2002 Louis Jadot Corton-Charlemagne En Charlemagne – a lemon and
lychee fragrance, nice fruit in the middle, and long clean finish.
Very interesting wine.



2008 Foxtrot Vineyards Chardonnay – a BC wine I hadn’t tasted before,
and a very serious one too. Pale colour, steely nose with both citrus
and sulphur evident, crisp and clean on palate and medium long dry
finish.



2000 J. Moreau Chablis Grand Cru Valmur – slightly muted lemon and hay
nose, clean and mid length, well made but it didn’t cry out to me as
being Chablis.



1983 Chave Hermitage Blanc – this was a rare treat. Showing some
colour, but not as much as one might expect at this age (we were at
least a decade out on vintage) with a ripe, rich sweet nose that
seemed to include many different fruit elements including pear, peach
and a hint of almond, excellent balance and a long dry finish. One of
the best mature white Hermitages I can recall drinking.





2007 Warm Lake Estate Pinot Noir Estate – (New York, Niagara
Escarpment) – Mark had asked what sort of wine he might bring to lunch
when he’d contacted me and I’d suggested a red, but hadn’t filed away
anything in particular as to what he might show up with. When I first
nosed this one, my guess was that we were back in the Rhone again.
When he said no, I went for my second best guess and correctly said
Pinto Noir, after which I shut up and let the others figure out where
it had come from. The wine had bright acidity and had good fruit
(plums?) but it needs a couple of years to settle down. More French
than US in style, I liked it. Very dry finish.



2001 Pelissero Long Now – this one had us pretty much stumped and we
made our way all around the globe before asking, almost in
desperation, if it might be Italian. Dark purple colour, sweet nose of
stone and dried plums, some ripe tannins and a long finish.
Interesting wine. A blend of Nebbiolo and Barbera, yet stubbornly
revealing the characteristics of neither!



1999 Clos l'Eglise (Côtes de Castillon) – ripe notes, smooth on
palate, with soft tannins, medium long. This was 70% merlot and was
what I call a pleasant luncheon weight claret. No doubt being held by
the person that brought is in the hopes of scamming his way into a
Pomerol vertical some day (a good cellar mate to his Ch. La Feet and
Ch. Shovel Plonque)



2002 Kurtz Family Lunar Block Shiraz Individual Vineyard (Barossa) –
Take fruit from 50 year old dry farmed vines, age the wine in new
French oak for 26 months and produce a total of 720 bottles and you
get this wine. The telltale here was the mintiness in an otherwise
sweetish fruity nose that also showed a bit of black pepper, and but
for the mint might possibly have mislead people toward the Rhone. Not
an over the top gluey monstrosity as are so many of the Aussie wines
perpetrated on us in North America, by agents under the clearly
mistaken belief that we like them that way. One attendee, perplexed
by my deviation from my normal practice of bringing mature wines asked
me why I had opted for such a young wine. The answer was that I was
driving my new sports car and discovered that it had no place to store
a bottle out of sight in an upright position (the ‘trunk’ being a
cruel joke) and that I had several bottles at least a decade older in
my hand before discovering that and switching to something that
wouldn’t have sediment. PS – I rather liked this wine and it went
very well with cheese.



1999 Ch. Suduiraut – what a nice way to finish up! Lemon colour (it
seemed to be a citrus sort of day all round) with a very pleasant nose
showing a little Botrytis, apricotty and fairly sweet in the mouth but
with enough acidity to balance.