The wines from Friday night’s wine peeps gathering

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The wines from Friday night’s wine peeps gathering

So, we’ve seen the food from Friday night. Now the wines. Special shout out to Greg Sherwood for bringing along two older reds, which he served blind. They were both fabulous, and one was from my birth year, so it was extra special.

Champagne Taittinger Prelude Grand Cru NV, France
Richly toasty with nice citrus freshness. Powerful with nice intensity but also freshness and complexity. Lovely fizz. 92/100

Krug Grand Cuvée NV Champagne, France
I’ve had this bottle lying around for a while, and the extra age has been kind to it. Warm, toasty, complex and quite intense with nice citrus freshness under the toasty richness. Quite lovely. 94/100

Producteurs Plaimont L’Empreinte de Saint Mont 2009 Saint Mont VDQRS, Southwest France
Lovely wine: grapefruit, herbs and citrus with some pear fruit, too. Good concentration and lovely balance. 91/100

Producteurs Plaimont Le Faite 2009 Saint Mont VDQRS, Southwest France
Startling packaging. Very rich and nutty with spice and toast as well as some nice citrus and grapefruit characters. Tangerine, spice, citrus peel notes dominate. Intense and delicious. 92/100

Château Simone Blanc 2008 Palette, France
A remarkable Provencal white wine from this tiny appellation of Palette, in the south of France. This white blend is taut, precise and mineral with notes of spice, herb, grape and pear. Precise and understated, this is lovely, even though it doesn’t offer value for money. 93/100 (£30 Yapp)

Eric Morgat L’Enclos 2006 Savennières, Loire, France
A brilliant expression of Chenin blanc. Very rich and bold; toasty and herbal, with notes of spice and mineral under the ripe pear and apple fruit. Some peachy richness, even, and a hint of pepper. 94/100

Nyetimber Demi-Sec NV English Sparkling Wine
Dosage of 45 g/litre, the UK’s first demi-sec sparkler. Sweet, fresh and grapey with some zesty citrus notes. Ripe and rounded, this is properly sweet and might work with fruit desserts. Lovely purity. 90/100 (£34 Harvey Nichols)

Domaine Jean Allexant Beaune Grèves 1974 Burgundy, France
Quite old, but still very much alive with notes of herbs, cherry and spice. Warm and complex, with a lovely rounded, exotic quality to the fruit. So surprised to find a 1974 Burgundy offering this much pleasure. 90/100

Château Montrose 1967 Saint-Estèphe, Bordeaux, France
Dense, spicy and firm with black fruits as well as some earth and grippy tannins. Quite mature but still with life in it. Grippy, firm and angular. I was astonished when I found out it was a 1967: it must be one of the finest wines from this vintage, and this is a very good bottle. 89/100

Schubert Syrah 2007 Wairarapa, New Zealand
Spice, menthol and pepper notes on the nose, leading to a palate of black cherry and berry fruits with some tar. It’s a nice wine: I might have liked it a bit better a year or two ago? Ripe, fresh and grippy. 91/100

Bodegas Riojanas Monte Real Gran Reserva 2004 Rioja, Spain
This is lovely: cherry and plum fruit dominate, as well as some warm spice complexity and some grippy tannins. Lovely purity and focus. A traditional-styled Gran Reserva but a very good one, showing lots of fruit still. 92/100 (£23.99 Adnams)

Klein Constantia Vin de Constance 2007 Constantia, South Africa
Sweet, spicy, complex and raisiny with notes of tangerine, citrus and melon. Textured and intense with great freshness as well as the unctuous sweetness. Complex and interesting. 95/100

Prelude a l’Hivernal 2010 Pacherenc de Vic Bihl, Southwest France
Deep orange/gold in colour. Rich, warm and bold with marmalade and citrus pith characters as well as sweet citrus and some spiciness. A fresh, assertive sweet wine of many layers. Distinctive style. 91/100

4 Comments on The wines from Friday night’s wine peeps gathering
wine journalist and flavour obsessive

4 thoughts on “The wines from Friday night’s wine peeps gathering

  1. Jamie, Chateau Simone is indeed a wine from the Palette appelation. However it is located in Provence, not the Languedoc, being situated just east of Aix-en-Provence. Worth a visit, the vineyards sit below the spectacular Mont Sainte Victoire.

  2. I’m not as surprised as you were about the Montrose – I had the 1969 about fifteen years ago and it was astonishingly good.

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