My birthday

Blind tasting, of course!

Given the weather, everybody brought red. It reminds me of this passage in Ant and Bee Go Shopping by Angela Banner, where Ant and Bee and Kind Dog all go shopping to buy cakes, chocolate and fruit for a dinner party (and people wonder why all the English are pasty and pimply when they drum this sort of stuff into kids... It's almost as bad as the Bible...) After buying various cakes (Ant buys a round and flat cake, Bee buys a square and fat cake, Kind Dog buys a round and fat and square and flat cake made especially for dogs) and chocolates (Ant buys a chocolate mountain, Bee buys chocolate beans and Kind Dog buys a chocolate bone made especially for dogs [he he, chocolate bone – sounds like a dirty sexual position, like the Filthy Sanchez, or the Hot Lunch]), they end up buying fruit, and “they ALL bought plums”. (Angela must have been sick of the repetition of the “Ant bought X, Bee bought Y and Kind Dog bought Z made especially for dogs” formula. Repetitive, I’ll grant you, but not as bad as Alan Ginsberg’s Howl).

So, anyway, my birthday lunch: they ALL brought reds.

But who am I to complain – they were yummy. And here they are.

2003 Domaine Leon Vatan Sancerre Rouge “Les Pains Benis”
Brought by Justin, and prefaced with the comment “this is advanced blind tasting – but you should be able to get it”. I hate these prefaces (although I must admit I’m guilty of indulging in them myself) – they make one second guess oneself. Translucent mid red. Confected, jammy red fruits on the nose, it couldn’t really be anything but pinot noir (which of course it was). A hint of tomato leaf vegetation suggested its origin, although I wasn’t clever enough to pick up on it. Janet and I had it in Oregon, Sarah as Nuits St Georges, but there you go, Red Sancerre, who would have thought? And a nice one too – by no means mean, as I often find them.

1996 Mount Langhi Ghiran Langi Shiraz (Grampians)
Brought by me (as a result of the remainder of my wine collection finally being shipped over from Australia). This is a fantastic wine – my favourite of the day. Still deep red. Extremely savoury, peppery and meaty, with lush fruit, bell pepper and spicy oak underneath. Excellent balance. Everyone had it in the Northern Rhone (I can die a happy man now that I’ve convinced Oxford blind tasters that restrained, savoury wine does exist in Australia). A star. My great mate Nick Hildebrandt says he “doesn’t know what all the fuss is about” in relation to Mount Langhi (or at least he did in 2001) – but after 11 years it’s fantastic.

1996 Fojo (Douro Valley)
Brought by Sarah. I think I’ve noted this elsewhere. Perhaps unfortunately I had served the meal at this stage – a lamb and date tagine – and against the fruitiness of the dish it was rather thin. Shame really, it didn’t do this great wine justice.

1982 Chateau Bellegrave (Moulis en Medoc)
Brought by Janet. Classic claret, rusty rim. Clay minerality on the nose, showing developed cigar box and smoke on the nose, still presenting youthfully on the nose with underlying blackcurrant fruit, and very full, but with a distinct lack of fruit on the palate in favour of smoke and slate. I had it in St Estephe, and as young as 1996, but there you go. A delight.

1997 Cullen Cabernet Merlot (Margaret River)
Brought by me. Another triumph for the “oh my God it’s Australian” reaction. Dark red with a brick rim. Prune, dark chocolate, liquorice, tobacco, jam, dried fruits, cassis – very powerful. Meat and marmite, with a seductive bass-baritone weight. Janet’s favourite of the day – “when you’re on your third line of adjectives, you know it’s good”, she said.

1996 Chateau d’Armailhac (Pauillac)
Brought by me. “All right, so tell us where in Australia this one is from” said Sarah, rolling her eyes. Of course I wasn’t going to serve three Australian wines in a row, but what a reaction for serving classed growth Bordeaux! Everyone was pissed by this stage and had given up caring, but I thought it was bloody lovely. Deep red – dark fruit nose, crème de cassis, cherry, mint. Inky. Still tight, the highly integrated palate shows plum and a hint of cinnamon spice, with nervous tannin. Will keep for some years yet. Great stuff.