Lovely delicate, fragrant Rhone wine. Polished leather and strawberries. Perhaps a bit dilute, but good for drinking now. ***
Liquorice, cherry fruit. Simple and coarse at the finish. **
Thin and completely uninspiring. *
Rough. No Stars
Big, fat, textured Chardonnay - nuts and butterscotch. A slightly odd metallic/cardboard finish, but probably ***
A blind tasting, other than the fizz, which included five vintages of Cote Rotie Brune et Blonde from Guigal.
Surprisingly young feeling and drinking well, but without any great complexity. A good ***
Charming, violet-fragranced nose. Classic Guigal Cote Rotie. ****
Good grip and a touch of rusticity on the length. VA showing through. On the downhill slope. Just ****
Just about holding together - drying out a touch at the finish. Not as good as I thought this would be.  A good ***
In your face wine - rather obvious and simple (although some structure did begin to show through). ***
Some volatility, and all over the place on the nose and palate. It did come together more with time. ***
Gummy nose, merlot-style sweetness. Good wine, but not in a style I was expecting. ****
Hot on the palate, but good balance with some maturity. ***
This has a Rhonish air to it, feels quite young, but it is also a bit simple. ***
Liquorice. Fruit beginning to dry out. **
Good sweetly fragranced wine. Drink now. Top ***
A big nose of public swimming pools - bizarre (some might say funky). *

Very vinous - Burgundy with bubbles, to some extent and so a bit much in some ways.  I suspect it needs time to mellow - it will be interesting to see how this develops (this bottle was disgorged only last year).   If all goes well ***(*)
All quite refined and delicate, appley pinot fruit, autolytic flavours. Another fairly recent disgorgement after 4 years in cellars (credit the producer for an excellent back label), it just seems a bit lacking in intensity despite the obvious quality. Perhaps this will develop but for now a good ***
Good fruit - nice acidity. Pretty intense although it seems quite evolved for a young wine - I fear it may go down the Ozzy route of rather early flabby kerosene flavours.  Top  **
Curiously Sauvignon-like - quite rich. Odd balance - people were saying this is a vineyard Huet took on and then abandoned. Good wine but it doesn't seem to have the class of their major wines. A low **(*)
Pretty nice.   Clean, rich, yet decently taught.  A credit to the appelation. Bare ***
A weak cork and a rather oxidised bottle - one sips for a while but then abandons it. I have had much better. Not Rated
Very light and delicate - decent but a bit attenuated. I have had better bottles.  ***
Dry, savoury, quite succulent. Pleasantly high-toned, nervy, and a bit awkward.  A wine with a sense of place and hence enjoyable. ***
Curiously quiet, but concentration and fruit quality are all there.  Maybe just in a dull phase - perhaps it would have shown better decanted and allowed a little air.  ***
Leafy, dry, decent balance. Good wine but I doubt it's going anywhere much.  Pleasant, and perhaps it would reward further attention.  **
Quite baked, decent concentration - slightly hot finish. I recall having had better from this producer.  **
Refined, smooth sweet (to a controlled extent) - very drinkable. Forward fruit but with the balance to hold it - the best of the New World reds, to my palate. Top ***
Huge monster - alcohol gets up my a nose and in my throat rather.   I find this a bit much. Returning to it later it seemed to have mellowed quite a bit  and to be a substantial wine in its way, although I find it hard to decide about it. Many will admire this, and I may too given time to consider it - I had it eight and a half years ago and was impressed.  I think I'll reserve judgement for now. Not Rated
A bit anonymous in some ways, but very nicely poised fairly concentrated dessert wine - from the South of France somewhere, I guess. I suspect this would repay more attention and on that basis ***
Beautifully refined.  Complex, elegant, long with the amazing precision so typical of the producer. Lovely.   ****
Eccentric - very rancio - complex and interesting - I need more time with this but for now  ***

Raspingly dry, mineral, appley, severe, touch of honey developing, long.  ***(*)
Very fresh, lifted, aromatic. Top *
Dry, clean, unassuming. Touch of spritz. *
Fruity, peachy. Dry again. More richness. Nice sense of place. I could even think of ***
Quite mouthfilling - dry, fruity. Nice.  **
Soft, cigar cassis fruit - sweet finish. Pleasant. Nice condition. ***
Soft blackcurrant fruit - with tannic background that starts to show in the midpalate. Odd balance. **
A bit stinky at first - resolves - tar roses but the common old Barolo oxidativeness.  Tarry - quite hard work. Actually probably good. Top ***
Rich again - gamy animal dry - could do with long decanting.  Bare ****
Dark orange. Very barley-sugar - nice balance - appetizing finish. ***
Slightly lighter, fruitier.  Slightly oily textured. Bare ***
A bit faded, pleasant, lightweight. Bare ***

Charming tempranillo sweet strawberry nose. Good balance and elegant. A good ***
Modern stuff, rather lacking depth and complexity. **
At peak or just over. Rather like a decent Cotes-du-Rhone, with a rustic edge. ***
Pretty awful - very soft and commercial. Confected. *
A couple of wines from a big bash at an Edinburgh hotel.   It's a good idea once in a while to remember where the baseline is.
Clean, pretty dry, but low on real concentration. A respectable  No Stars
Clean again, clearly rather dilute, quite leafy and a touch of (not necessarily bad) green-ness. Again a respectable No Stars
Each done as a vertical - single blind
A slightly embarrassing start to the evening with people thinking this was vintage (1990 or 1996), possibly Krug, possibly Billecart. Lovely wine whatever. A touch of pink on the colour - a blush to cover our blushes. Elegant, good length and fine balanced acidity. A really good, cheap (under 15) fizz. ****
Mature with Grenache cherry showing through. Charming nose. Slightly simple on the palate. A good ***
Slightly flat liquorice nose. More depth than the 98. Closed up and allowing the alcohol to  show through, but I think this will come together well. ***(*)
A touch gummy and with a hint of leather. Drier than many. Robust. ****
Youthful (obviously the youngest wine of this flight). Powerful wine with lovely softy tannins at the end. **(**)
Past its peak, although still very drinkable. Fruit is starting to dry out and a touch of volatility is appearing. **
This vintage had a juiciness about the fruit that was lacking in the other wines, but was also maturing well - at an in-between phase I guess. ***
Corked. Not Rated
Green tannins, dry at the end, a long, soft, not that pleasant leathery length. ***
Vegetal blackcurrant. Soft and not together. **
Very young and closed. Minty. But does it have the structure? ***
A stinky nose to start with. Leather, and just beginning to dry out. ***
a touch vegetal, and some volatility. Just ***
a bit of blackcurrant, clean and nicely together. A top ***
Some thought this stunk rather. I thought it the finest wine of this flight. Lovely fragrant mature Shiraz nose. At peak. Good. ****
Toffeed, bit dry, volatile. No Stars
Cream crackers on the nose (no that's not rhyming slang). Vanilla. Simple. ***
Quite acidic, some fruit. A solid ***
Corked. Not Rated
Simple cherry fruit and acidity. Rustic at the end. ***
Sweet maturity. At peak. A top ***
Very slight almost unnoticeable spritz, but otherwise mature and together and pleasant drinking. A top ***
Young and closed, but seemed a bit simple. **(*)

On the whole, well made stuff, but there does seem to be an odd dull metallic note to the wine. Otherwise there is soft, well-balanced fruit. **
A good, fruity, balanced drink. Pleasant food or quaffing wine.***
The usual Penfold's style - well made, and with a touch of volatility helping with the balance. ***

Dry, clean, nice piney (is that allowed?)  spicy perhaps is better. Reasonable complexity once it has warmed up above the icy temperature at which it was served. Decent length. Top **
Nice white-pepper spicyness - balanced and long - the extreme nature of the vintage less apparent than I feared.  **(*)
Honied - interesting green-tinged high-toned fruit.  Bone-dry and rather nice.  Time to drink though. Bare ***

Fresh, grassy, a bit vegetal.  Fruity and a touch sweet.  Top *
Drier, quite intense.  Hints at almonds and lime. **
Slightly corked. Not Rated
A touch reductive/sulphury.  Forward fruit - pleasantly dry.  Top **
Nice intensity. Aniseed. Fades a touch.   Good value. ***
A touch of ginger.  Rounded fruit like a top-class Macon.  Nice intensity and clean, pretty dry palate.  Very good.   ***(*)
Intense pure cassis, ripe with some quite dry succulent tannins.  Fairly sweet impression on the palate. **
Sickly toffee-fudge nose. Sweet fruit.  I don't like this. *
Sweet soft-drink fruit.  It expands a bit but I still find it too soft.  For somebody who likes the style: ***
Very sweet, some mushroomyness but so sickly - might almost be a desert wine.  I really don't want to drink this. I can't even bring myself to give it stars on an "if you like this sort of thing" basis. No Stars
Quite sweet - very soft fruit. Herby and lifted. Decent *
Still a bit soft for my palate - has Mt E always been this easy?  Certainly the best of the three. Bare ***
Almost Madeira-like.   It suffered a bit on serving - it was rather sedimenty. Pleasant but fading a bit. **
Almost dry - nice, but no better than  it should be given the reputation of the vintage.  ***

Very classic cedary, mature Claret nose.  Classic on the palate too, but there is an air of living dangerously, of corruption, and a general hint that the wine will crack up.  Really needs food now and probably should be drunk in the next year or two.  ***
Classic again on the nose, but a rather fresher, more stable palate with complex multi-faceted fruit.   Once open for an hour or so it becomes fragrant and high-toned.  Drinking well and no hurry to consume.  ****
This was one of three Chapel Down wines (and a few refreshing and pleasing bottled beers) supplied by the winery.
I don't get to try an awful lot of Bacchus nowadays, although way back I used to attend the English Wine Fair and try samples there. I can't say I miss it much. This wine is floral, grapefruity and with hints of sauvignon-like flavours. Strangely for a cleanly made 11% white wine, it isn't the sort of stuff you want to drink a whole bottle of - it's not unpleasant, just that the acidity and fruit somehow manage to dull the tastebuds. Hopefully the Champagne style Pinot that was also sent will be more interesting. *
Does wine travel well? This Champagne seems to have. Packing the car recently, I opened up one of the underfoot storage compartments to pack a bottle of fizz when I found - to my surprise - a bottle already in there. This, I worked out, had been in the car for the last couple of months (going everywhere the car went - a thousand miles or so - in the cold and in the warm). Unfortunately I didn't have another, untravelled bottle of this around for comparsion.
Lovely fizz, with good nutty steely age on the palate. Fine depth of flavour, although the palate does tire very slightly at the end. Really on very good form. ****

Good fruit and depth of colour. Very obvious new oak on the palate. Good drinkable modern wine. ***

Fragrant, dry palate, quite meaty and serious.  Time to drink I guess - it will never be soft and the fruit is fully mature.  Rather enjoyable. ***
I don't often drink village Chablis. This is a good example of what you get from a good one: all the stony minerality and dryness of a premier cru but just a bit less intense and refined.   Best with food. **
Seems a bit thin and mean straight from cellar, but when it warms up its fantastic: dry and succulent but with intense strawberry fruit and a bit of beetroot in the mouth.   Quite structured - it will probably improve a bit yet. Am I being overgenerous with ***(*)
Quite tight and lean,   I wondered a bit whether it wasn't a little thin when judged by the highest standards, but while not an absolute star, more and more emerged with some breathing.   Very well-defined hazelnut fruit and taut acidity.  Excellent wine with no sign of the problems that plague some wines in this vintage.  Top ***
Lovely bright, crisp red fruits.  Excellent concentration and balance, great fruit but bone dry.  Just a lovely village wine, I thought at first - but after some time to breath it seemed to have complexity and interest beyond that.  Top ***
Top, top quality. Creamy fruit,  lean, complex and mineral - with only a slightly reduced intensity and length reflecting the modest vintage. ****
Very good village wine - good fruit and the fine acidity of the vintage. Delicious. A good ***
Quite rich, forward, exotic fruit.   Drinking nicely.  This bottle had been forgotten in a freezer overnight, and then thawed - didn't seem to have done much damage, and as my host remarked it's an easy way of opening the bottle. **
Pure, quite mineral,  the fact that this is a "no new oak" wine very pleasingly evident.  Quite a lot of richness to the fruit too, specially once it had been open for half an hour.   Could probably do with a couple of years and might age well for longer.   Nice wine.  Bare ***

Understated, quite complex, but a little flat and dominated by a caramel/toffee overlay that I'm not keen on.   Being a Tempier fan I was expecting a lot from this, but on this showing I'm not wildly keen. **
Dull, very deep-coloured and tending to oxidation.  Nothing like a couple of other halves of this from the same lot which were lovely.  An early case of "poxy white Burgundy" or just a dodgy cork? Not Rated
Attractive and drinkable, but lacking the mineral complexity of the Launois NV drunk recently. ***
Pleasant mature rieslong - needing drinking fairly soon. Bare ***
Writing up my notes from visiting D-J in Rully persuaded me to open this, brought back from their cellars.
Bright, attractive and authentic, but lacking any special buzz.  I wrote that on initially drinking a glass or two: returning the following night this has opened out and is showing lovely minerality.   Scrapes ***(*)

From a magnum (well it was New Year's Eve). I think I've had this bottle for five plus years. Lovely stuff - beautifully balanced. Could still have used a few more years. A very easy ****

Deep colour, very yeasty nose and honied appley fruit with bags of mushrooms. Evolved. Quite bold and rich.  Long and delicious, provided you like the meaty, not so elegant, Bollinger style - it's not everyones glass of bubbles.  Top ****
Quite elegant but rich (some botrytis perhaps).  Very fine.  ***(*)
Mineral, nice fruit, dry and taught.  Starting to drink nicely.  Bare ****
Deep colour, rather lovely, gentle, long, mellow, nutty and delightful.  Some say a little lacking poise or complexity but I quite like it.   ***
Pure, quite light and aetherial (the vineyard perhaps).  Nice length and texture. Pleasingly little oak. Still improving but may be won't merit another star.  Pretty good.  ***
Dusty, quite large but dry. Tending towards baked (typical of the vintage) - a little chunky. Still pretty good. Quite a Clarety style of Burgundy. Bare ***(*)
Closed at first, but opens out - lovely pure raspberry fruit. High-toned. Very long. Needs a few more years to peak.  ****(*)
Dry, nice, savoury,  but time to drink.  Top ***
Colour tending to brown.  Quite animal,  rich and decadent - fades a bit in the glass and rapidly becomes cloying. **
Amazing dense young colour. Floral, mineral, tobacco. Iodine finish.  Very fine indeed.  *****
Mineral nose, rich cherry fruit hot iron finish.  Fantastic interest - packed with ripe tannins. Great balance - but lots of potential. Top ****(*)
Very easy, silky, forward. Touch of class.  I would like to try this from a stronger vintage and with a bit of age. ***
Apricot fruit, creamy texture and flavour. No great complexity (typical  of Eiswein).  Lovely acidity. Bare ****
As it opens up, rather fine - raspberry fruit, touch of chocolate, a bit spirity towards the end.  Moderate weight now. Top ****
Very fresh, lots of fizz. Touch of yeast, etc - a touch shorter and less weighty than the Bolly.  In spectacularly good condition and with fine, precise bready flavours. Lovely Top ****

From a half. Its usual reliable self - fine bubbles and good medium-weight balance. ***
From a half. Simple and charming. I love claret like this, especially when the purpose of the evening is purely social rather than wine related. This is at peak and a pleasure to drink. ***
OK stuff with decent fruit. A touch coarse. **
Beautiful. Especially after a bottle of indifferent Prosecco drunk with candied(?) hibiscus flowers in the glass. The Lynch-Bages is elegant, and suggests an inner depth that is not at present fully forthcoming. Hints of peach kernel and tempered steel. ****
Poor alongside the Lynch-Bages. Too soft and undemanding. ***
This needs a bit more time. Good structure and supple tannins - medium length. A good ***

Brought round by a friend for a Sunday lunch. A slight whiff of the farmyard when first opened, but this cleared to reveal a light-to-medium weight claret with classic cigar box. ***

Rich vanilla fruit, excellent concentration.  Not the last word in elegance and the mousse is a bit coarse - but overall a splendid wine.  At least a good ***(*)
Fruitcakey Claret, quite big and robust - seems a little woody at first but returning a day later it's clean, nicely-toned mature wine.   Chunky and in the final analysis not that complex, but good. ***

Vanillan, lovely mousse,  very elegant.  Understated class. ****
Rich, good riesling character, quite a lot of residual sugar.  Good in its way. ***
Lovely fresh fruit.  Complex, delicate nose. Falls off a bit in the mouth.   Opens out with some air and holds up well on returning after the other wines.  This is one of their lesser wines - it's a credit to the property. ***
Rich, lively, smoky, very nice. Less fine than the Cubillo but richer.  (From a half.) ***
Inky, tannic, plummy, a bit baked. Lovely secondary characters merging.  ***(**)
Suaver, rounder, suggestive of Pomerol.  Pure and a touch  higher-toned than the Barton.  Not ready but a bit shorter-term too. Top ***(*)
Terribly refined, mature Claret. Great breed and balance.  I sometimes find Pichon just a little too suave and lacking edge for my tastes, but this is a super wine. ****
Nice old nose. A touch of tea - good but doesn't develop on the palate. Creamy vanilla.  Just a bit rubbery but that becomes less noticeable as it opens in the glass. ***
Gamy,mineral yet edgy and unbalanced.  Interesting yet also slightly flawed. Possibly a dodgy bottle.  Top  ***
Rich, limey fruit.  Young-seeming. Apple finish. Excellent - marred ever so slightly by a raw woody background.  Top ***
A touch pruney and hard - opens up a bit but remains  a bit unsatifyingly remote.   I would expect more.   ***
Fresh, fragrant raspberry nose. Fine, elegany, light palate. Joyfully lovely. *****

