As well as this wine we had a Groffier Amoureuses 1999 on our trip which was similarly crap. I expect far more from these vineyards from a producer who is generally well thought of.

Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru 2000, Robert Groffier
This is quite medicinal. Ripe certainly, but not remotely attractive. Where is the pleasure in this nose? I am neither charmed nor impressed. The palate has a lot of nice fruit, but it just dies. No complexity either. This is distinctly third-rate Bonnes-Mares, give me Dujac, Roumier or Mugnier any day. Sure, this is a quite fruity bottle of Burgundy, but there is no Bonnes-Mares in this.

As we tasted these wines my grin just got wider and wider. Jeremy and the team are very pleased with their 2007s and 2008s and they have every right to be, they are serious kit. Some of these are quite mind-bogglingly good and if you are a lover of fine things you should be going out of your way to score some. This is Bourgogne de chez Bourgogne.

Morey-Saint-Denis Blanc 2007
Very fresh and fruity with a nice roundness to it. Not only pretty but a good drink too.

Morey-Saint-Denis Premier Cru Monts Luissants Blanc 2007
Richer with a pure, refined lemon fruit. The oak treatment is very sophisticated. I really like it.

Morey-Saint-Denis 2007
Super fruity and fun. Bursting with life. It really charms for a village wine with super fruit and integrated acidity. Lovely.

Morey-Saint-Denis Premier Cru 2007
Great, complex, ripe fruit on the nose. Really Morey. I love the tannic structure on the palate. Really quite lovely.

Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru aux Combottes 2007
Deep fruit of a dark, seductive nature. Really refined on the palate, silky and super lovely. This will charm for year after year.

Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru Beauxmonts 2007
Exotic and complex. The fruit is incredibly stylish. Let us be honest, the nose is ravishingly beautiful. The palate oozes finesse and the tannic structure is super svelte. Top stuff, to be enjoyed with much chortling.

Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru Malconsorts 2007
Wow, an explosive, exciting array of aromas on the nose. Just great. Great. The palate is really svelte and smooth, with wonderful, soft, ripe tannins and such length. Freaking triple A.

Echezeaux Grand Cru 2007
Again, the nose is out where the big dogs eat! Amazingly stylish and quite exotic. Spicy and exotic on the palate. OK, I really, really love this, but the Malconsorts is a shade better.

Clos Saint Denis Grand Cru 2007
Oh, I love Clos Saint Denis. Scented, soft, sensual nose. This tweaks my nipples (in a nice way, obviously). A soft and beautiful palate. The tannins are lovely. This is Clos Saint Denis++, