Laurent-Perrier Champagne Cuvée Rosé Brut – fresh, creamy feel, clean acidity and excellent fruit – great way to start a meal. A favourite.
2017 Carmen DO Quijada Semillon – this Colchagua Semillon was pleasant with good acidity, a typical varietal character with faint notes of roasted nuts and lemon peel. Lacked the oily heaviness of this varietal often seen from certain other Southern hemisphere areas.
Next up was a mini vertical of a Margaux wine, Ch. du Tertre.
1982 – at first the colour was redder in this wine, rather a middle Burgundian colour, Classic clean nose, sweet entry, and some lovely secondary notes. A classic mature claret in good shape, that didn’t fade in the glass over an hour or so.
1983 – initially a bit more brown in this one although after 30-40 minutes there was no difference between them. Mellow, seemed less concentrated with more fading fruit and a nice mature nose. But then this wine changed with exposure to oxygen and took on weight, the colour improved as did the balance as it seemed to become sweeter. In the end, I slightly preferred the 82, but it was a fascinating exercise. I had owned the 82 since release.
After dinner, a bonus wine that my host had opened and put on Coravin the day before As it happened, I had just bought some of this for the cellar, untasted, so it was great fun to get a first whack at it.
2015 Fontodi Flaccianello della Pieve – dark red all the way to the rim, and with an excellent nose of fruit and spice with some alluring cocoa overtones. There is significant tannin, but they are relatively soft and do not interfere with the tasting experience. Ample to lavish sweet fruit on palate and great length in the smooth finish. The best young sangiovese I have tasted in a good while. And locally, a reasonable price for a change as they have just reduced it in the local monopoly to about 1/2 of the price on the 2016 which got 100 points awarded by a couple of critics and is unlikely to drop from there for a long while!