Elegant as always, silky-testured drinking wine.  but I don't feel this has the power for long-term evolution that (say) the 1990 has.  Drinking nicely now. Top ***
Drinking (from a half) really beautifully now.  A delight. ****
I recall being a bit disappointed last time I drank one of these magnums.   This one however is delightful, mature, berryish St Emilion.   Breed and balance to the fore.  Very good drinking. Top ***

Initially modern, rich, almost flashy.  Later, gamy.  Not sure what to make of this - it's not like the Vallana wines of old but it is quite substantial. Top  **
Pure, luscious. Not really a keeper on this showing.   Top ***
Funky, showing age, substantial but odd. ***
Nicely integrated, a touch sweet and easy perhaps but high quality. Top ***

Fragrant nose with a tar underlay.  High-toned, pure yet quite gutsy tannins too.  Persistent on the finish with chocolatey notes.  It's pretty tightly wound still and a bit enigmatic.  My guess is a bare ***(*)

Clean, dry, attractive. Very drinkable. **

Very pure, high-toned yet silky fruit.  Somewhat in the Burgundian style but with roses, tar and chocolate and noticable but ripe Nebbiolo tannins.   On the other hand it has that floral scentedness of proper old-fashioned Bordeaux.  Doubtless worth keeping a few years but it is so well-made it is a pleasure to drink now. Top ***

Perhaps starting to tire a bit nice fruit, quite dry-seeming now with a bit of Pfalzy weight and a hint of hardness.  Pleasant enough. **

Yeasty, quite meaty. Rich. Needs a few years.  I haven't had a recently purchased bottle of Pol for a while and was surprised by its weight. Good though. ***
Lovely sous-bois and blackberry  nose,  silky fruit, ripe (in the modern style) with succulent, tannins.   Rather classy in a fairly modern way. (A quick thrash onGoogle reveals this one some sort of IWC trophy - I can understand that.)  Not entirely my sort of thing but still perhaps worth a bare ***(*)
Iodine and iron, rich, decadent, fleshy.  Fruitcake fruit.   Good, and time to drink. Bare ****

Tight acidity, fine and intense.  I've been a bit up-and-down about this wine but I'm sure I like this bottle. Perhaps even ****
Quite big, a touch flabby, rather evolved and vegetal. I'm not sure what combination of producer, vintage and possibly premature oxidation accounts for this, being unfamiliar with the first two factors in this case.   Still pretty drinkable.  Bare ***
Lightweight, feminine and fragrant although with quite a hard core running through it that suggests drinking with food.  Modest acidity, and so I am not sure how long this is for keeping.  Very pleasant but without real distinction at the highest level. Top ***
Not very striking.  **
Herby nose, quite tight and nicely balanced for the vintage. ***
Juicy, succulent, a touch of minerality.  Very good: drinking but will probably improve a bit yet.  ***
An attractive combionation of piquant high-toned fruit with a lovely rounded ripeness.  Very good - for drinking over the next few years, I think. Top ***
(Domaine de la Bon Gran) Rather rich, touch of botrytis probably, pretty good. ***
Really nice - quite forward as the producers wines tend to be, quite big but in balance.   No hint of the problems of the vintage.  Top ***
The second bottle of H. Lignier 1er cru from this vintage I have tried recently.  This is so pure, digestible and generally fine, but understated - it doesn't shout and it doesn't have a particular note of individuality for me.   Yet it is a complete wine that I like a lot.   Beginning to drink well, but not a long-haul wine.   Top ***

Notably off-dry still, very fresh with rounded, attractive fruit. Good. ***
Lovely apple and cream nose, slightly honied and a touch of yeast.  Fine mousse too. Lovely.  A 93/94/95 blend I believe.   Top ****
That old Rioja nose of nuts and mushrooms and something slightly medical - lovely. Very fresh, nicely rounded fruit.  Ultimately I suppose not complex enough to be a great wine but rather good. Bare ****
Good intensity, the fruit has a distinct character: mineral, not fruit-driven, something almost secondary about what is surely primary fruit.  Very engaging.  Top ***
Very gentle, completely resolved, pleasantly enjoyable. ***
All very lovely, but despite the deftness of the touch of new barriques, I feel it lacks the crystaline purity of his other wines. ***
An enigma: that slightly "flat" souuthern-French palate, but with air an engaging herby nose. Is it going anywhere?  I'm not sure. Top **
Lovely cherry fruit. Very attractive. ***
Good Syrah character, fruit-driven but not to the point of undrinkability.  Pleasant. Scrapes **
Substantial and weighty, notable botrytis, interesting palate but perhaps tending towards rustic.  This was just a taste -I'd be interested to try more. ***
Fruit still has a lot of primary blackcurrant but the structure seems resolved so I guess this is for drinking now.  Creamy, some cigar-box, all in all attractive fruit, but a little too undemanding to rate a really high score. Top ***
I guess I could get used to this trocken business:  this has good fruit and is bone-dry without being harsh.  Still fairly moderate alcohol at 12%, the overall balance is good.  A year or two short of its peak, I suspect. ***
Blackberry fruit, some oak I think - quite tannic perhaps from the oak. Modern-style. **
An interesting expression of the Langhe, if with a modern tinge of new oak. Everything Conterno makes iselegan and drinkable and this is no exception. On the other hand I can't feel it is ultimately distinguished in the way that his Barolos are.  A mix of four grape varietoes including Nebbiolo. Bare ***
Round berry fruit, quite a lot of blackcurrant, some tobacco.   Very nice mature Claret, if tending slightly towards the rustic - lacks the fineness of a top wine. Good though. ***
Quite spritzy initially but the next day that had dissipated and the honeysuckle Soave charcter and pure fruit very evident.  Good length too. Top **(*)
This is better every time I try it - class will out and I think it is Le Mesnil fruit that is giving it such minerality and complexity. Delicious. ****
My last bottle of this.  It's really a relaxed, fully mature, attractive and balanced wine.  Enough complexity to be interesting and the primary fruit that I remember being rather excessive years ago is now nicely in balance.  Very good.  I notice in passing that it is a relativel modest 12.5% alcohol. ***
Very classy, pure, blackberry and apple fruit.   Demanding but ripe tannins, very succulent.   Really good Dolcetto. ***
Spritzy from dissolved CO2 I guess.  Excellent richness of fruit, intensity and length.   Nice sweetness balanced by really good acidity. At least ***(*)
Lovely bright appetising Mosel wine, yet with a rich fruitiness. Very attractive. Top ***
The second time I've tried this recently.  It's an Ozzie-like Cabernet Syrah blend but with a very unozzie dry palate.   Seems to get better the longer it is open. Fine wine. ***
A dry dark Oloroso-like palate - what a P.C. ought to have I guess but I often find them more Amontillado there too as well as on the nose.  Rather good.  15 years old according to their web site.   Top ***

Spicy riesling petrolly nose. Pretty dry - good length.  But fairly simple and light.   *
Again petrolly - rather richer.   Quite good concentration. Dry.  I wonder how this will go given it is already so petrolly.  **
Honey and caramel. Butter.  Less intense on the palate. Good **
Less ambitious and benefits from that - in fact reasonably concentrated and intense. ***
Unusually intense vanilla nose. Damp straw - quite heavy-textured.  **
Honied and rich. Charred nose and oily fruit.  Big and long.  Impressive in its way (which is not my way). Bare ***
Berry nose.  Oddly rasping finish. **
Minty.  Similar - finishes a bit abruptly.  **
Minty.   A bit toffeed. High-toned. I'm not wild about this.   **
Liquor blackberries. Medium-weight palate - oddly bitter finish. Might be going to be rather good. (I keep getting this wine in situations where I can't sit back,drink a couple of glasses and think about it.  I must try and do that at some point.) ***
Dry, pure, well-made. Balanced. ***
Liquour raspberry again.  A bit thick. Softer and lacking the attack of the 2001. **
Hints at mint again.  Oddly twisty. Yet more balanced than the Chileans. **
Quite fresh, fruity, straw-like. High-toned. Rather nice.  ***
Pleasant and gracefully old - perhaps going a bit flat.  Top **
I spent the day moving paving slabs (heavy and intense) and making fish stock (light and intense). The stock was poured over some cod, sea bass, spinach and creme fraiche (this isn't Fine Wine Dairy, but it does pay to get decent creme fraiche) and then baked in the oven with a little grated parmesan. Stroganoff, excellent cheeses from the Cambridge Cheese Company and a passion fruit tart from Maison Blanc in Oxford (that my daughter was very passionate about) followed.
Good fizz which is perhaps just beginning to tire. Medium weight and with a hint of oxidation. Top ***
Rather simple after the de Venoge - lighter weight. Some complexity emerges after a while in the glass. ***
This was the sort of bottle you would avoid even on the most generous of bin-end offers: the label stained and some evidence that the wine was seeping through the cork and dribbling down the capsule. However, the wine inside was lovely. This was as tight a Riesling as you could hope to taste with classic minerality and finely tuned acidity. A really fine effort with time ahead. ***(*)
One of those wines where the first sniff tells you that you are in the presence of something special. Glorious sweet St Julien fruit with a palate that is on first taste deceptively simple. None of the typical Talbot whiff of the barnyard' that Broadbent notes, but rather, on this showing, a wine of great purity and lasting structure. Superb, and at a glorious peak. *****
From magnum. I guess this was always going to be a come down after the previous wine (I rather naughtily tasted them in this order when others at the table were more conventional in their drinking order). This is reliable stuff that is drinking well with its tarry, coffee and chocolate overtones. Good claret that, enjoyable though it is (I am drinking it whilst typing these notes), gets relegated, for now, to the luncheon division. A good ***
From a half. Delicious and aging rather well. Good apricoty acidity and with a sweetness that is verging on being oversweet, but which is contained within the framework of the wine. I think this will age into something truly great. ****(*)

Showing its age with a tendency towards maderisation but very drinkable with yeasty rich fruit and good length. ****
Like a Viognier almost, nicely intense. Top **
Pure black-cherry fruit in profusion. Good concentration and so on, with a slightly cassis character that seems quite common in modern wines.  How will this age I wonder? Probably quite well although the whole package is a bit soft for my taste.  Top ***
Fragrant, lightweight (a very poor vintage of course), no very great length, needs drinking soon but it still has lovely minerality and is very stylish.  Top ***
Meatier, longer and generally a bit more substantial than the 93 with a slight bitterness on the finish that will probably ease further although the wine must be close to peak. Again so individual and so much a terroir wine.  I love it. Bare ****
Backward, dense but fragrant and long.  Coming towards peak.   Really lovely. ****(*)
This has rather a baked fruit character that I am not so keen on.  It is hard to taste against great wines like the Gentaz, but only a top **
Fragrant, dry and long.  More mineral and complex than the other Ogier wines.   Really lovely and should be drunk on its own away from the Gentaz wines that tend to upstage it. ****
An absolute star that could even benefit from another year or two.  Tremendous weight, and concentrated minerality but all in balance.  Fantastic.  Top *****
Needs a swirl or two in the glass but characteristic Cote Rotie violets emerge.   Very good. Top ***
This has a solid core of fruit, and the minerality and complexity that all the wines possess. It is a touch harder and a touch less strong all round than the 89 however. Bare *****
Fragrant, balanced, easy-going wine with a nice dry finish. Good ***
Corked. Not Rated
Awkwardly dry and rather short.  Would go down quite well with food perhaps but not great - hardly surprising given the vintage. Top **
Asian spices (as R.P. so often says).  Fresh (almost youthful still) with fantastically long fruit. Gorgeous. Top *****
Oxidised - might be an odd bottle so I won't rate it but of course at this age from this vintage they might all be this way. Not Rated
More awkward than the 85 - it lacks that wines easy balance. But this is really complex and the minerality is perhaps even more pronounced. Intellectual wine and really good. *****
More open and leafy, lacks the poise of the best vintages but does give a long mineral mouthful. ****
Top stuff but a little flabby and keroseney for a special cuvee from this producer. Top ***
Mineral, broad, intense with a restrained, crystalline purity.  Brilliant. *****

Pale tangerine colour in a decanter.  Intensely gingery on the nose (as Ramonet's wines often are) but to a grotesque degree.  Rather horrible palate - probably just oxidised but in a rather odd way.  A day later the oxidation aspect less apparent but still extravagently gingery and with a dull flatness. No Stars
Much more what one expects - plenty of acid, quite juicy, nice fruit. ***
Quite leafy  liquid tobacco.   This seems to have gone backwards a bit since I last tasted it - clearly needs a few years but good drinking now too. ***(*)

According to the front label 'An original blend of 95% SYRAH'; according to the back label a 'wonderful accompaniment to chicken dishes, goat's cheese tart or full flavoured cheeses' and 'Suitable for vegetarians and vegans'. Unlike the labelling, the wine isn't too contrived. Good balance and good red fruit depth. It will probably improve with a few years age. By the way, the other 5% is Mouvedre [sic]. Just **(*)
I wasn't expecting much of this - Sunday evening combined with a general foreboding about white Rhones. What a revelation though! Glorious full bodied stuff with a lovely toffee and honeysuckle length to the palate. A wine I could drink and drink - and not just on Sundays. ****

Good old fizz with touches of honey, wood and aniseed. Medium bodied and with the acidity to keep the mature flavours together. ****
A disappointing wine in some sense. Quite winey, and doesn't really have the class one expects. Relatively (for a big name from '96) rather simple and lacking the drama and complexity of something to tuck away for the future. Possibly an off form bottle. **(*)

Exotic, rich, old-fashioned. Splendid. ***
Peachy, exotic, quite evolved.   Made to drink fairly young, but has that Grand Cru something about it. Bare  ****
So floral, pure and beautiful. Intense, dry.  Approachable but lots of underlying structure. Completely gorgeous. *****(*)
Mineral, very attractive, drinking nicely.   ***
Rounder and a bit more concentrated.  Mineral finish.  Very good.  Still fairly young. ***(*)
Much more reserved.  Dense.  Very concentrated - more balanced than the 90.  Brilliant.  ***(**)
Leaner, sea breezes.  Very classic.  Lovely.  (In time the 89 will be the better wine I guess.) ****(*)
Lighter nose.  Edgy finish.  Not a bad 78. ***
Not edgy like the last time.  Very fine.  Piquant.  Complex.  Very classic. *****
Thanks to everybody for bringing interesting and enjoyable wines, and to Centotre for feeding us well.
Dry,  rich, appetising. Long. Pretty  nice.  I feel a bit of barrique aging is aiming at an international market, but it is good.   I'd like to sit down and drink a few glasses one evening.   Maybe even scrapes  ***
Quite Burgundian weight. Oaky (but quite well handled) Chardonnay.  Classy - needs time though.   I find the Tunina a bit more individual but this is pretty good.  Bare ***(*)
As usual, a melange of flavours.  Delicious.   Bare ****
Turkish Delight.  Dry.   Could be a bit tiring although perhaps Gewurz is ever that way.  Nice balance of rose-scented fruit with a dry palate.  Good length. Another wine I'dlike to try "properly".  A good ***
Big-scaled wine - top Chianti as I'd expect from this wine in such a fine vintage. Bare ***(*)
Stinky at first - blows off to reveal a really good taught, balanced wine.   Rather good, I think.  Bare ***(*)
Herby.  Good balance.  Very drinkable.   ***
Suave, silky, dry.  Quite structured.  Easy **(*)
A bit dry - might improve but seems a bit austere.  But rather a nice nose.   **(*)
Scented nose but tannic.   Serious, I find the new oak tannins a bit more difficult young than the traditional style.  But the oak is done well and terroir shows through.  Pretty concentrated - fine wine.  This has quite a lot of quality and might evolve well in a Sandrone sort of way.   **(**)
Light elegant, quite fine.  I feel I've had slightly better bottles of this.  Top ***
More body but perhaps a touch less well delineated than the Sandrone.   Very nice approaching maturity.  Bare ****
So delicate, mineral, fine and long.  Just ready.  *****
A bit extracted and a bitter for my palate.  Not my sort of thing, although there's alot of wine in the glass.   Perhaps I might warm to it with more time.   Good **
Dry, savoury, cooked fruits.  Mushrooms, nuts.  Really good Amarone.  Maybe even ***(*)
Nice way to finish - well-balanced and delicious. Top ***

Dry, juicy, mineral, nicely made.  A bit thin on the mid-palate initially but it fills out with time.  Nice.  Bare ***(*)
A bit more modern-styled.  Pleasantly creamy.  ***
Good farmyardy, mature Burgundy - quite piquant and perhaps a touch rough with marked tannins.  Nice drinking but fades a little in the glass. ***

Rather dilute, dull and uninteresting. *
Past it - horrible. No Stars
A bit tough and tannic, but with good texture. Could do with a bit more fruit. More drinkable than I thought it would be. **

Not a star village, an un-rated vineyard and a moderate vintage - it's amazing what sensitive winemaking can achieve.  Lovely, drinkable, engaging, characterful and not entirely simple fuit - nine years old and about at peak from a half.  Really very enjoyable. ***
Dense colour.  Quite Syrah-like at first, but more baked (almost burnt) plum fruit after a while.   Good texture - feels nice in the mouth.  Good structure too - this is a rather good, characterful wine.   Still improving and needing time, but perhaps it won't actually quite rate more stars. ***
Really quite youthful still, high-toned food wine with a touch of (very Italian) bitterness. Nice fruit.   I described this as "modern" last time I drank it, but it isn't evolving quickly. Merits ***
A big hit of blackcurrant on the nose initially - and a while after it still has quite a lot of forward fruit, at least compared to the more austere higher-toned 94.  Still a fine wine but I'm having trouble getting to grips with it.   Say, ***
Lovely high-toned brambly fruit with a touch of cranberry.  Good ripeness and succulent tannins, nice mineral base too  - probably still improving and could even rate another star in time. For now a top  ***
My last bottle of this: rich and flavoursome with highly evolved fruit - on my first sip I thought it was past its best, but on longer acquaintance I felt it was about at its best while needing drinking relatively soon.  Top ***
Healthy colour - cedary, fruitcake nose and a pleasantly balanced palate. Pretty much at peak, but holding nicely - a bit of air and it opens up and reveals a fragrant side too.  I haven't always been overwhelmed by the wines from this estate, but this has shifted my opinion up a bit. ***
Very pleasantly cedary, but this Bordeaux-style wine's fruit is becoming a bit thin now.  **
My last bottle of this: lemony vanilla, touch of sherry character but completely and enjoyably fresh and appetising.   Almost timeless, but I guess it wouldn't improve.   Very pleasant mature wine (of an unfashionable sort). ***
Scented, dry and savoury - old-fashioned Claret that isn't that weighty. Very pleasant, but I think perhaps not one of the best wines from this property - it is still improving but may not rate more stars. ***
I haven't tasted this for eight years, I think.   I rated it very highly then as a young wine and now it has a restrained but lovely old apricot nose and a wonderful density of fruit of fruit and a rich, extravagently viscous texture. There's a nice level of acidity too that stops it cloying and a very long finish.   Very lovely, but I have slight reservations about the complexity -  it does seem, as one might perhaps expect from the grape, a touch one-dimensional given its other qualities. ****
My first sampling of Jadot's Beaujolais project.  My first thought was that I was expecting something a bit larger, but the fruit has good, under-stated concentration and there is an attractive mineral core too.  Very drinkable, yet there is a tannic underpinning that will give a at least a few years of positive evolution.   I am quite positive about htis - for now a conservative **(*)
Lovely, intense, Grenache-based wine - long, balanced, like a very good Chateauneuf. Easy top ***
The Lamaione is a disappointing wine. I remember having it for the fist time (before FWD, in 1995 or earlier I guess). Then it oozed class, and in 1997 I still rated it highly. But since then it has declined, and now one word will do: 'undrinkable' - although I've expanded slightly beyond that below. I wonder whether its earlier showing was flattered by some flashy wine making (carb. mac.?). There aren't many wines I've poured down the sink, but this was one of them.
Harsh and astringent. Completely gone. No Stars
I don't want to be unfair to this wine (it was a quick replacement for the undrinkable Lamaione), but this isn't quite of the standard that previous vintages of this wine used to be - although, possibly, it is just a bit closed. *
A really good bottle of this wine - it seems in the past to have varied between 3 and 4 stars. This one had the good strawberry leather nose of the best bottles. ****
Leathery, rustic and farmyardy. Not the most elagent wine ever, but it never has been. Just ****

Touch of toast, nice middle of the road Champagne palate, medium weight, decent finish. ***
Quite vinous nose.  Chewy palate with some obvious wood influence.  Good length. Top ***
Elegant, ripe apples, fine, long finish. Excellent fine mousse. Not universally enjoyed, perhpas becaus it could do with some time in bottle. I like the style though. Scrapes ****
Seems good but very slightly tainted - corked maybe, but perhaps in fact excess sulphur. Takes the edge off.   Not Rated
Dry, fragrant, nice balance.  ***
Very toasty - one gets used to it. Very tightly elegant and fine but it lacks sensory oomph a bit even though it is seriously concentrated.   Loses fizz quite quickly.  I have slightly mixed feelings about this but maybe it needs further study.  Top ****
Quite full-bodied - a touch rustic perhaps.  There is something of Macon-with-bubbles about it but nevertheless it's very drinkable. Good ***
Some lovely wine, but also some disappointments. I've had Talbot, Gruaud Larose and Las Cases 1982 in the last few months, and whilst the first two have been stunning; the last one is not showing well.
Lovely together fizz - good acidity - elegant. ****
Delicious weighty wine with a good, heavy acidity. Stunning. *****
Lovely Riesling nose - elegant palate - acidity variable, but the wine isn't getting flabby. ***
Good wine with food (garlic and chilli prawns), but a bit simple. ***
Dry finish - unknit - not really clear whether it has a direction. ***
Dusty and drying out. **
Good but closed. **(*)
Drinking beautifully. Easily the claret of the evening for drinking now. Textbook Pauillac at a peak. ****
Disappointing. A touch volatile at the end. Weighty, but it should be better than this. ***
Good wine which others preferred more than me. Big and balanced. ***
From a half. Good botrytis, but the acidity is lacking. Too heavily sweet for my tastes. ***

The last time I had this, in 2002, it seemed a weedy wine that probably wasn't going to live to its youthful potential. It just had the odd glimpse suggesting it might improve - but I wasn't that convinced. Fortunately though, this bottle at least is on lovely form. A dry wine without flashiness, but lovely toned acidity and flavours that are constantly developing in the glass. And to think that I almost decided to drink all my bottles in 2002. An easy ****
Holding up well, but so dull compared with  the Chateauneuf above. Simple sweet flavours. I suppose ***

Attractive nutty (marzipan?), tangy  nose, very nicely-textured palate with solid underlying fruit and a lovely salty finish.  All quite refined.   Maybe scrapes ****
Not what I expected on opening, oddly rounded fruit and a tired feeling.  After a while though it opens up quite nicely: bone-dry, savoury, citric, a touch of herbs and a hint of Fino Sherry.  Very nice and perhaps will even improve. For now ***
Very luxurious agreeable Oloroso that slips down a treat without generating the last word in excitement although its nose is pretty complex at least soon after opening.  Say ***
This wine has a touch of the lifted salty tang of Manzanilla over a burnt old-wine palate with a long finish. Very mouthwatering, a touch of camphor or something.   Seems almost better after a day or two open.   Very lovely. Easy ****
Very fine and long - tangy, hints of chocolate almost on the nose.   Not quite as demanding as the Coliseo from this house but very fine. ****
Very drinkabe old sherry, grippy and with that nice hint of sourness.   Not the last word in fineness however - I feel this hints a bit at dry-cleaning fluid. ***
Rich and long with rather greater depth than a standard Fino - salty tang too, nice acidity and a long, citric finish.  Very clean and pure. ***

Not quite one thing or the other if you know what I mean. Vibrant ripe fruit to start with but with a green and dilute finish. Not as interesting as I would have hoped. **

Good fruit but perhaps a touch rustic - old straw farmyard characters of a pleasant sort.   Completely mature and very drinkable. Forgiving it a certain rusticity one might stretch to ****
Warm and ripe (the vintage I guess) but perhaps beginning to lose it in a graceful way. Cedary but not terribly complex. Bare ***
Seems pretty much ready to drink - nice balance, generous fruit and a nice dry finish.   Bare ****
Lovely appetising, drinkable wine (breaking for another mouthful as I type).   Not a hint of the varietal flab, yet lovely ripe fruit and mineral overtones. Something of almonds about the whole package too.  This has the balance to keep well for a while I feel, and it may even improve over a year or so.  Dry yet not austere, and with really good length.  Classy. ***

Clean, fresh and simple wine with lightweight raspberry fruit. **
A touch oxidised, but I couldn't decide whether this was the winemaking or a duff bottle. So, until I get to try it again Not Rated

From a magnum. Good sweet fruit, chocolate and coffee. Good balance for drinking now. Top ***

Bone dry and with good intensity and length.   It just seems to lack a bit of pizzaz - the whole effect is a touch (but just a touch)  flat. ***
Silky-textured and rich,  one feels this wine is part of the transition to a modern style here.  But this has produced a fine wine in this vintage, voluptuous, but still with enough stuffing. ***
Nice mature riesling nose - completely resolved and really quite soft and lovable. Top ***
I have mixed feelings about this: on the plus side, fine nettle-like fruit, nicely balanced, now mature with a decent finish and a streak of minerality; on the minus side a slight lack of real presence,  just a little underwhelming considering the reputation of the producer.  Scrapes ***
It's easy to scoff at Musar, and until today I hadn't opened one of my own bottles for a year or two, but it's really not half bad you know.  Rustic, yes - ultimately fairly simple, yes - but it does have lovely round, sweet, leathery fruit and it has aged very gracefully to a soft, amber-edged maturity.  So it's easy to scoff in the other sense too. ***
Some will say this is past its peak but I rather like it. Mature riesling apricot flavours, old wine roundedness, very pleasant. ***
Quite big, ripe and sweet for spatlese.  Very attractive, quite forward and engaging fruit.  Very good rather than really riveting. Top ***
Quite big, ripe and rich.  This has a timeless quality - while showing some mature characters it is still quite sweet and very fresh - it will benefit from more time in bottle I think and will probably merit 4 stars in the long run.  Impressive. ***(*)
Remeniscent of a top Rhone Grenache: high-toned, a touch medicinal.   This is really good wine - intense fruit but a nice balance. Top ***
This has now opened up nicely - gorgeous long, mouthfilling greengage fruit.   It was so tight a few years ago and it has been fascinating to watch its progress.  It is bone dry and has that Wachau sternness that (slightly to my surprise) I am often a bit ambivalent about.  This though is drinking so nicely - perhaps it's just a mistage to try and drink these wines young.  Very top ***
This seems to have become a touch more piquant and high-toned than I recall.  A grown-up's wine with tanins that might never be entirely mellow until too late, and a classic Claret nose.  Lovely.  top ***
Sherberty, very open fruit, and very pleasantly drinkable at 8% alcohol.   A bit spritzy at first and ever so slightly hollow on the palate, if I was going to criticise. On the other hand, it has a lovely long finish.   Ready to drink I guess, but no great hurry.  Lovely. Top ***
Raspberry fruit, nodding at cassis also, dry, very firm as this producers wines tend to be - still a touch hard.  Very nice village wine coming round as it approaches its 10th birthday. ***
Rather nice - intense grapefruity riesling, with something towards nectarine on a persistant finish.  Seems quite dry to me for a classic-style Rheingau but that may partly be the particularly good acidity.   Drinking nicely but no hurry to consume - might even be better in a few years.  Top ***
A high-toned wine from this most European-styled of Californian winemakers, with rich yet piquant fruit.  This will improve a bit I suspect but needs the right food.  Bare ***
Seven year-old Soave? The fruit is now rather evolved - peach kernels and almonds, but still fresh and with a hint of floral notes on the nose.  Some will say this is past its best but I like it a lot.  Dry, attractive, drinkable. A good ***
Dry, yet with with very nicely-textured fruit.  A bargain at well the right side of a tenner. **
Pleasant. **
Nice example, without any great extra complexity. Top **

Red Burgundy Wine as it helpfully says on the label. Rather dilute and lacking. Possibly just too old. *
Sweeter fruit than the above, and with a simple charm. But hard work finding much flavour. **
A  bit unripe on the palate, and with coarse fruit. Some (pleasant) signs of  maturity on the nose, but not coordinated with the rest of the wine. **
Easily the best of the recent Pinots that I've had. A touch stewed, but at least not suffering the dilute characters of the two French wines. ***

Medium depth, well put together for early drinking. Reasonably taut. ***
Liquorice and black cherry nose. Charming for early drinking. ***

Occasional glimpses of bacon fat and raspberry, but some coarseness and awkwardness. **
A slight spritz on opening. Lihtly honeyed and with hints of blanched almonds. ***

Sherberty rich,  drinking very nicely as it has for a while and will for a few years yet. Long and delicious. Top ***
Rounded, forward fruit - pleasant but  ultimately fairly simple. Bare ***
Rather overwrought - huge alcohol - rather flabby fruit (although superficially there's decent acidity). A substantial wine that perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for.  Top **
Gamy, rustic, high-quality fruit.   Interesting, quite complex, characterful.  Guessed this might be Swan. Top ***
Good fruit.  Nicely balanced.  Good concentration.  Good ***
Baked, tarry fruit.  Very tannic - serious (perhaps overly so).  Others will admire this more than me.  ***
Jammy, solid,  quite raisiny.  Very substantial wine - I find it a touch heavy going at the moment.  I suspect it will improve and be rather impressive. ***(*)
Refined, concentrated,  almost high-toned.  Just beginning to drink well.  Lovely.  ****
Nice - similar in style but a shade weaker all round.  Good ***
Very dark colour.  Very marmaladey.  Ultimately not so complex and clearly upstaged by the Filhot.  ***
Light colour but in fact quite botrytised.  Quite high-toned.   Grippy.  A very good wine for the property.   ****
Very pruney and rich.   Really appealing fruit with some hot edges.  Probably for drinking now, and pretty pleasant in its way.  ***
A bit drier and more mainstream.   Still a shade closed,  very good.  Bare ***(*)

Possibly seems a bit older than it is. Good acidity and some tannin at the end of a fairly full bodied, old-fashioned entrance. Needs some time to resolve itself. ****(*)
More floral and open than the last bottle I had of this. Well made fizz for drinking young. ***
Fairly vinous and with good, sharply focused acidity at the end. A champagne that tastes like a good young fizzy Burgundy. This needs time, and could be stunning. ***(**)
Possibly not in the best of condition compared with a recent bottle that Toby had. The flavours are a bit dull and it is more oxiidative than might be expected. Not Rated

Weighty, meaty nose - autolytic plus apples.   Similarly with the palate, but not at the expense of balance.  Apples again, a suggestion of tannins.  Long, quite complex, perhaps a touch young - I'm sure a year or two in cellar will be beneficial.  Scrapes ***(*)
Really quite forward - touch of vanilla - long and enjoyable but doesn't seem to have the guts to be a real keeper.  Bare ****
Only a year or two delayed versus the standard vintage. Still very fresh, nutty and autolytic - really yeasty on the nose.   Drier and tighter than the GA 97 too - lower dosage probably and perhaps the vintage too. Complex finish.  Lovely. Scrapes  *****
Red wine made from Pinot Noir, of course. Fairly complex nose, bone dry - seems a bit flat and old on the mid-palate. All the interest is on the nose.  Rather dull in the mouth.  If fizz could be made with these grapes, then this is a bit of a waste except that it gives some insight into the nature of fruit that makes good Champagne.   Bare **
Very mushroom and truffle - and hinting at maderisation.  Curious indeed,  and not entirely positively. Old beyond its years - is it an odd bottle? The guy from Bollinger says not, but seemed to have decided this before nosing mine.  Perhaps having this after desert was a poor idea (I did think of leaving my pud until later) and I wouldn't be surprised if there is more to this wine than I found.  For now, the interest on the nose scrapes ****

Lovely delicate summer drinking with almond and white fruit flavours. ***

Lovely delicate summer drinking with almond and white fruit flavours. ***

Fragrant, mellow, eminently drinkable.  Fresh but a suspicion of drying at the end suggests this is not for keeping beyond another five or so years. ***
High-toned, a bit of cranberry, a touch of underlying meatiness and excellent fruit.  Lovely but without the va-va-voom of the Combe aux Moins from the same producer and vintage tasted recently.  Still scrapes ***(*)
Lively, quite complex, proper tarry Barolo and more or less "a point".  A bit coarse-textured to be worth more than ***
The things one finds when cataloguing the cellar - an auction purchase of a couple of bottles I seem to recall.  I opened one with trepidation but no need: actually a healthy light colour and a lovely, fresh, tar and roses Barolo nose.  The fruit had that underlying sweetness that good Barolo has and which with the fragrance sets off the firmness of even mature tannins.   Not terribly complex but really very enjoyable drinking.   ***
I have oscillated a bit about this 100% Gargenega wine.   It is Ca Rugate's interpretation of what old Soave might have been like, I seem to recall.   It has a deep colour (from skin contact, I think) and a broad, flat, mouthfilling palate after a honeysuckle nose. It reminds me a bit of one or two other Italian producers who are pushing things in a similar direction: Massa Vecchia and Gravner.   It is rather less grand than either (and a bit cheaper)  but I like it, and I think time is making it more interesting. ***
Intense strawberry nose, solid, concentrated  fruit, quite dry as often with Lafarge. A touch of Italianate bitterness and quite firm tannins make it rather a food wine at the moment.   I hope that rawness wears off - I think it will.   ***(*)
Surprisingly high-toned almost Amontillado-like nose. Palate has warm raisiny character and a nice texture. ***
Very pure, raspberry fruit.  Now completely resolved and drinking very nicely. I think it lacks the real edge of terroir at this stage, or something to add complexity.   Drinking pretty nicely however. ***
Smoky raspberry fruit, begining to show its age a bit but still fresh.  Very drinkable but not super-exciting. ***
Quite fat and mouthfilling - I haven't drunk this producers wines or Chablis from this vintage much so I'm not sure about the cause of this rather atypical richness.   Still, this has a lovely honey-influenced palate and enough underlying minerality to be very enjoyable. Absolutely at peak.  From a half.   Top ***
I seem to remember having mixed feelings about a bottle of this, but this one is lovely - completely drinkable medicinally-edged concentrated Grenache. Excellent. ***
Herbs and spices, with rounded green-pea and other vegetal flavours.  Quite individual but really, really  good. ****
Another 96 from my cellar, opened partly to illuminate the controversy about this vintage.  Healthy colour, fine fruit, creamy texture and excellent acidity.  This seems just a touch subdued right now but is definitely very good. ***(*)
Wine group at M.D.'s
Flowery, attractive, dry, balanced.  Bare ***
Larger, flatter, rich peachy fruit. A touch mmore interesting than the Perret wine. A good  ***
Peachy, rich, quite sweet, moderate acidity.  Bare ***
very sugary, rich, sweet.  Not enough acidity for my palate. **
Much better balanced, pleasant. ***
Fine, tea-nose, lots of acidity. ***
Leafy, rounded, balnced. Very nice. Bare ****
Fragrant, gentle, a bit gamy. Pretty good.   ***
Like the Beychevelle but a slight twist in the finish. Fades in the glass a bit.  ***
A touch higher-toned. Toffeed, quite light.  Top **
Reductive at first - later, fragrant,  bone-dry, tarry.  Proper wine.  Top ***
Quite dry now, delicate, peach-kernels. Elegant, but perhaps no huge length.  Bare  ****
Herby brown sugar, fairly simple but a nice balance.  Bought from a monastry on Majorca 20 yrs ago(!)  A pretty pleasant drink.  **
Fading a bit, very evolved, a touch hot.  Interesting but a bit disappointing. Top ***

