rather advanced - deep gold in colour, with the cork protruding slightly, and not showing the clarity or finesse this wine should have.

Opened in a streak of off (corked/heat damaged bottles), and the most hideously corked bottle of them all. GODDAMMIT.

Thankfully, a replacement was not corked. This was classic Prum, with a whiff of sulfur still lingering in the aromatics, incredible minerality and freshness, and pale citrus and green apple fruit tinged with light herbal accents. A brilliant bottle of wine that kept getting more fragrant and complex when we kept going back to it later in the evening.

Phenomenal wine. Incredibly rich and dense with orange marmalade, apricot, honey, vanilla, and a tarter note of orange bitters on the back end, all coming together in the ripe, heavyweight package that I expect out of Yquem. It's a big wine with palate-staining intensity, but the balance here is excellent with surprisingly bright acidity, and the finish goes on for minutes.