TN Midweek drinking Jan 23-26th

A day of annoyances so a couple of nice bottles, the Grappin Gravieres 2015 had some grapefruit pith and a touch of chalk, nice and lean and just felt very classy and right. Camille (autocorrected to Camisole) Giroud Santenay 17 was light, well done, cherry notes, to sing alongside some lamb minced thingies with mint and whatnot...Ottolenghi has View attachment 29682much to answer for.
Certainly a damn sight better than anything you'd drink at YO's restaurants!
 
NV Luis Pato Bruto Vinho Espumante Rosado Bairrada Port.

95% Baga and 5% M Gomes. $22 Cda, went well with oven roasted pork ribs, mushrooms and mashed potatoes.
Medium salmon color, some thought deeper. On the nose lime, berry, mushroom and earthy. Small mousse.
Dry for sure and could use more fruit I thought. Lemon, apricot and almonds. Brief notes, was having eyesight issues.
 
  • 2020 Domaine de Cassiopée Maranges Le Bas - France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Maranges (24/1/2023)
    Dark crimson red in colour. Rather dusty and firm tannins with serious structure that dominated the fruit at first, but with time the dark red fruit became more expressive and crunchy. For a supposed natural hipster wine, this tasted quite traditional and achieved a good balance. (91 pts.)

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  • 2020 Roses de Jeanne / Cédric Bouchard Champagne Blanc de Noirs Côte de Val Vilaine - France, Champagne (26/1/2023)
    Rounder than I expected for a Bouchard, but still balanced the ripe citrus fruit and acidity perfectly. Fantastic energy despite not having the greatest depth, I think the VV is consistently the most pleasurable wine in his range. As usual for these cultish wines, the correct price is somewhere in between the screaming bargain that it used to be at S$90 and the exorbitant market price of S$200 now - actually got it under that at 67PM. (92 pts.)

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Unable to attend Oz Wimps, as a consolation, cooked mushroom risotto & opened a house favourite. If there's a better producer of non-Italian Nebb I'd love to try it.
  • 2015 Luke Lambert Nebbiolo - Australia, Victoria, Port Phillip, Yarra Valley (26/01/2023)
    Maroon colour, bricking at rim; loads of Nebbiolo panache, lifted red fruits, complex; gamey, belies its 14.5% alcohol, sensual texture, tremendous inner core; harmonious finish. Extended. Drink now & next 10 years. (93 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker 4/6

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Dinner at 67PM on Wednesday with a friend who was also visiting London for the week.
He had not pre-ordered his wine from their cellar, and it took them an hour to find it, so we had a glass of Heitz Napa Cab 2014 on the house to accompany the usual Haggis Scotch Egg.
2006 Eisele Cab was really on form with the shared Cote du Boeuf, not a top vintage, but had a wonderful balance. Good tannin and primary fruit still to work with medium rare meat, yet the alcohol was comfortably in check and the tannins were super smooth.
 
I broke my Dry Jan for a one off - my wife's birthday lunch where we went to Noble Rot in Soho

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Roses de Jeanne, Cedric Bouchard Champagne Val de Vilaine 2019 Base
Second time trying Roses de Jeanne and maybe it was because this was my first sip of alcohol in ~4 weeks but this was superb.
Quite soft mousse but not excessively rounded, lovely ripe but tangy apple and a little citrus - still maintains good acidity. My wife loved it too which helps.
On getting home i went on a bit of an online hunt to find this for a decent price (as Melvin notes above it's become quite expensive on secondary at least). After a lot of searching I found one bottle of this and a couple of bottles of the Côte de Bechalin for not insane prices.



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Mascarello Barolo Vigna Santo Stefano Perno 2013
Again perhaps influenced by recent abstinence but this was absolutely cracking barolo - it played the hits of roses, tar, red fruit - ethereal but good depth of flavour and the tannins all behaving nicely. Delicious


My wife then had a glass of this but I only had a sip - seemed lovely too

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In summary perhaps "hunger is the best sauce" and the best part of a month off the sauce made all of these wines a real treat.


Back onto seeing the rest of dry Jan out and will have to take Feb 1st off too thanks to this small break.
 
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The end to a nice trip to Lyon and Beaune. Had both of these off the wine list in the restaurant of Hotel L’Abbaye. Thanks to @Christopher Piper for recommending the hotel which suited us well. The red was pretty good but way too young and irritatingly advertised as the 2008 vintage on the list (though they took a reasonable chunk off the price). The white was superb and lived up to its reputation.
 

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The end to a nice trip to Lyon and Beaune. Had both of these off the wine list in the restaurant of Hotel L’Abbaye. Thanks to @Christopher Piper for recommending the hotel which suited us well. The red was pretty good but way too young and irritatingly advertised as the 2008 vintage on the list (though they took a reasonable chunk off the price). The white was superb and lived up to its reputation.
Good morning Charlie, delighted that l'Abbaye came up to scratch. It really is an ideal place to stopover when in Lyon. Bon weekend!
 
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