Yeasty, nutty, complex, lovely balance.  Drinking at peak. Bare *****
Very rich and off-dry for kabinet - a fine vintage, I guess.   **(*)
A new stylistic experiment, supposedly harking back to an ancient style: Quite dry, fantastic length, 12% alcohol, overall suggestive of  Austrian riesling. Interesting. ***(*)
Very pure and complex, oak not very evident (an improvement on Silex of old).  Excellent concentration.  ****
Excellent - very typically Raveneau. ****
Provence herbs, creamy, lovely. Top ****
Strong nose of apples, flat palate.  Possibly the wine is just like this but perhaps this is a substandard bottle. Not Rated
Gravelly, smoky, excellent.  Tobacco finish.  Very pleasantly drinkable.  Top ***
Dumb nose and rather volatile palate. Not Rated
Beginning to be rather edgy - a bit volatile on the finish.  Not bad.  A good **
Rubbery - rather oxidised. *
Rounded , berryish, touch of raspberry.  Complex. Substantial.  Very fine.  *****
Oddly empty midpalate. Hard, and difficult,  finish.  Top *
Fine, picquant, attractive.  ***
Creamy, rich fruit.  Excellent concentration and length. Nice tone. Bare ****
Soft.  Notable tannins.  Grand but lacks the shapliness of the last wine. Top ***
Rose petals, fine, nutty, elegant. Top ****
Moderate weight, fragrant, sweet fruit.  Lively. Excellent.  ****

Mature colour and flavour.  Mineral - I thought St Emilion - and now a touch decadent.  But a really nice mature Claret.   Bare ****
Spicy plum fruit-cake - seems quite Merlot but that's probably an illusion.  Lovely minerality all through.   Bare ***(*)
Doing well from a half-bottle.   Fragrant now, quite balanced, some would say a touch past its best but for drining with food I'm not so sure.  very pleasant. ***
Decent St Emilion, if a bit gummy - probably because of oak use.   ***
Healthy colour, attractive mature Claret nose.  On the palate it has that slightly hollow high-tonedness that seems quite common in the vintage.  Pleasant, particularly with food. ***
Gutsy, good fruit. Very decent effort. Drinking well. ***

Lovely - for drinking over the next year or three. ****
Quite advanced, but good. From a half. ***
Very bright and mouthwatering, pure attractive fruit and some tannic backbone.  Very good. ****
Not a flashy, rowdy 82 but I feel perhaps that in avoiding that the wine lacks the definition or complexity to be better than very good.  Fine wine, starting to drink well, but a little less than one might hope for given the property and the vintage. ****
deep browny, slightly green rim. Caramely, burnt, quite enjoyable. Bare ***

Deep brown with a green rim. Riesling nose.  Very Madeira-like. Interesting more than enjoyable, in the end. **
Very fine.  Balanced, starting to drink nicely. Top ****
Rustic, quite exotic. Interesting rather than great. Top ***
Lovely, blueberry fruit. Refined and pure. Good balance for the vintage. **(*)
Smoke and tobacco, pleasant palate, really nice persistent finish. Excellent.  Bare ****
Rounder, fruitier, a bit simpler and more rustic.  Time to drink. ***
Very fine, elegant, scented, balanced.  Still on a gentle up-curve. Bare *****
Sexy, perfumed, a bit showy, very suave, lovely - easier but less intellectually satisfying  than the GPL. *****
Healthy colour. Lovely fragrance, summery, rose-hips.  Perfumed.  Lovely. From a half.  *****
Good colour, chunky, quite tannic.  Lacks the easy charm of the Issan but pretty good. ****
Grapefruit, kerosene, startling acidity over good fruit. Lovely. ***(*)

Plummy, rich fruit - deepening with some air.  Classy drinking, still quite tannic. Bare ****
Curiously charred and smoky at first but that blows off - presumably not overly toasted barrels then.  A lovely, irony mature Claret with succulent fruit emerges.  Delicious drinking. ****

Fine - elegantly balanced and good length.  Refined blanc de blancs.   Could do with a year or so in bottle perhaps but lovely. Top ***
Intense but a bit oaked up at the expense of the clarity that I look for in top Soave.  Clearly a good estate and I'd be interested to try their unoaked top wines.  A good **
A bit unexciting - decent but didn't do a lot for me.  *
Fair acidity - a touch hollow later on the palate.  Pleasant. Bare ***
Stylish complex nose - hints of Ozzy vegetality.  Only moderately persistent on the finish. Quite fine but outrageously overpriced. ***
Quite rich and sweet - the vintage perhaps. Good quality. **(*)
Soft, forward quite chocolatey St Emilion. Pleasant drinking.  Being a bit mean: **
Excellent fruit - some structure. Serious wine worth another look.   **(*)

A really good bottle of one of these recently disgorged wines (that canbe a little variable).  Tjis one with lovely autolytic flavours and honey over lovely fresh fruit.  Quite nicely rounded, but no hint of flab. *****
Quite austere and even a touch awkward right now but with lots of character.  Perhaps it will be more easy-going in a year or two, but good now with the right food. ***
Quite forward for Maume - the vintage perhaps although the attractive ripe fruit is not at the expense of enough backbone for development for a few tears.  Really very nice drinking Burgundy. ***
(I think I have remembered the vintage correctly.) Nice, well-made dessert wine. **
A welcome 'win' for a white Burgundy, and a good Swiss chardonnay. As for the Zinfandels, It confirmed my view that I don't want flashy vibrant stuff - I want something with more complexity along the Ridge lines.
Good if not dramatic fizz. ***
Nice acidity - honeyed with minor age. Lovely texture. ****
Butter and hazelnuts, but the age is showing possibly a bit more than is ideal. ***
Soft and dilute. All over the place. **
Soft, oldish, touch of sweetness. Possibly a bit corked. Not Rated
Soft and buttery and a touch of banana. Slight spritz. Big, but balanced. ***
fragrant modern' nose - for early drinking. Clean and fresh. ***
Big, vibrant  and zingy, but a bit short. Became toffeed in the glass. ***
Vibrant and in a dry style - needs a bit more time possibly. **(*)
More complexity than the others, and to my mind a better style of wine for it - smooth rather than vibrant. A touch of  volatility. ****
Vegetal and astringent - all over the place. I think this wine had a synthetic cork.  Poor. **
Leafy and some tannin. Simple and falls apart. **
Sweet, but a bit lacking in acidity. Some grip. ***
Corked. Not Rated
Opened after the disappointment of the 1999. Also seemed poor, but this was at the end of the evening so I won't score, but there was debate about synthetic corks  Not Rated
From a half. Not the best example of this. Showing too much age and sweetness on this showing. ***

Yeasty, quite fragrant. Slightly toffeed fruit. Quite decent length.  Some might say tired but I find this rather good. Not often one has a Swiss wine! **
Tight, sherberty, riesling nose.  The fruit quite forward but the excellent length suggests a good future.  ***
Quite intense. Oily hazelnuts. Good length.  Top ***
Over-charred wood.  Gutsy palate - slight harshness on the finish. This does all moderate with time and there is good fruit. I'm not so keen on this. Bare ***
Rather oxidised. Not Rated
Unforthcoming nose. Forward pinot fruit - quite ripe - high-toned cranberry-edged fruit. Very nice.  ***
A little richer and riper. Darker and deeper.  Good length.  Another top ***
Dry raspberry fruit.  Dry palate - not insubstantial. Stylish terroir wine. A bit short but good. ***
Slightly sweeter, mineral, riper, palate. Complete wine - very good indeed.  ****
Soft fruit - slight spritz.  Gets much better - white pepper nose. Silky fruit. A bit less characterful. Less sauvage than last two - almost soft. Some oak influence. ***
Perhaps just the great vintage but drier and more terroir-driven.  Very, very good. Possibly could do with another year or two.   ****
Lots of botrytis.  Nice balance. Lovely. ***
Baked fruits - refined, Bags of ripe fruit, sweet yet firmly structured - balanced, long.  Excellent Port from a house that I don't usually pay much attention to.  ***(*)

Slightly  corked. Not Rated
Deep orange colour - apricot fruit - pleasant but odd.  An attempt at ol-fashioned winemaking that doesn't quite come off?  **
Dry quite closed still.  High-toned fruit.  Needs time.  A low ***
Deeply meaty, round - some tannins.  Rather good. ***(*)
Very pure raspberry fruit - savoury - good length.   Scrapes ****
Quite engaging in its way - almost dry, appley.  Fragrant and attractive ***

Quite fresh and nicely autolytic. Good balance. Very drinkable. ***
Finer, more intense and more elegant.  Pretty classy. Scrapes ****
Richer and a bit more structured than the previous wine.  Quite serious.  Needs a few years.  ***(*)
Pure, balanced, nice food wine. Easy **
Bone dry, pleasant, a little light beside the Pouilly. **
Softer and fruitier on the palate than the GC - two patches of vines that are quite close together.  They are quite different but I wonder if one could or should blend them. **
Clean, dry, but with underlying richness and some minerality.  Good. ***
A decent step up to real grand cru quality. Good length. Top ***
A bit soft and unfocussed beside the Colombier wines but I find it hard to say whether it is producer-style or the dreaded hot vintage syndrome striking again.  A good **
Straightforward clean, dry, decent Chablis. Top **
Confusion marketing I feel.  This wine sells for a tiny bit more and has quite a lot of added richness.  I'd pay the extra every time. ***
Extravagantly rich and mouthfilling, oak-influenced.   I need to have a proper drink of this sometime to decide whether it carries it off.  It quite possibly does, in which case  ***
Full and rich - tending towards a fatness which while clearly in balance I sometimes find too much in Carillon's wines. Scrapes ***
Understated, dry (none of that fatness the village wine has) lots of Puligny character. Good balance and excellent length. **(**)
Rounder and more easy-going than the Perrieres. Still good balance and a fine wine, but this can happily be drunk now although surely it will improve a touch. ***(*)
Nicely made Meursault, nice balance, although perhaps with an air of being what it is: a very good village wine and without 1er cru distinction. Bare ***
Charcterful, gutsy Meursuault with a bit of bitterness on the finish that I'm not sure I like so much. Perhaps this will depart with a year or two in bottle. For now, judgement reserved. Not Rated
A bit richer and broader with good length.  Very nice. ***
A special selection, I think and notably more expensive. Quite serious, concentrated fruit and good structure and so you get what you pay for. ***
A bit clarety - fruit tending toward cassis and some wood influence, I think. Pleasant enough. **
Quite large and broad, a food wine I think, and it will take a few years aging quite well. A Cortese and Chardonnay blend. At least a top **
Pleasant forward fruit with a twist of bitterness. Not bad at all. Top *
Method Champenois from Chardonnay and Pinot - idiosynchratic wine with a touch of pink and some high-toned red wine aromas.  I'd like to try some more. At least a top **
Nebbiolo Barbera blend quite heavily oaked.  Quite good of its sort. **
Fragrant, elegant fruit - lots of underlying tannins. Fairly modern-styled. Needs a few years and on the way up but perhaps not beyond a good ***
Rounded, suave fruit, some tannins but would be fine with food. Top **
Silky, Burgundian but structured.  Very fine but I sometimes feel Sandrone's wines are a bit of a trick - almost too polished. Bare ***(*)
A touch larger and richer I think.  Like the La Vigne, modern-style but without excessive oak influence. ***(*)
Nicely poised, splendid balance, clean and pure.  Sophisticated wine. **
Nicely done, although to my taste it might be better without the barriques. *
Pure, very restrained varietal statement (a plus point).  Nice. Top *
Richer - 2003 was very warm here too I think.   Similar quality.  Top *
An exotic blend of Chardonnay, Sauvignon blanc and Pinot Grigio I think - rather nicely constructed.  A wine that I would like to sit down and try properly - I suspect it would repay scrutiny and so let's say ***
Lovely texture, lovely fruit, nice acidity and length.  Very fine. Top ***
I don't taste a lot of young Tokaji - this though seems very promising. ***
As above but added richness.  Top ***
Raspberry and chocolate fruit - a lesser vintage that you could almost drink now.  Pretty good. ***
Aniseed, baked fruit, very dense.   I hardly ever drink young port but I am sure this will be very good. **(**)
Intense, sweet blackberry nose and concentrated palate.  Very much new-wave Rioja. Good, yes (very good in its way) - interesting, less so at least to me. ***
Higher toned and with very evident tannins, but very much in the same style.  Seriously pricey - same as a bottle of Rioja Alta's famous 890.  Give me the latter any day. Top ***
Curious - it seems to have old-fashioned touches of volatility but generally a modern style. Pretty good. Bare ***
Reliable Ridge - pretty good. Bare ***
Classic - quite Bordeaux on the nose but with an extra ripeness even more evident on the palate. Still, quite classically styled and very fine. ***(*)
At Nahm Restaurant at the Halkin Hotel in London (very good food by the way) with a Thai meal.
Touch of residual CO2, luscious ripe fruit already showing some maturity - so quite forward. Very lovely. ***

Pleasant but slightly flat-textured. Bare ***
Touch of sulphur evident.  Good, gutsy, big. Top ***
Dark colour. V flat and odd. Not Rated
Sound, Clear, high-toned - quite Pulignyish. Actually rather intense and long. Good ***
Yuk! Unpleasant nose of a really odd and undescribable sort. Blows off to a large extent, but still  Not Rated
Slightly sulphury - clean palate tight, quite long.  A bit thin at first - certainly less than the other Meursaults Good ***
Dry austere long.  More intense. Opens up dramatically - peaches, minerals. Very nice. Bare ****
Intense Very long.  Just what one might hope for. Top ****
Gamy, rustic, mentholy, liquorice, high-toned.  Earthy.  Others liked this a bit more but I'd say just pretty good.  ***
A bit fizzy - wears off. High-toned, cherry fruit. Very attractive. ***(*)
Intense, dry, balanced, earthy, structured. Very nice indeed. ***(*)

Bone-dry, nutty nose, slightly gluey palate. Pretty fine but I have reservations about the gluey component. Could do with a year or two. ***
Slightly sweeter style (dessert rather than aperetif) - but reasonable acid balance. Nice grapey fruit.  **
Apricot jam - quite a lot of botrytis - modest acidity.  Decent rather than excellent length. Perfectly nice but a bit simple for a top wine - unless it is in a quiet phase. A bare **(*)
Very honey and orange peel - pretty sweet - modest acidity - and so a little cloying. Might come in to better balance in time but I'm not sure.  May be just a bit overdone.  Not quite my style, but ***
Lots of apricot, coconut, banana, and exotic fruit.  Big and rich yet so complex.  Lovely and will be great.  ****(*)
Limey - seems lightweight at first but that's probably just following Yquem.  Good intensity and length. Lovely complexity too.  ***(*)
Apples, cinnamon and bananas (someone said).  Disjointed acidity. A gentle but in fact quite persistent finish.  A touch towards cloying but very good of its type.  Others will like this more.  **
All wines drunk at Crantock Bay Hotel overlooking the bay during an enjoyable family holiday. An intersting wine list - just the sort of things after those long days surfing the Atlantic rollers. (OK, body-boarding on my four-year-olds Mickey Mouse body board.)
Good, warm, Bordeaux-blend red from Argentina for drinking fairly young. ***
Simple rather unbalanced shiraz with some vibrancy. *
Fresh, fruity stuff with a good balancing acidity. No great complexity. **
Good food wine - hearty and with some tannin. **
Light syrah fragrance and good balance. Medium weight for short term drinking. **
I probably always have higher expectations of a wine with the name `Perrin' on it than I should do. Maybe I should always taste them blind. This wine lacks dimension and doesn't really excite. *

Peachy, spicy, rounded, very elegant.  Modest acidity. For drinking. Bare ***
Richer, more mineral, slightly better grip.  ***
Unforthcoming at first. Emerges - more mineral than above - altogether more substantial. A serious long-term wine.  ***(*)
Oxidised. Not Rated
Pleasantly rich.  Honied, intense.  Very good. Bare ****
Exotic, rich, sweeter than just off-dry.  Top ***
Cherries, high-oned chalky minerality.  Very firm and very good - perhaps a touch less silkyily fine than more recent Fourrier vintages.  Bare *****
Soft, rounded touch of mint. fleshy. Very nice. ****
rounded and ripe. soft and delicious. slightly more "cooked". Bare ****
A touch lighter than the other two vintages but very fine and nicely wrought.  ****
Creamy apricots - very nice, if a bit simple.   Bare ***
Fairly dry, a touch more complex than the Sauternes - rather fine ***
Rose-petals, touch of marzipan, lots of glycerol, creamy,  very lovely. *****
Corked Not Rated

