Chateau Pape Clement 2012

We tasted this bottle the other night at supper with friends. One of them had fallen in love with this estate and had bought a few cases (of various different vintages, I suppose), and proceeded to share this bottle with us. Now I had blogged about this estate before and also visited it last May on our first visit to Bordeaux, right after the Lourdes pilgrimage. We liked the 2004 vintage and bought a bottle.

AS for this 2012, the wine was a nice deep ruby with a sweet acid fruity nose. The palate was sweet woody and plummy, seasoned with a good smattering of tannins, well supported by an acid tannic backbone.

Savigny -les-Beaune 1er Cru La Dominode

 

This was one of the wines from the recent PWC Burgundy Premier Cru (mostly) Dinner. It was one of the selections from the Wine Society wine list and I must confess to not knowing either the vineyard or the domaine. Savigny-les-Beaune is a commune near Beaune in the Cote d'Or, producing mainly red wines (85%).The vineyards are arranged up the sides of a valley in a V shape with the Beaune side producing more aromatic feminine wines and the Pernand Vergelesse side giving more robust musculine wine. The vineyard of La Dominode is right in the heart of the lieu dit Hauts-Jarrons and was named after a title of the Lord of Comblanchien and Savigny-les-Beaune.

The wine itself was a deep limpid garnet with a closed coffee fruity nose opening very slowly after pouring. The palate was sweet fruity and acid, supported by an acid (mouthwatering acidity) backbone with a touch of astringency.

Saint Mont

 

I saw this wine on the shelves of the Tesco joint venture supermarket chain here in Hong Kong. I had already blogged about their interesting wines before. Now Saint Mont is somewhat familiar yet not really an appellation that I am acquainted with. The familiarity stems from other named with Saint Mont of something similar in it (such as St Croix du Mont, an AC opposite Sauternes for similar nobly rotten sweet wines) Actually having found out that the AC is actually in the vicinity of Lourdes, I found that its previous incarnation (as the VDQS of Cotes de St--Mont) was mentioned in a previous entry, which incidentally used the same picture as the second ever entry in this blog. Listing a cepage of the two Mansengs with Arrufiac and Petit Courbu, I will ceretainly go back and buy a bottle to try.

PWC Burgundy (mainly 1er Cru) dinner

We had this wine dinner the other day, with a line-up of 7 wines from Burgundy, of which 5 are from various premier cru sites and one each from a village site and a grand cru site. The five premier crus are Chablis PC Mont-de Milieu, Montagny PC Le Vieux Chateau, Nuit-St-Georges PC Les Vignes Rondes, Savigny-les-Beaune PC La Daminodeand Morey-St Denis PC Clos Sorbe. The village wine was a Volnay from Olivier Leflaive and the Grand Cru was a Corton GC Bressandes from Tollot-Beaut.

The two whites were matched with crab cakes; some prefer the match with Cahblis, whilst others liked the Montagny better with the crab cakes. The reds were tried with duck breast and Iberian rack of pork. The pork did not seem to favour any specific wines but some interesting interactions came with the duck. The Morey-St-Denis became more fruity (specifically more strawberry with a leaning towards jam) with the duck and the Corton Bressandes was better with the Dauphinois potatoes, the letter becoming richer and more creamy! In all, the wines were good, with each showing some interesting aspects with the food.

Burmester LBV 2012

The New Medico-Legal Society had its AGM and Annual Dinner at the Club Lusitano the other day. At the conclusion of dinner, the above port was served. With its Portuguese connection, it would not be surprising if that was the "house port" of the Club. Burmester is not a port house that I am familiar with, and this may well be the first time I had tried its wines. The company was founded (with a Burmwster as one of the founders) as a cereal trading house in London in 1730 and moved to Vila Nova de Gaia in 1750 and began shipping port wine. It was acquired by Sogevinus in 2005, the latter being a group specializing in Ports and Douro wines. The above wine was a very dark ruby, with a spirity fruity slightly sweet nose. The palate was sweet acid and fruity, with an acid backbone with a touch of spirit heat.

The 2012 vintage of Penfolds 389

Although I have tasted Penfolds Bin 389 many times, I found that I have blogged about it once before. The last time was the 2000 vintage, and this time it was the 2012 vintage, tasted at the KCCWS AGM this year. Having a line up with Burgundies and some Italian wines, this number turned out to be the most blockbuster style of the lot and was tasted right at the end. It showed up well. This wine showed a purple ruby rim with a dark core, with a sweet acid berry nose. The palate was sweet with vanilla wood fruit and acid, well supported by an acid backbone.