- Location
- London
My Friday evening got off to a bad start. What was I thinking? Ch. Ducru Beaucaillou 1986. Bound to be corked, like the last eight bottles from this case. So I switched to my back up bottle. Robert Chevillon NSG Cailles, 2006, the wine TWS says is already over the hill! Well the last bottle was painfully young, and this bottle was terribly corked. Much worse than the Ducru. In my frustration I reached for a bottle of VillaBogdano 1880: Refosco Lison Pramaggiore Riserva 2017, 13% abv, from Veneto. This redolent and resplendent wine, predominantly merlot, was certainly not corked and was a pleasure to drink. This estate is owned by one of my Italian work colleagues and is a World Heritage site.
On Saturday we drank my last, or possibly penultimate, bottle of Michel Niellon Chassagne Vergers 2014, an absolute superstar and stalwart throughout and on top form with spicy prawns from M&S. During the week, curiosity killed the cat and I opened Grasso Tiziano Barolo Briccolina, 2013. All I would say is that this is an impressive big-framed Serralunga. Watch this space. Meanwhile back to the Ducru 1986: turns out it wasn’t corked. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. I was expecting it to be corked and, even though I thought it was, its strong performance on days two and three showed it wasn‘t. This is a fully mature Ducru showing plenty of secondary and tertiary evolution, but also structure to age for another decade or more.
On Saturday we drank my last, or possibly penultimate, bottle of Michel Niellon Chassagne Vergers 2014, an absolute superstar and stalwart throughout and on top form with spicy prawns from M&S. During the week, curiosity killed the cat and I opened Grasso Tiziano Barolo Briccolina, 2013. All I would say is that this is an impressive big-framed Serralunga. Watch this space. Meanwhile back to the Ducru 1986: turns out it wasn’t corked. It was just my mind playing tricks on me. I was expecting it to be corked and, even though I thought it was, its strong performance on days two and three showed it wasn‘t. This is a fully mature Ducru showing plenty of secondary and tertiary evolution, but also structure to age for another decade or more.