Strawberries and a touch of yeastiness. Elegantly balanced. ***
Clear Riesling nose with a touch of sweet toffee that's probably come with the maturity. ****
Rather charmingly fragrant nose of violets. Modern Chianti for drinking young. ***
Easy, clean Burgundy without huge depth but with purity of fruit. ***
An intersting comparsion wine to the earlier Chianti. This is more robust and has a slight bitterness to the fruit. Holding up well, and probalbly needs more time. ****

Very graceful, almondy nose - slightly floral, but pleasingly free of overt varietal statement.  (I think it's a blend of various varieties, for what it's worth.)  On the palate, completely balanced with perfect acidity and a touch of ripe lemon around a concentrated but understated palate.  Very fine.  ****
Seems quite oxidatively made. Stony, meaty rather than elegant.  Pretty nice but not out of this world. ***
Good colour, black-cherry nose.  Fruit quite baked in character and at first it seems to have a hole in the mid-palate.  But that seemed to fill in once the bottle had been open a while.   Chunky and without the complexity to be really classy.  ***
Dense young colour and intense black cherry and cough-sweet nose.   Despite the concentration of fruit it's very silky on the palate with a background of ripe tannins.   Very luscious.  Seems almost less approachable the next day, which is a bit frightening.   Top stuff. ****(*)
A long maceration job, in the style of Gravner,  but from Garganega from Gambellara just outside Soave.   Deeply coloured but slightly cloudy, with a flat peachy nose.   Slight spritz on the fruit.   Interesting but slightly flawed I feel.   I'll keep a look out for further vintages but just a good **
Creamy texture and hight-toned herby fruit. Very dry and quite stylish but perhaps it was better a few years ago - it does seem to be drying out a bit.  Top **
Refined - mineral richness, nice balance all through.  Pretty dry and clean. Good stuff.  ***(*)
Healthy colour.  Fragrant rose-garden nose with cedar and tobacco notes.   The fruit quite sweet and ripe.   This seems resolved but lasts well overnight.  Rather good.   ****
Quite chocolatey - fruit seems a touch attenuated at first but opens up to a delicious blueberry-raspberry mixture.   From a half.  Bare ****
Apples, spices, quite exotic, rather rich fruit, high acidity.   Pinot weightiness on the palate.  Needs a couple of years in bottle. ***(*)
Attractive, silky Grenache fruit.  Very drinkable. ***
Not a property I've drunk much recently and it used to be a bit of a joke for producing "Englishman's Claret".  They've done quite well in this vintage though: quite powerful and structured, good fruit, drinkable now but probably more so in a couple of years.   Good at the price.  **(*)
Lovely, vibrant,  deep pink colour.  Once open for a quarter of an hour, a delicious nose of strawberry fruit.  Quite vinous - like a substantial still rose rather than Champagne with a touch of colour.   Long finish.   Will probably benefit from a year or two in bottle.  Top ***
Lead pencil nose - a fair amount of new oak I suspect.  Fairly lightweight and elegant - perhaps to excess.  Not like Jasmin of old. Bare ***
Suspiciously deep colour.  Really a bit overly oxidative but underneath there's nice honied fruit.  Bare ***
Pure, pleasant.  Top **
Nice fruit - fruitcake - good structure. Could do with a year or two.  Decent balance.  **
Vanilla - weight of a traditional wine - but the fruit quite bright and fresh  cherry.  Pleasant.  Worth **
Talento is apparantly a trademark of a consortium of growers in Northern Italy making Methode Champenoise fizz from mainly Champagne grapes.   This is made by Prosecco producer Bisol.   It has the charcteristic yeasty character, fine fruit, it's dry but not over-austere.  Nice - it might make an interesting ringer in a flight of growers Champagnes.  ***
Moderate weight, quite Burgundian quality, fairly high-toned.   Very good drinking. Top ***
Piercing tar and roses nose.  Still a touch hard on the palate, bone dry with quite a lot of tannin.   Drinkable but will improve a bit, I think.  Bare ***(*)

Grassy, slightly flabby fruit.   *
Softly grassy, fruity, floury (Meunier, I guess) flowers.  White bread. Pleasant finish. Good.  ***
Slightly sicky edge to the fruit. Rather dominated by red wine characters.  I'm not so keen.  **
Rather soft, easy fruit - both nose and palate.  Quite rich, briochey. To drink quite soon - but good.  Bare ****
Red fruits, frothy, quite weighty. Good strawberry finish.  Top ***
(A blend of 95 and 96) Creamy, gamy, rich, stewed apples and strawberries again.  Rather good. Perhaps even ****
Reserved, pure, stony. Mineral, strawberries again. Medium-weight and excellent length. ***(*)
Very nice, quite creamy, mineral.  Persistent.  A good ****
Gingery fruit, pleasant but a bit dull.  **

Now more evolved, rich, low-acid mature Rhone. **
Rich, deep-coloured, rather new-oak influenced, seems oxidative.  In danger of being overwrought - not clear where this is going.  Has some character though. **
Again deep-coloured, ambitious.  Not that exciting to drink now - but it might improve. **
creamy, minerals, delicious. *****
Very elegant, moderate weight, quite complex and an excellent finish for the vintage. ****
Chestnut, coffee, lovely ripe fruit.  Quite fresh and fruity. Still well-structured but drinking well - no hurry to drink this. ****
A little difficult at first.  Then rounded Christmas-cake fruit.  Less exotic than the 85 and more 1-dimensional. Top ***
Two halves, the better nicely balanced, biscuity, digestible.  Top ***
Rather lovely, fresh, high-toned, dry and savoury.  Top ***
Baked fruits.  Balanced (12.5% a!), creamy.  The finish suggests it needs drinking over the next few years. ***
Bags of botrytis but a bit coarse. **
A sample sent by the winery
Fresh, strawberry and redcurrant flavours with good balancing acidity and a touch of eldeflower. Good, easy drinking for a summer's evening. **

Frizzante, only 6.5% alcohol, pleasantly refreshing.  Rather like a Moscato but floral rather than grapey.  It says "dolce" on the corner of the label - it's about demi-sec and nicely in balance of rthe style.  Ideal for sunny garden evenings.  Well made. **
Rather good fruit, oak fairly evident on the palate but probably not excessive (although I must say I like less and less oak in my wines),  quite mineral too.  Could do with a bit longer in bottle but probably won't make four stars as it seems just a bit simple by the highest standards. ***
It's sad, but Waitrose is much better than any previous source of fruit and veg in the city.
Toffee and caramel, quite maderised and a bit vegetal but maintaining interest and drinkability despite being past its best.  I oscillate between finding this too far-gone and admiring it.  A reminder of what over-old white Burgundy should be like, as compared to the current rash of prematurely oxidised wines that are simply rotting.   Some will find this unappetising but I'll settle on **
Lively, high-toned, more suggestive of Puligny than Chassagne.  Good acidity and quite mineral.  Very nice - what I hoped rather more 96's would be like! ***(*)

Bready, elegant, moderate weight (perhaps down to age),  Lemony. Long rich finish.  A top ***
Softly peachy fruit. Easy stuff nicely made. Top *
Touch drier, richer, more serious but still fairly easy.  Good **
A bit more depth and all-round strength with some positive evolution ahead.  Not really long-term though. **(*)
Fragrant, dry long. Very attractive. ***
Rather rubbery - this bottle somewhat oxidised.  Good underneath I think. Not Rated
Dry and perfumed - gamy end. A star. More or less drinking now.  *****
Lovely biscuity nose. Balanced fruit - complex long, and lovely. ****
Fantastic concentration. Thoroughly integrated after a fascinating nose. A great wine if not terribly Cote-Rotie. Beginning to hint at volatility so time to drink, I feel. *****
Piquant - tending towards edgyness. Still rather good mature wine.  Top ***
Quite dry barley-sugar fruit. Intense - lots of fruit almost obscuring lots of botrytis.  Rich and very good - ****(*)
Quite liquoricey, sweet - spirit a bit disjoint currently - raisiny fruit. Extravagantly sweet ripe. Nice but suspect balance to me currently  - it might well improve. ***(*)
The friends very kindly came with two bottles of Champagne - one a back-up bottle in case the main one wasn't showing well.
Possibly just past its peak, but a nice wine for those who like their Champagne old (which I do). OK, 1990 isn't that old, but this isn't the greatest name in Champagne either. Good, slightly oxidised maturity with the 1990s softness evident. ***
This bottle has been shouting 'drink me, drink me!' for the last couple of years - eyeing me up each time I opened the cellar. I had it last in 1999, when it was disappointing. This time though it was a glorious claret with warm, pencil-shaving nose and palate. I'm glad I've resited its calling until now because this bottle was caught at its best. There is a touch of weediness (well it's not the best vintage ever), but the balance is fine. This is the sort of wine that makes keeping fine wine so satisfying. I could drink a lot of this, alas though this was my last bottle. A charming ****
A coarser wine than the Pichon above, with higher toned acidity and a more granular structure. Good, pleasant wine that held its own. A good, solid ***
From a half. Marmalade nose, and a waxy, lanolin palate. A bit simple possibly, but showing rather nicely. ***

I can't usually get too excited about Sancerre, but this is rather enjoyable. It has enough age to have lost its initial zing, but still has a pleasing balance of fruit, acid and honeyed, grassy flavours. ***
This is Syrah, Garnacha and Tempranillo in the ratio 7:2:1. Modern wine, but well made with a dryness of fruit balanced by good tannins. A bit closed at present I feel, but it probably has some potential. A cautious **(*)

Rich and satisfying yet balanced.  Has benefited from a bit of cellaring. An under-rated house. A  good ***
Wax, lanolin, quite dry, grass and corn. Very, very long.   Really lovely.   *****
A little lighter at first but  very similar in character to the Haut Brion tasted with it. Long again. Fills out nicely once it has been open a while.   Excellent. *****
Fragrant fruity nose, liquorice, mineral palate.  Really interesting wine.  ****
Lovely dry savoury palate. Sucks from your tongue after a ripe start. Classic mature Claret and really good. *****
Open, fruity nose - lovely irony palate.  Scrapes *****
Quiet nose - totally individual irony, dry, complex, long palate. A great pleasure.  *****
Stylish, high-toned. Integrated botrytis. A really good wine from a property that doesn't always do it for me. ****

Lightweight, dilutish wine, but clean and otherwise balanced. **
Drinking nicely with hints of chocolate and an overarching dryness. A good ***
A touch of rusticity in the background behind some good sweet fruit. Simple. **

Grassy, very dry,  elegant, touch of autolysis.  Lovely balance.   ****
Peachy, off-dry, nice balance. Fairly low acid. A lesser vintage but it might well age nicely.   ***
Touch of kerosene,  very textured.  Quite intense and long. The richness is down to a a touch of botrytis apparently.  Bare ****
Amazingly long.  Mineral too.  Dry, complex.  Drinking well but completely fresh. Gorgeous. Scrapes *****
Bone-dry, nice range of flavours.  Very good basic Burgundy. **
Broader, slightly flatter. Quite rich - rather impressive.  Decent ***
A touch of toffee, quite complex. Very minty. Odd but interesting. Very mineral too, which seems a good sign.  There's an element of "benefit of the doubt" in going for a bare ***(*)
Very fresh and clean, sophisticated Chassagne from a vineyard I hadn't really heard of. Nicely poised. Top ***
Mainstream, quite beetrooty, fairly rich.  Very nice.  A basic ***
Rustic edge.  Dry finish.  Not totally sucessful in a difficult vintage.  ***
Gamy, exotic. A touch rustic.  Slightly dry and edgy from the oak. Perhaps it will soften but I worry it's been pushed a bit hard.  Bare ***
Rich, full, impressive.  Carries the oak rather more easily.  Still a bit hard at the end.   ***
Better drinking - the quality of the vineyard means the fruit has the density to carry the oak.   Top ***
Brown sugar - quite restrained. Very fine and long. Top ****
Fragrant, easy,light.  Salty and appetizing. A bit too easy to be great, perhaps. Top ***

Rounded, quite ripe, meaty and tending to decadence.  High-toned.  Very nice if not wildly complex.   ****
RY, DL and JA came to a small midweek dinner.  Notes are from memory - I was feeling too lazy to write anything down.
Elegant, lacks a bit of weight and grip perhaps - mostly the vintage I guess.  Fine wine but lacking any very special buzz. Top ***
Smoky, refined, holding nicely although for drinking in the next year or two.  Rather lovely. Top ****
Reminder to self: I must stop thinking of eighties Clarets as infants. This is pretty much mature although it will probably evolve interestingly over a decade or more.   Very classic cigar-box and cassis.  A pleasure to drink. Top ****
Exotic, or perhaps I just don't drink enough Brunello.  Fresh, herby, redolent in a curious way of ice-cream.   Very attractive. Top ***
Coming towards maturity - great breeding: fine balance in quite a weighty wine.  All the classic Barsac characteristics. ****
Green-rimmed, quite fresh, elegant nose.   Perhaps lacking the weight and complexity of the best Colheitas but a rather good drink. Slips down very easily - the bottle is empty today! Top ***

A bit disappointing - too easy to drink. That may sound odd, but I want my Chablis with some green acidity and this wine is too soft and lacking structure. Having said that, it's not bad. I suppose a grudging ***

Easy, peachy fruit.   Pleasantly fruity.  **
Fragrant in an oily sort of way. A touch flabby.  Fading. *
Rieslingy.  Nice weight.  Bare **(*)
A bit flatter and a touch dull. OK, but only **
Dry, good concentration. Nice balance.  Top quality in a restrained style.   ***(*)
Mineral.  Good length.  Lovely too.  ***(*)
Lifted cherry cough sweet.  Pleasant wine.  **
Similar, quite concentrated. Bigger and riper. Bare ***
Quite suave. Serious. A touch of vanilla.  Modern-style - "fut de chene" proudly advertised -never a good sign. **
A bit hollower.  Corked. Not Rated
Stylish mature wine. Fades in the glass though. Bare ***
A bit rougher but interesting. Mature rustic wine - reasonable enough. Bare  ***
Very pale.  Thin on  the palate. A curiosity - technically French but made in the Southern hemisphere.  No Stars
Middle weight - a bit colourless. *
Xmas cakey Muscatel  grapes. Citric. Quite sweet but balanced. Nice. ***
Drier, nicely poised.  Slightly hot, bitter finish. Bare ***
Orange peel, grapes and cofee beans. Smoky. Interesting. A good ***

Almost a maderised feel to it with honeyed apples and a slight woodiness on the nose. Good stuff. ***
Opened with trepidation given Toby's recent article ablout 1996 white Burgundy. This one, however, was fine. Elegant, light to medium bodied and with good use of oak. Good texture to the wine. Possibly needs more time in bottle to be at its absolute best. ****
I don't know whether to score this wine or not. When first opened there was an immediate whiff of corkiness. However, returning to the wine later in the evening no corkiness was present, but it did seem a bit flabby and with an oxidised edge. I am now drinking the rest of the bottle as I type. Again, when I first took the cork out (a different cork to keep it stoppered up over night) a corky edge lurked within the wine. But it disappeared! As had the oxidised edge! The wine I am drinking now is a delight of steely mature chardonnay. Wine left overnight like this usually leaves me cold (see the note for Pichon '92 below). But this wine seems to be living in reverse (if I left it another few days I'd probably end up with a bunch of grapes). Quite a lot of crystals are present in the wine (they actually made a noise on the bottom of the glass when I poured the last glass from the bottle). Scored as it is now drinking: top ***
Beginning to tire - fruit oxidising. Drinkable, but not for too much longer. ***
A joy. Not a wine that needs too much thinking about, but delivers what is expected of a decent twenty-year-old Pauillac. Elegance and grace, and with the clarety minerality of age. At peak, I think, but no rush to drink up. ****
I have quite a lot of this wine, and I have been a bit concerned of more recent times whether I needed to rush to drink it up. On this bottle's showing, I need not have too many worries about that. Not quite up to the standard of the previous wine (it somehow lacks the breeding), but good nonetheless with fruit and maturity working well together. No rush to drink up. ****
A bottle opened the night before which LJM brought round on the off chance. Alas, not really fair to judge this wine in such condition. So I won't score. Not Rated
From a half. Dark tarry, amber colour. Lovely black treacle nose. ***
Theme of Alsace white "Preferably on the VT+ side of richness" and "Spanish reds from anywhere (but obviously from Spain)". Oh, and a fizz to start with.
Inferior Italian fizz. Soft. *
From a two-third. Sweet and muscaty soft. Not a style I enjoy. ***
I thought this was riesling! Some sweetnes and richness with a touch of steel. Not as long as it might be. ***
Corked! Not Rated
Very thin compared with the other wines of the evening (my fault for bringing it!). Good, but not showing as well as it should. Liquorice and mineral. I liked it, others didn't. ***
From a half. Vegetal, coarse. Varnishy. Astringent finish. Odd. *
Sweet botrytisy nose. Lovely balance. Delicious. A top ****
Good colour, a touch green on the palate. Decent. ***
Slightly metallic, some age. Not much going on. ***
Young coloured - subdued nose. Oak and good, closed tannins. ****
Smokey tempranillo. Delicious. Pick of the reds for me. ****
Young and deep and with sweetness. Tannins, but a bit volatile. **
More age than others - a touch tarry. Not quite together. But OK. ***
From a half - I think. Tasted(?) at the end of the evening. Can't remember much about it, and I didn't make notes. But I seem to have scribbled down ****

Good textured wine, with slightly bitter tannins. Black cherry fruit. ***

Mineral, dry, fairly austere, quite flavoury.  Very nice.  Top ***
Quite forward - eminently approachable already.  Authentic Burgundy fruit, decent acidity and a sophisticated creaminess to the texture - all very good.  It seemed to lack a measure of intensity, particularly late on the palate - it seems to fail to be either properly intellectual or properly hedonistic.   A good wine, for drinking over the next couple of years.  Top ***
Genuine chalky minerality and, once it has opened up, rich (but not excessively so) nectarine-kernel fruit.  Nice acidity and good length.  Starting to drink quite well now but no hurry to consume. Easy **(*)
Clean, mineral, pure and delicious. ***
It's a good trick, combining tautness and minerality with creamy-textured fruit. Delicious  - and nosign of the problems thatplague the vintage.  Bare ***(*)
Rich and full, fairly advanced (as the wines from this producer often are) but no sign of the premature oxidation tha plagues the vintage.  There's a bitter edge to the fruit that stops me giving the highest rating - it's a funny thing, bitterness:  sometimes it seems  an asset to a wine sometimes a problem.  I'm not so  keen on its manifestation in this wine.  Still a top ***

Rich, quite fat, slightly off-dry. Forward (perhaps the vintage) and nicely mouthfilling. A good ***
High-toned, dry, floral. Mineral. **(*)
Richer, keroseney, slightly off-dry (this vintage was quite warm in NZ too). Balanced, long. Forward. ***
Fat, quite evolved. Dry and balanced but the fruit doesn't quite have the tone. A good **
Ungainly now. Hard. Fantastic underlying concentration, comlexity and length - will be excellent. **(**)
Dry but rich. Complex, still a bit hard. ****(*)
Fantastic complexity - resolved I guess but nowehere close to decline.  A delight and like the previous two wines, quite firm and masculine. *****
High-toned, so juicy.  Lovely.  Structured.  ***(*)
Riper and bigger.  Complex and delicious. A bit easy-going to be really great.  Bare ****
Shoe-polish.  Showing its age a bit. No more than ***
Slightly off in some hard-to-place way.  Not Rated
Lovely - completely fresh, complex and long. Easy ****
Pale but green rim. Loads of brown sugar.  Fantastic fruit. A lovely dessert wine. ****
High-toned nose hinting at aniseed.   Quite sweet light-to-medium weight palate.  Very fragrant and elegant. Others found things they were less keen on in this wine but for me a top ***

Tropically edged green-pea fruit.  Manages to be quite easily fruity but pretty dry and appetising. Good intensity and length. Very pure and enjoyable.  **
Light-coloured, fragrant, pinot-like. Really fairly simple but pleasant.  Makes **
Intense brambly fruit - quite forward.  Easy-going, more or less drinking now.  ***
Dark and dense - wood still a bit evident on a concentrated background.  As it opens up it is just simply very good. ***(*)
The fruit seems very mature - almost over.  Herby - quite complex. Still quite tannic. As Paolo de Marchi remarked, there can be a problem with Sangiovese of the fruit maturing before the tannins. Bare ****
Quite mineral as Cabernet goes.  Rounded, easy, very drinkable, but without the edge of the Ceparello. ***
A bit higher-toned perhaps.  More tannins but generally a little bit thinner. Still nicely elegant. **(*)
Quite sweet.  Fairly sherried and very intense.  Lovely concentration. ****

One of those wines that is just bordering on the past it, but is still pleasant and intersting to drink: it's possibly just that bit too oxidised, but this has given it a nutty character. **
Rather disjointed and disappointing - a bit volatile. It might come together, but I think not. *
Not something to get too excited about, but with decent, sweet strawberry/cherry fruit. **
Undrinkable. Past it. Musty vinegar. Not Rated

Elegant, fine, fruity, long, long finish. ****
Mahogany -  dry, oozing age, complex, quite challenging and altogether wonderful. *****
Elegant, savoury, rather good. ***
Really nice - just a hint of sweetness - chocolate fruit.  Top ***

Gamy, rustic, straw nose. Nice fruit. Idiosyncratic but nice. Lovely. Top ***
Light-medium weight elegant, high-toned. Strawberry - perfumed. Dry. Very Good. Decent ***
Much more dense - cassis fruit.  A very substantial wine - but nice balance.  Maybe even ***(*)
Taught, dry and structured, fragrant too.  High-toned, complex.  Good ***
Tending towards leafy, high-toned, hints of tobacco. Very mineral and  stylish.  ***(*)
Slightly softer riper and rounder.   Still nicely structured. Probably a better all-round wine than the 2000. ***(*)
Pure dry rich - elegant.  Top ***
More spicy (white pepper) complex long. ***(*)
More mineral. Spicy. Delicious.  Top ***(*)
A bit enigmatic.   Intense - concentrated.  This may be beginning to emerge.  ***(*)
Sage and onion stuffing - cranberries. Strange but splendid.  ****

Light fragile colour, sweet dilutish strawberry colour. Pleasant enough. **
Well put together tight wine, bright and vibrant. Good fruit, nice balance. Probably only for short term aging. A good **(*)

White bread leaps about of the bottle on opening.   Nutty, dry, green apples - the fruit changes every time you come back to it.   A prestige cuvee that lives up the billing.  Lovely drinking. Easy ****
Could do with another year or so to mellow, but this is nicely structured fizz with floral aromas and refined, appley pinot fruit (it's a BdN, I believe) with overtones of white chocolate. Pleasingly dry. Top ***
A blend of grapes from 89,90 and 91 - Cuvee 5, disgorged March 04. Fresh bread and apple nose, rich full yeasty and meaty palate. Perhaps in danger of being a bit coarse without food (as Blanc de Noirs sometimes are) - possibly a little more time in bottle will help. Complex and with a long, honied finish.  This opens up with a little breathing and is really rather good.  Top ****
Honey, yeast, apples - a complex nose and palate that repays attention. This still seems a bit tightly wound as yet.  My impression is that while very good there's no extra depth of character apparent from its "single vineyard" status.   A prestige cuvee I'll try again but I won't be rushing. Bare ****
Unpleasantly oxidised. I hope this is an odd bottle. Not Rated
A half, opened rather soon after shipping.  Seemed confected and estery at first, quite citric but with decent concentration.   I think this is better than it initially seems.  Let's say it is scraping ***
White bread and currants on the nose.  Light to medium weight - elegant fruit. Quite a lot of Meunier - which shows slightly negatively on the palate. Very good but could one ask for slightly more intensity without sacrificing the elegance? I'm not sure.  I'm being critical - but this is very nice.  (2001 plus reserve wines - disgorged June 2004 - I like the informative back-label). Very top ***
Rich nose - chocolate, yeast, dense fruit.  Quite a weighty, vinous palate - perhaps a bit heavy at the moment and perhaps rather wood-influenced, but this might mellow with a year or two in bottle into something very fine.   Might even rate another star in its way but for now ***
Touch of white bread but mainly ripe Granny Smith apples on the nose. Pretty decent basic NV. Bare ***
Perfectly pleasant but a bit nondescript.  This has aged OK without really developing in an interesting way. ***
This is rather dominated by farmyard straw on the nose an palate - too rustic for me in a way that I don't think will improve with age.  OK, but no more than that.  Bare ***
100% old-vine Pinot Meunier and thus interesting.   Floral and perhaps floury (or am I being influenced by the name of the grape) fruit, quite forward in the mouth and a bit colourless on the mid-palate with an ordinary finish.   Real Champagne balance (quite dry) makes it pretty drinkable however, although it is hard to find much real complexity.   An oddity that is worth trying, particularly if one wants to get a grip on the grape and what it might contribute to wines like Moet NV, for instance.  Scrapes ***
Quite autolytic, appley fruit, complex an honied, quite dry and with good pinot gutsiness.  All this after seeming a bit maderised at first, but as often with Champagne this seemed to blow off. Excellent. ****
Citric, appley nose with yeasty notes - quite complex.  Ripe, rounded fruit despite the excellent acidity of the vintage - needs a bit more time though - aspects of it seem quite tightly wound still.   Quite long too and creamy textured.   ****(*)
Light to medium weight, elegant, complex and nutty, quite long.   Just occasionally it seems a little oily/keroseney on the palate but that may be the food I am having with it.   Really pretty good, although probably for drinking over the next couple of years.  A good deal from Oddbins at not muchover 20 pounds. Bare ****
A bit coarse on first sip, but this seems less noticable afterwards.  The fruit quality is a way short of Champagne so a fairly basic wine. Pleasnat enough. *
One of those evenings with a lot of corked and oxidised bottles - even before I arrived there had been some bad whites!
Last taste from a nearly exhhuasted bottle (I arrived late).  Seemed typically lovely.  ****
Gamy, succulent tannins. Lovely. ****
Slightly corky. Not Rated
Completely shot - oxidised. Not Rated
Gamy, warm berries, very pleasant - typical mature Beaucastel of this period.  ****
Substantial but rather oxidised Not Rated
To make up for the corked Rhones! Touch of game,  lovely ripe fruit, quite low acid.  Lovely. ****
Chocolate, cherries, strawberries, easy, rich yet appealing.  Lovely complex palate.  Really, really top Port.  ******
Complete wine - really pretty good but so upstaged by the Niepoort.   Bare ***(*)
Mainly from my own cellar, tasted in the last month or two
Quite mineral, but this seems a bit flabbier, flatter and lacking freshness than I remember.   I could worry that we have a touch of premature-oxidation disease here although the wine is perfectly drinkable.   I hope it's an odd bottle, the one I had in July 2004 was fine and I've had a couple since which I did not note because they were similar.   **
Nice fruit, very drinkable.  Quite luscious even with a richness that one might attribute to the standing of the vineyard.  Good balance too.   But nice though it is, I find it rather undemanding - no tautness, no succulence, in short no really grown-up qualities.   I'd hope for more excitment from this vineyard.  Still a fine drink, and it doesn't sell for huge money either.  ***
A bottle drunk over two evenings as opposed to my last notr from the middle of a wine dinner.   Bright and attractive raspberry, cranberry and beetroot Pinot - a touch of oak and tannins but fundamentally in an easy drinking style.   Very pleasant drinking but not profound.   Will improve a touch over a shortish timescale but not a long-term wine. ***
Very (excessively even) citric, good acidity and a modest finish.  No sign of 96 oxidation.  I was given this knowing only that it was a 96 white Burgundy - thought it might be a disappointing grander wine.  Actually this is rather good for its level. Top **
On first opening, bright, high-toned, delciously fruity - mainly red fruits - and with good balance and length.  Very quaffable.  Later, some minerality appears too and it seems stylish too.  Very nice indeed.  Probably for drinking over the next few years.   A very top ***
Even with decanting, still quite hard and needing food.   Stylish - I hope it will resolve well. ***
A bit reductive at first, opens out to reveal strong high-toned fruit and a bit of pinot animality.  A touch hard at the moment, particularly without food, but pretty good.  Top ***
Splendidly mineral and delicious. Bare ****
One bottle rather orange an unpalatable - oxidized Burgundy syndrome, I fear.   Another quite mature and hinting at the same but still rather good and pleasantly drinkable. The good one: **
Fresh strawberry fruit, moderate acidity, some tannins and still quite firm although the acidity is moderate.   Opens out nicely overnight but still has a twist of bitterness at the end of the palate that I have mixed feelings about.  Bare ***
Bone-dry, austere at first but then just very classic appetising white Burgundy at peak. Bare ****
The Champagne was the last wine of the dinner, and very good it was too.
Very elegant - specially considering this is blanc de noirs.   Dry yet very appetizing.  Bare ***(*)
Quite fine - creamy but a little sweet - lacks minerality and steelyness. ***
Dumb - or not quite right - could even be the early stages of premature oxidation. Not Rated
Tight, dry Meursault nuttyness, lovely acid, touch of lemon.  Very fine.  ***(*)
Very fine, balanced, complex.  Intense, very long. Still improving. *****
Gamy, nice ruit, earthy, nice but not so long. Very pleasant mature wine.  ***
Ravishingly gorgeous, elegant, fragrant fruit.  Very lovely, if a little light and perhaps no more than it ought to be for a Grand Cru.  Some want to keep this for 10 years and (probably) good it will be in rather a different way, but I love it now too. *****
Lovely mushroomy nose, perfectly fresh, nicely dry.  Ripe but with excellent acidity and good length.  *****
Creamy and mineral. Excellent ****
Very mineral, stony and dry,  lemony, intense, very Raveneau. Starting to drink well.  ****
Delicate, fragrant, almost floral.  Medium-weight palate, succulent tannins gives some bite on the finish.  Bare ****
Very evolved colour. Open nose, rich,  hinting at corruption.  Slightly open palate that puts me off, but classy irony hints are rather lovely.  Bare ****

A bit grassy and cloying on the finish.  I enjoyed this at The Square in London a while ago but it seems a bit dull this time. **
Bright, clean, nice pure fruit.  Nice acidity - mouthwatering.  Scrapes  **(*)
One bottle a bit cooked and plummy, another brighter and fresher with good density of fruit.   Not, I suppose the finest or most complex fruit, but nice.   The better one a bare ***
Quite rustic, light-bodied but quite intense.  Characterful. Top **
Quite leesy and rich - Chassagne-like.  A touch showy perhaps.  Top **
Nice tone, appetising.  **

Friends brought this round for lunch. Lovely medium weight Burgundy with touches of toffee, nuts and melon. Good to have a wine that doesn't seem sterile in its freshness and isn't trying to be any more than it should be. ***
And here's the coincidence. I just happened to drag this out of the racks in preparation for the same lunch. This, as one would expect, has more signs of age - there's also a slight dirtiness/stalkiness to the wine (again none of that sterility that can make some modern wine so boring). Good maturing Burgundy. ***
This wine has been a bit of an enigma over the years - Toby and I have both given varying reports. This bottle, however, was exactly what it should be. Fresh and vibrant, sweet strawberry and beetroot, and with good acidity. More than pleasant. ****

Bright and high-toned. Good. **
Nice fruit concentration. Good acidity. Bare **(*)
Added complexity.   Fine length. **(*)
Restrained - gives the impression of being a bit less complex - or is it just a bit closed?  Bare **(*)
The nightmare vintage - this is quite restrained to the point that I worry a bit about its weight.  It's retained some good Puligny character though. Bare ***
Pure Pinot - simple but nicely balanced. Bare **
Richer and more complex. **
Again richer and nicely textured. Quite dry with a touch of minerality. Approaching ***
Youngish vines but good definition with bright fruit. Bare **(*)
Elegant - well-bred.  Pretty good. Top **(*)

Meaty, substantial, vinous, fairly soft.  A bit short on elegance perhaps. A good ***
Frothy, fine mousse.   Sweet fruit, quite exotic, rich.  Very much a food wine.  Scrapes ***(*)
Fat tokay nose.   Rich sweet palate.  Pretty good - needs time.  A bare ***(*)
Botrytis - fairly rich.  Barley-sugar. Tends to shortness and quite sweet. Quite evolved (green and gold too). Top ***
Christmas cake, underbrush, touch of smoke. Quite rounded fruit. Pretty elegant. ****
Smokier, tea nose, fragrant, moderate weight. Quite easy-going fruit, very tannic finish.  ****(*)
Tobacco-leaf,  elegant, but just slightly rough-woody too. Is it absolutely and completely right? **
Pleasant mature Claret - a little nondescript perhaps.  Maybe not a great bottle of this? ***
Smoky, cigary, classic. Later, spring flowers.  Perfect balance.   Lovely.  ******
Leesy, rounded, touch of nuttyness.  Very fine.  ****
Rich, easy-going. pure, effortlessly fresh. Elegant and lovely. Bare *****
Rounded, earthy, really quite splendid with years to go.  A fine   *****
The 05's all barrel samples and so notes not to be taken that seriously.
Pineappley oak from this (new) barrel, yeasty, rich and rounded fruit. **
Hazelnut fruit, quite tight and with good length.  The acidity seemed moderate. Top **(*)
Back to round, Chassagne richness. Mouthfilling, and potentially very drinkable. **(*)
Tighter than the Romanee, excellent Chassane again. **(*)
Exotic, complex, yet well-defined. Lovely long finish. ***(*)
Lemony fruit, clearly classy but a touch insubstantial, perhaps because this is quite young vines.  Bare ***(*)
Hazelnuts, quite etheriel with a lovely underlying richness.  Splendid. ***(*)
Quite closed currently, stony and dry.  Good length. Bare ***(*)
More floral than the Caillerets, excellent length. Bare ***(*)
Rounded forward fruit, but with a steely core not evident in the other Chassagnes.  Very good. ***(*)
A touch of ginger on the nose.  Lots of class but pretty moderate weight again - one could imagine this filling out though. **(**)
Jumps out of the glass - mixed tropical fruit and some veg.  Rather exotic and not my sort of thing. Very early drinking. Bare ***
Quite fat but much more in balance than the Caillerets, with a floral touch. Good ***
Ripe and plummy, beetrooty, quite rich. **(*)
Higher-toned, crunchy red fruits. Potentially rather good. **(*)
A synthesis of the last two, nice balance and quality fruit. **(*)
Elegant plumns and red fruits. Rather good. ***
Perfumed, more feminine than the Chaumes but still well-structured.  A touch of beetroot too. Top ***
Plummy, baked fruit character - the berries were small and shrivelled.   Bare ***
The 2005's all barrel samples.  I have not made notes at all on some of the whites because they had all just been subjected to battonage - I have added a note and score to those that seemed more assessable.
Lees just stirred. Not Rated
Lees just stirred. Not Rated
Easier to see through the effects of recent battonage on this wine particularly.  Apples, nuts, good richness. At least **(*)
Forward, fruity, characterful.  Top *(*)
Richer, probably will be very good. **(*)
Pure, dry, penetrating, very classic. Maybe even  **(**)
Lees just stirred. Not Rated
Lees just stirred - but suggests a strong effort. Not Rated
Pure and bright, nice fruit but rather tannic. Good **(*)
Lovely pure fruit, very fine - I do hope it doesn't get too much oak, but I fear it will dominate the wine. Top **(*)
Tannic again, but a nice purity of fruit. **(*)
Concentrated, rich and tannic. **(*)
Not at a good stage for tasting - seems promising. Not Rated
Forward, fruity, nicely made. **
Quieter, less flamboyant than the Auxey. Attractive. **
Fragrant, lifted fruit.  Very nice but the oak a bit intrusive on the finish. ***
Soft-textured and ripe (the vintage I guess).  Rich fruit.   Bare ***
The star ratings below should be regarded as very approximate since the wines are a way from finished and I do not do a lot of tasting from cask.  See the accompanying article for some discussion.   In short though all the reds are very highly recommendable.
Pure, dry, quite tannic. **(*)
Quite mineral, leesy now, fine, frangrant and elegant.   **(*)
Flamboyant, outgoing, splendid. ***(*)
Stony cherries, really nice fruit.  **(*)
Strong, iron, dry and reserved, with quite light-bodied fruit.  **(*)
More rounded, fruity and earthy. **(*)
Intense, round cherry fruit, and a touch of farmyard. **(*)
Mineral, light-bodied, dry and intriguing. **(*)
Earthy, spicy, dry, quite reserved. ***(*)
Richly gamy, quite striking - flattering now but it could also become a touch tiring compared (for example) to the graceful Champaux.  ***(*)
Both rich and elegant, it seems to combine the best of all the other Gevrey's.  Lovely. ***(**)
Reserved (compared to the St Jacques) elegant and intense with a very long finish.  Very impressive.  ***(**)
Nice nose, pure and unforced.  Fine, dry palate. A good example.  **
The 2005's below were barrel samples of as yet unfinished wines.
Bright red fruits, pure and appetising.  Very fine for the classification. Top **
Red fruits - very Chambolle. Good concebtration and complexity for village wine. **(*)
Orchard fruits and plums, quite easy-going.   Top **(*)
Higher-toned, cherries, quite dry, bright and elegant.  Very good indeed.  **(**)
Charming strawberry fruit. Nice weight in the mouth.  Lovely. ***
Mineral, high-toned, savoury and appetising.  **(**)
Not unlike the Fuees but a little less striking at this stage.  **(**)
A bit animal, but still pure and precise, expressive of terroir too. Top ***

Pretty feeble effort. This could be fizzy anything. It has no character. *
Pleasantish white with a good texture and peachy fruit. I'm feeling generous ***
Dull - none of the depth, freshness of fruit or vibrancy I was expecting. *

Tangy, yeasty.  Quite concentrated. Not especially fine or long.  ***
Sherberty, lemony.  Extravagantly rich.  Touch of liquorice.   Has a certain appeal, but it's out of balance to me.  Bare **
Toffee, spicey.  Very thin on nose and palate. May be a poor bottle.  Not Rated
A bit light but reasonable flavour and balance.  Bare ***
Very cassis nose, minty.   Very primary.  Very ripe.  Structured under quite open fruit.   **
Rich, lifted cherry fruit.  Touch of oak etc.  **
Cherry again - dry tannins.  Might come good.  **
Lighter weight - a bit more old-fashioned.  Touch of volatility on the finish.  Good underlying intensity. Bare ***(*)
Laid back, suave.  Ripe but balanced. Pretty nice.  ***
Reductiveness blows off - dry, quite flavoury.   ***
Pleasant, fresh.   Seems rather older than its years.  ***
Absolutely horrible at first - fetid, suggestin oxidation.  Cleans up so much in the glass - good nose - slightly dull palate.  Might be even better after a few hours in decanter. Top ***
Drying out badly.  *
Bright and pure.  Dry, meaty, long.  Nice intensity.  Top ***
Baked, tarry, old-fashioned.  Still quite tannic.   The sort of wine one needs to decant well in advance and to drink a glass or two over a couple of hours.  At least ***(*)
Nice fruit.  Quite tannic. Solid old Barolo.  Top ***
Very graceful - round, ripe fruit.  Lovely.  *****
Pleasant old thing, without being special.  Top ***
Quite botrytised. Elegant, lighter weight but nice intensity.  ***
Darker,  larger.  Burnt marmalade.   Very Rieussec.  Perhaps needs time.  ***(*)
A bit dry, light, hard - a bit low on fruit.  A touch spirity but quite intense.  ***

Lovely, classic Bordeaux nose.  Bright fruit, but a very odd, harsh, late-palate and a slightly hot finish that leaves bitterness in the mouth.   Would be lovely except for that. ***
Very nice - mineral, classic Claret.  Lovely balance right through.   For drinking. Top ***
Medium weight with a lovely savoury palate and a touch (not unpleasant now they are resolved) of the vintages tannins. I like this a lot - probably has more time left than the 81.  Bare ****
Very nicely classic.  Cigar box and sweet, ripe fruit nose.   Follows through nicely with a high-toned palate.  Bare ****
A bit faded, but alive and quite pleasant - splendid effort for the vintage.  Very drinkable.  From a half.  Top **
Intriguing brown-sugar nose with lots of mineral terroir notes.   Very classic and savoury - gorgeous.  Returning to it:  walnut nose and the palate too is like licking one.  High-toned again.   Really splendid but still needs time. *****(*)
Classic, quite austrere and high toned - very 66.   Good length too, but it seems just very slightly corked.  Clearly excellent, but I'll not rate it.  Not Rated
Stunning mix of flavours - quite fascinating.  Hints at an edgy volatility too.  Delicious but needs drinking - it may be a bit unstable. Top ****
Perfectly balanced mature Claret - So mineral.  An absolute pleasure from beginning to end. *****
Stands out above the last two wines with an amazing extra depth and huge complexity.  Suave, yet dry.  Very, very long.  No hurry to drink. ******
Very ripe and rounded - silky rich texture and a long, complex palate.  Relatively forward.   I can see how this got its rave reviews from Parker, but on returning there are piquant notes too.   Top ****
Corked.  Not Rated
Hopelessly oxidised - surely an odd bottle.  Not Rated
Much more classic than the 90 - dry, flavoury with marked tannins.   My impression is that while very good this won't become a star like the 70 or 61 - it seems a touch lighter.   ***(*)
Exotic coconut nose, creamy.   Not Claret as we know it, but fascinating.   There's great depth and structure and so this probably will be stunning in a while.  Bare ****(*)
Young wine cassis - but Montrose minerality too.  Fairly ripe - it seems in a slightly softer more modern style than the later wines in this flight. Good though.   ***
Liquid minerals and excellent fruit.  Very good and will be lovely.  ***(*)
Very dense - a cross between 98 and 90.   Qute a monster, but perhaps some of the older wines were that way in their youth. Still, this will surely be lovely in ten years. ***(**)
Mineral again but a bit more restrained and classic - less exotic than the 96.   I like it a lot - almost more than the 96 - very stylish and balanced.  ***(**)
A blend of 91, 90 and 89.  Apple and mushroom nose and palate - very meaty and substantial.  Big finish. ****
Two bottles, quite different.  One very honied and becoming a bit austere.  One fresher with nice richness.   Both quite good. ***
Pleasant old thing - it may be the end of a long night, but it seems just to be fading a touch.  ***

Nutty, honied, touch of herbs, quite elusive - occasionally has a certain flatness. Rather attractive.  ***
Very reductive but after a while in the glass, fragrant, sous-bois, nutty. Real tar and roses. Reveals more each time ypon come back to it.  Bare *****
Very pleasantly fruity although a touch of oxidation too.  Some bottle variation.  Drink up.  Good ***
Fresh, mainstream old Barolo - tar and roses again. Very nice. ****
Mushrooms, underbrush.  Pure fruit. Still quite primary of course.  Dry and savoury. ***(*)

An ancient-looking bottle. Appetising, nutty, good length.  Pleasing fruity background. Very nice. Bare ****
Petrolly almost. Rich fruit.  quite Burgundian.  Probably ageworthy. A good ***
Ripe, fruity.  Rather simple. Quite New Worldy.  **
Quite characterful. Mothbally fruit. I like it in a way - more than the Planeta but it hasn't the class of the Isole wine. Top **
Inky, tannic. Youthful, not that concentrated.  Touch of mint.   **
Inky colour, tannic, quite silky fruit. Classy. Top **(*)
Blackcurranty, minty, silky. Perfectly nice but no real class.   **
Baked fruit.  Quite reasonable given that, but not really special.  **
Lighter but more digestible.  Pure, transparent wine. Nicely drinkable.  Bare ***
Very deep young red. Timeless, in the sense that it is keeping well but not really developing. Smoky. Ultimately not so complex. ***
Pleasant but a bit faded and disjointed.  Bare **
Label mainly gone - clearly old. Slightly sweet and a bit nutty.   *
A bit stinky and faded.   There might be better bottles.   Top No Stars
Yeasty, fruity. Very nice. Top ***

Before the event, while waiting for a taxi at D.L.'s.  Deep colour,  marmalade, brown sugar, very attractive. Dry enough at this time in its life to be a plausible aperitif. Top ***
Not so deep a colour,  but very bright.  Slightly leesy nose with very floral, high-toned fruit.  In the mouth, nice tannins, lovely acidity and great length. Very classy.  Bare ***(**)
Broader, more open on the nose. Easier going.  Lovely, but not quite as mineral as the Intistieti.  Bare ****(*)
Fantastic nose, a mix of floral scents and high-toned fruit.  Explodes in the mouth.  *****(*)
Deeper colour, open, ravishing nose. Creamy again, pure, but open rather than high-toned.  Mature, I think.  Bare *****
A slight prickle at first, dissipates but perhaps takes the edge off a lovely, balanced, mature wine.   Bare *****

Quite fine - touch caramelly perhaps but good old sherry - lovely Oloroso like texture.   Clearly been in bottle for decades.  Good ***
Even  more luscious.  Ethereal, nutty, long.  Fascinating - even more so given the the lack of clarity about what it is.  *****
Clean, dry, a bit leafy.  Modern styled - could be anything.  *
Very nice - less characterful than Tondonia and this seems only to be a Crianza.  Still very drinkable.  Top **
Creamy, citric, long.  Lovely fine texture.  Needs a year or two.  Lovely. Bare ****(*)
Rich, wine gums, very tannic and structured.  Rather bitter currently.  Rather extracted. New oak? ***
Cough-sweets, concentrated, extracted, tiring.  ***
Not unlike the previous wine but less overwrought.  Fine.  Good ***
Rather VAish - nice underlying fruit. Austere.   **
Dumb, dry, woody, overwrought.  A bit difficult.  Bare ***
Woody again, extracted, big. ***
Tea nose, cedary fruitcake. Sweet palate, quite leafy Cab.   Slightly chunky Cos style - but very good.  ****
Spice and marmalade -  intense - stands up to French examples very well.  Very good indeed of its type.  ***
Lovely - hints at old Sherry and Madeira.  Fantastically elegant and fine from appearance to finish. Stunning. *****

Floral, suggestions of warm hay.  Light, refreshing, noticably off-dry. **
A single vineyard wine. Floral, richer and better delineated than the basic wine. Very drinkable. ***
A special selection from various vineyards. Dumb on the nose with some yeasty notes. Very much demi-sec but nicely balanced with a rich palate. ***
Cartizze is meant to be the very best area. Demi-sec again with a refined, complex nose and the sweetness seems in balance.  Quite long.   Top ***
Still Prosecco - it does seem rather featureless! *
A passito wine made from Prosecco grapes and bottled from a Solera established in 1991 (this example bottled in 2003).  Banana nose, elegant, attractive palate. Very nice. At least ***
The usual zoo - bottles everywhere, great fun.   The notes are consequently quite brief and impressionistic.
Nice nose but rather off-dry on the palate - spoils a nice wine.  Bare ***
A domaine in Quintaine (Macon). Charming and easy - in the best sort of way.  A great advert for basic Burgundy.  **
Delightful.  Time to drink this, I think. ***
Intense, sherberty, rather closed - needs time.  At least **(*)
Alive, fishy-metallic old Burgundy - touch of 83 tannins.  Could be better I suppose, given the terroir. Others weren't so keen but for me a top   ***
High-toned, bright, delicious.  ****
Grenache - ripe - luscious (nice vintage, I suppose).  Some complaints that it was light and Burgundian - but I thought it just proper Grenachey Chateauneuf.   Pleasant but fading just a bit.  ***
Very fine indeed.  *****
Pure, structured, intense but unforced.  Has the makings of a classic La Chapelle.   ***(*)
Pure and elegant but very gutless and lacking complexity. Disappointing.   A sign that Jaboulet is losing it? **
Kerosene, intense, OK but not huge acidity. Very nice. ****
Not the best bottle - woody  taint. Still fine. I'd give this three stars but I know it's an even better wine. Not Rated
Ice-cream - lovely, dry, piquant  palate - intense.  Quite tannic.  Perhaps ****
Luxury pudding wine - fresh (disgorged 2003 I believe).   Complex and lovely though I wonder if it would be better Brut.  A taste of how Champagne was a century ago. Top ***
Pleasant old thing - without being particularly striking.  ***

Like all the Gravner whites, a deep golden colour quite unlike most modern white wines. Jammy nectarine nose, rather red-wine-like.   Grapey peach palate, long and honied.  Striking and interesting. It has the structure (some tannins) and balance to improve. Lovely. ****(*)
A little diffuse on the nose by comparison - there's some extra complexity from the odd mix of grapes involved, but I feel that is superficial and I prefer the honied purity of the Ribolla. Excellent again.  ****
Honied nectarine again, excellent but lacking the depth of the 1999 - also perhaps a touch "flatter". Still exciting. Bare ****
Interesting, fine flavours - again a lot less weighty than the 1999.  Perhaps scrapes in at ****
At first very closed, on nose and palate.  Apples and pears emerge with time on the former and honey on the latter. Rather higher acidity. Very strong.  I think this will turn out well. A good ***(*)
A touch closed again on the nose and quite tannic on the palate.   Again I guess this will open up beautifully.  ***(*)
High-toned cherry fruit right through the palate.  Charming, nice tannins, decent acidity.  Very good. **(*)
Ripe, very pure, cherry-like again.   Pretty exciting wine, needing a few years yet. Top **(*)
Fresh, complex, lovely balance, this does not seem heavily extracted with its graceful elegance.  Very fine.  Top ***
I don't seem to have tasted so much this year and the notes are hurried.  Too much good conversation!
Vinous nose, floral and rich fruit.  I Good length, but it does seem very wood-influenced. No dosage, I believe, but it seems well-balanced. ***
A "solera wine" I gather. Yeasty, rather good.   I must try a bottle properly one day. Top ***
Tangy, salty, lovely old wine. Top ***
Very fine and elegant with good intensity and length.  Unless it fills out, it seems a little light on the mid-palate.  Perhaps I am under-rating this - for now a top ***
Very elegant and fine - everything one could hope for from a second wine. About time to drink. ***
Medium weight and nicely resolved. Pleasant drinking. Bare ***
A big rounded, fruity mouthful.  Quite tannic and a touch awkward now, as this vintage often seems to be. Needs a bit of time still. ***
Fantastic texture and density, really good. So suave. ****(*)
Difficult nose at first but opens out, showing silky-textured fruit with a lovely unforced concentration.   Should try a bottle properly at some point. For now at least ***
SA Portugese oddity - piquant, high-toned, rather interesting. ***
Lovely - mouthwatering and delicious. Scrapes ****

Seems rather evolved at first  - takes time to open up.  When it does it has amazing intensity and length.  The flavours centre around mushrooms and slow-moving rivers.  Lovely.   *****
Dry, intense, long.  Benchmark wine, I feel.  ****
Fragrant, dry,  a mid-palate hole but with time in the glass, lovely.  ****
Classic old Mosel sweety  -in pretty good condition.   A good  ***
Dry, keroseney, long.  Pretty much dry, in the Trimbach style.  Excellent.  ****
Ravishing, fragrant nose.  Middle-weight - balanced, long, lovely.  A top *****
More sauvage, with bright fruit. Still quite tannic - could do with a couple of year.  It won't be quite as graceful as the Chave, but it's very, very good.   ****(*)
Porty - needs time - dry and flavoursome.  Top ****
Very fine, dry,  ripe but not overblown.  Classic Cabernet cedaryness too. Top ****
Nice rich, grassy, good.  ***
Fine, elegant, possibly a touch spirity.  Very classy but it perhaps needs to be studied carefully on a fairly clean palate.  Still, I think  ****

A bit sulphury.  Sauvignon dominated - like an oaked NZ wine.  Banana-like fruit.  Bare **
Much richer and better-textured. Rounded, moderate acidity.  Quite impressive.  ***
Very immediate hit of warm-climate-like cab. Easy-going - fine for a BBQ.  No great finish.  Bare **
Ripe nose - touch of tobacco.  Soft - yet not overstated.   Tannins and oak evident on the finish. Not the sort of wine I personally want to buy, but rather good in its  way.  A good  ***
Quite forward - elegant - tannins resolved - dry finish - not so long.  Bare ***
Lighter, but with some extra spice. A bit grippier than the 2000. Quite complex and structured - drinking quite nicely.  Top  ***
Black cherry, high-toned, tannic,  some doubts about the underlying concentration.  Top  ***
Very closed.  Becomes honeyed and delicious - needs decanting. Provence herbs - bags of character.   ***(*)

Fine, attractive nose but the fruit while initially exciting is marred by a bitter twist towards the finish.   This defect seems less evident a day later - while the wine seems quite mature, I wonder if it might benefit from more time.  Pretty good. ***
Cashews, yeasty bread, honey, creamy fruit - a different character on returning each time.   Taught acidity and good length.  Really fine - perhaps even ****(*)
Brioche and honey nose, quite citric (lemon and grapefruit) palate.  A little disjointed still but time will draw it together nicely.   Softly frothy now, as one might expect from its youth.  Very good. ***(*)
Most of my recent notes of this wine have been from a single case bought at auction a while ago.  I have since discovered from the nice people at Gosset that it is a 93+94+95 blend.  Lovely honey and apples with yeasty undertones.  Some will say it is showing a touch of oxidative character and I suppose it is although I don't find it remotely a problem.  Very rich but now in perfect balance. ****
Quitelarge-framed, a bit coarse and difficult towards the finish - perhaps a year in bottle would help.  Ok, but I'm not wild about this. From a half. Bare ***
Doughy but floral nose, quite tight, dry and precise,  elegant palate  - decent length but with a touch of hardness that needs a year or two.  Very good.   Bare ***(*)
Lost in my filing system - this is from dinner at a BYO restaurant a few months ago, but I can't recall when.
Mainstream Chassagne.   Pretty good.   ***
A bit woody - extravagent oak as often with Grivot.  Dry and austerely planky. I'm not so keen - others may like more.  **
Very pleasant gamy old thing. Drink soon.  Bare ***
Oozes minerality, approachable but time will doubtless improve this.  Very nice. Bare  ***(*)

Rasins, a touch of oxidation, sweet pruney palate.  OK but unremarkable. **
Lightweight, almondy, quite fine.  Picquant and medicinal.  Attractive as a lunchtime port! A good ***
Elegant, lightweight, fresh and bright.   Rather nice. Top ***
Very pale - the colour has dropped out as sediment. Madeira-like nose, pleasant port palate. **
Quite pale, rather eveloved (the level is bottom-shoulder which might be the reason).  Rather savoury and delicious but   not quite what it ought to be, I feel.  Top ***
Very pale, mushrooms and biscuits.  Probably very old (some paper labels claim some of these bottles as 1850's - if any are, it's this one) and past its best.   **
From different source and showing up all the previous wines.  Lovely graceful old wine, fruity and scented, still fresh.   It develops in the glass and is completely delicious. Top *****
Nutty, yeasty, lovely mature Champagne. Bare *****
Quite forward, slightly fat 98 style.  Completely healthy but for drinking.  Top ***
Mineral, clear, fine.  A stunning effort for the vintage. Top ****
Still a touch hard but very fine. ****(*)
Probably substantially North African!   Bare  ***
Lovely mature Claret.  Perhaps even a bare ****
Dry, very smoky, quite baked fruit.  Seems younger than its years. ****(*)
Gummy, quite intense, in-your-face stuff.  **
Rounded, very deeply coloured.  Rather good. Top ***
Very rancio, cloudy (and still so the next day).   Rich and thick and with something of Ozzie liquor Muscat about it.  Curious. Top ***

Yeasty, very nice - Champagne quality although different in character.  ***
Tight, lovely, classic white Burgundy***(*)
Rather evolved - creamy marzipan.  Very good but might have been better a few years ago. Top ***
Very much real wine, this oozes strength and individuality.  Might well improve further. Very nice.  Makes an interesting comparison with the Roda: I prefer this because its much less international. A good ***
Cassisy, peppery fruit.  Rather international, but good of its sort.  ***
Very classic, dry , tannic, high-toned.  Top ***
Rich fruit. Elegant - seems rather good. (This wine passed me by a bit - I think I was chatting too much and concentrating not enough - my main memory is jsut that it was very good.)  Still,  ***(*)
Spicey,  rich, very M-C.   ***
Elegant,  lovely balance. Class always tells. Bare ****
Very marmaladey, soft , delicious.   I need to think more about this - is it Tokay somehow as it should be, or is it turned into something else for the modern market. I'm not sure yet, and I need to drink a couple of glasses more contemplatively.  Still, it's at least very impressive.  ****

Nicely shaped bottle, and reasobale stuff inside it. A bit coarse and woody, and a bit too sweet. **(*)
I think I've had this for a few years. It's certainly worth keeping. Lovely honeyed and mineral palate. A joy. Just goes to show that you shouldn't rush drinking Champagne! Top ***
OK, but nothing out of the ordinary. **
I haven't had Koonunga Hill for ages. I was pleasantly surprised. Very Penfolds in style (no bad thing to my mind) - velvety smooth, not trying to be too big, gentle on the head. ***
Good nose, but not typical. A really very coarse palate. *

Rather fine fruit with just a touch of lychee -  not very varietal now, more mineral - some will say too old but I think its at a peak.  Pleasingly dry too - quite a fine wine.   Is this just age or is this old-style Zind before the days of extra residual sugar?  Whatever, it's rather nice.  Top ***
Tarry, fragrant, everything you could want from a typical, good Barolo in a decent but not special vintage.   Needs drinking in the next few years.  Top ***
Rather deliciously smooth and fragrantly, softly Volnay.   I noted after a while that this had been tarted up with quite a lot of new oak.  Very good of its kind, and quite good even in absolute terms. ***
Lovely old-wine nose, fresh fruit.  Coarsened after 30 minutes or so and faded a bit.  Still rather pleasant.  No indication on this half as to whether this was a Riserva or anything.   Bare ***
Nicely made, fruity but not vulgar. Very drinkable. Bare **
No excessive 2003 flab although I'd like a bit more precision and minerality.  Decent wine. **
Excellent fruit, especially given the vintage. Gamy and mineral. A lovely mouthful but the finish is a touch harsh.  Still ****
Nice weight, attractive fruit but it seemed a bit flabby - maybe just a touch warm.  ***

Creamy, fragrant, delicate, quite fine.  Butterscotch background to greengage fruit.   Completely fresh with a long finish.  (Magnum) *****
Excellent - tropical-edged very lemony fruit. Some oak I think. Nice balance and very rich.  Big - a bit modern but very good.  Aiming at the Beaucastel Rousanne VV style perhaps. ***
Very fizzy to the extent of being a fault.  But  it wears off enough to form a judgement - quite mineral and characterful.  Serious wine that I'd like to try again.  At least a good ***
Lovely, creamy, fine acidity, good length.  Appetizing. Lovely.   ****
A touch closed and struck matches too.  Opens out - great concentration.  A top ***(*)
Nice rich fruit, dry long.  top ***
Still red Pinot Noir from Champagne. So soft and silky.  Gorgeously round.  Easy-going.   One of the best non-Burgundian Pinots I have tasted.   Top  ***
Beetroot fruit - harder than the previous wines.  Very baked and extracted.  This is really not a success. **
Lots of grippy tannins.  Highly-wrought and oaky.  Not my sort of thing - but striking. Certainly needs time but what will happen?  ***
Very fine - deep, rich, silky with a lovely refined, dry palate.   Splendid for vintage, but could one regret the lack of C-R typicity?  *****
Rich pineapple, nice acid. Very pleasant. Bare ***
Lighter at the final analysis - although more mouthfilling. Top **
Bright, both metaphorically and literally. A touch hard on the finish still although coming round to drinking.   A touch short of the richness you might hope for from Grahams in this vintage. Still worth ***(*)

Acacia, nuts.  Intense, dry, long. Drinking but no hurry.  ****
Lime, herbs, cream.  Not heavy on the palate - lovely.  Top  ****
Big and muscular - grand cru intensity and rich finish.  Very good.  ***(*)
Fragrant, piquant cranberry,  yet meaty (bovril) nose.  Excellent for the vintage. Partly on the basis of interest -  a bare ****
Promoted conversation - apart from anything else putting a wax seal on an Australian wine is making a statement.   A touch mineral,  quite complex fruit - pure too and not overstated.   Personally, I still find an overlying minty sweetness in the finish not to my taste although that might be less noticable with the right food.   Interesting wine that somebody with more of a taste for Australian style might rate a bit more. Still  ***
Fat, nice botrytis, a touch of paint-stripper and not so long. Good **
Less intense, less flawed and follows through a bit better to the finish. Nice.  ***
Lightweight yet concentrated.  Ethereal, complex chocolatey fruit.  Lovely.  *****
These three wines were very kindly sent by the winery who had noticed that FWD isn't always very kind to Beaujolais. I tasted these with LJM (sometime contributor to FWD). I'm afraid that these three wines still failed to convince me completely about Beaujolais. But they have persuaded me that I need to try a few more.
Earthy, fresh fruity zingy nose with a hint of vanilla - good texture on the palate. My favourite of the three wines for drinking now. ***
I'm afraid I couldn't really get on with this wine - it seemed light and dilute and was a touch green at the end. Possibly a faulty bottle so I won't score Not Rated
Quite a soft wine - maturity taking over from the earlier gamay vibrancy I guess. Initially a bit dumb and subdued, but after time the wine opened out. It would be interesting to try this in another couple of years to see whether it is just at a bit of an inbetween phase. For now ***

Excellent condition at 10 years old, very good fruit too, although for some reason I could not get that excited about it.  Still a decent ***
My last bottle of this - and hasn't it kept well.   Completely fresh but fully mature, quite soft and very pleasingly drinkable. ***
Very juicy with a touch of Italianate bitterness to give it a grown-up appeal.  Finishes a touch abruptly perhaps. A good *
A glass at Valvona's Vincafe, even so clearly very elegant, refined, blanced and generally yummy. ***
Very classy, loads of fruit, fairly forward, drinking very nicely. Top ***
On opening, quite tough - you have to like tannins for this.  It does have the most fantastic ripe fruit though and 24 hours after opening it had really opened out.  Delicious.  Easy ***
This guy is one hell of a winemaker.  This has concentrated tarry raspberry fruit on the nose, bags of tannins (which are ripe enough to be enjoyable even at this stage), super concentration and texture and a long finish.  High-toned, despite being a bit more forward than the 96.  Excellent. Easily ***(*)
Written from memory a day or two later: surprisingly old-fashioned orange-rimmed colour.  Quite forward and easy-going, drinking OK at the moment in fact but surely more time can only improve matters.   Very classy.   ***

Quite dry, fairly austere but very good, particularly with some nibbles. Bare ***(*)
More forward and fragrant, not really noticably sweeter.   Good ***
This is half Chardonnay and half Pinot Meunier - the latter not that apparent. Very yeasty, seems a bit four-square at the moment (perhaps that is where one sees the P-M). Rich and really very  long.   Clearly need quite a lot of time,  and I can see it could well be very good in a decade or so, although it might be a bit light on finesse.  Bare **(**)
Curious - very exotic, vanillan, and highly vinous.  Not everyones idea of Champagne,  but you can't say it lacks character. I need to drink this over an evening (with food) and see how my relationship with it develops.  For now a top  ***
Dry,  real Puligny, quite intense.  Not special but it does what it says on the tin.  ***
Quite rich, mouthfilling wine.  Lacks the classic finesse that marks out the stars. Top ***
Nice fruit - pure, intense. ***
A bit more oaky - but quality fruit again.  ***
Seepage round the cork (under the capsule).   Odd but not undrinkable - clearly faulty. Not Rated
Depths, depths and more depths.   Really lovely, both rich and piquant. Very top ***(*)
Burnt, dense, exotic, meaty.   Tannic.  Austere, difficult.  This might yet come good, and even now it is arresting and interesting drinking.   Risky to rely on it evolving well, but if all goes well  ***(*)
Attractive green rim - never a bad sign.   On the palate, like a really fine old Madeira in every way except there is not the real intensity or searing acidity on the palate.  The flavours however are very fine and this is a lovely drink.   Top ***
Chocolatey fruit - very nice old Colheita. Top ***

Possibly a touch too old now, but lovely old Champagne nonetheless. Mature and elegant for its depth. ****
One of the first wines I bought with a view to keeping. I love old white Burgundy, and this didn't let me down. Lovely, oily, nutty ethereal stuff. ****
Disappointing. Not past it, but just not particularly special. Maybe it still needs loads more time to develop? **
Lovely pure beetroot and raspberry nose. Drinking very well. Silky. *****
OK, so we drank this thinking it was showing well for the 1978 vintage. The label wasn't in the best condition. The next morning I was just sorting through the corks when I noticed we had really been drinking the 1982. The last time I had this wine I was disappointed, and I was again this time. It's OK, but it hasn't got the structure or depth expected. ***

Stylish nose, slightly resinous - a bit thin on the palate. Pleasant. *
Slightly flat, flavoursome,  a bit rustic. Interesting, up to a point.  *
Rich fruit. Lovely Burgundy.   Good intensity and structure.  Needs time.  Top ***(*)
Mothbally at first. Disjointed but intense palate.  Emerges - needs  time.  Will be great I suspect. ***(**)
Honied nose, strong palate.  Quite evolved - ready in fact and needing drinking over the next few years, I suspect.   Even unflawed 96's seem to be aging quite quickly.  ****
Open,  peachy, luxurious. A little light, some thought, but I loved it.  ****
Cough-sweet and smoky. Interesting, but slightly harsh on the finish.  perhaps needs time. ***(*)
Grenachey,  cassis overtones - quite raw finish.  A bit rubbery.  **
Caramel nose.  A touch rough,  perhaps.   Opens out - quite classically chateauneuf. Top ***
Nice balance,  clearly warm-vintage. A lovely balance of slavours.   Coming round to drinking quite fast.  A good ****
Yummy drinkability. Stands up in this company - if a bit simple.  ***
Fragrant nose.  Gummy, rich, very fine.  ****
A touch woody.  Pleasant, persistent, but perhaps a bit thin.  Bare ***
Burnt, a bit thin.  Bare **
Fragrant fruit, a touch hard, a touch of aniseed.  fairly lightweight.  Top ***

My memory of vintages of this Provence wine from some years ago is of the fruit being a bit sweet - this though seems rather good: Provencal herbs over cassis fruit with a lot of smoky cigar box.   Very much a point and it has kept well.  A little simple perhaps but I believe this was not a particularly good vintage for the property.   Good effort - I'd like to try some other vintages. ***
Quite concentrated and flavoursome, but lacking finesse for me in a way that I'm not sure more time will alleviate.  PLeasant then but not  fantastic. ***
Smoke and pepper - fruit gently weakening perhaps but very drinkable. ***
Blackberry and apple fruit with interesting sauvage overtones - once open for a few hours, very stylish indeed.   Will probably improve for a year or two.  ***
A bit stinky on opening - it blows off to some extent but a touch of something foetid remains.  Still, quite a dense, brown-sugar palate follows with a hint of volatility or something.   Good rather than exceptional. ***
Fruity, grassy - like a new world semillon.  Pleasant enough. *
Nice fruit quality - quite suave.  Decent length.  Top *
Very fresh raspberry fruit with a meaty underlay.  Very refined texture and good length.   Once it has been open a while it seems even more Burgundian.  It needs a bit more minerality or something to be truly outstanding.  Scrapes ****
Slate, sherbert, a touch sour as MSR wines can be.  Good length, maybe a touch hollow in the middle - something I find occasionally with the vintage.  Fine, but not exceptional by the high standards of the domain.  Top ***
Quite tight and closed, but opens out with time as it warms up.  Excellent intensity and a long brioche finish.  Good balance.  ****(*)
Very thin and dull.  Drinkable but No Stars

Modern-styled, but very nicely done.   Limey acidity.  Satisfying, but completely upstaged by the Jobard that follows.  ***
More reserved, but much more complexity and "beyond-fruit" flavours.   Excellent.  ***(*)
Dry, reserved, quite persistent. Rather good.  Bare ***(*)
Oxidised - but it did have a slightly loose cork. Not Rated
Softer and rounder than the Lafarge below.  Still quite piquant on the palate.   ***
Dry, fragrant, good length.  Fairly austere at first and less flattering than the Jadot wine.  Might till improve touch, while the Jadot is ready.  ***
Open 24 hours.  Seems good. Quite mineral.  ***

Sold to me in Oddbins as the wine that beat Dom Perignon in a recent competition. Actually it might have been the NV Blin that did this - different assistants in Oddbins attributed the result to both wines. This wine is good, but not DP good. There's a touch of sweetness and some heaviness of hand. **(*)
Good strawberry nose and pleasantly elegant palate. ***
Drinkable. *

Rich, quite forward (sepcially for the vintage), the quality shows in the persistence.  Lovely Juniper/Gin edge to the nose. ****
A belnd of 95 and 96. Strawberry fruit, impressive at first but it does seem simple compared to the Deutz.   Weighty but not so intense.  Good though for the price.  ***
Quite varietal but with an added complexity and some non-fruit chatracter that makes it stand out.  Drinking very nicely. Top ***
Lighter and a touch vegetal.  A touch thin but nevertheless it is a wine of character. Top **
Richer again, as with the 93 you might struggle to spot the grape variety: no bad thing in my mind.  An interesting mature wine ***
Very fine, very characteristically Southern Rhone. Top ***
Really quite Northern Rhone-like and very stylish, gamy Syrah. ****
Very complex, smoky wine.  Really lovely. Scrapes *****
Gamy but elegant.  A little overawed by the Rayas wines, but fine. Bare ****
Balanced and rich, but perhaps not showing ideally now.  A little more time might help. Still ****
Very creamy but not rich.   Dies a bit in the glass.   Interesting, and pretty good for an average vintage, vineyard, etc. Top **
Difficult on opening - gamy almost and austere.  Opens out nicely. Top ***
Nicely set up and needing a bit of time yet.   I feel this hasn't the fineness to be great but it is very good.  ***(*)
</ul>
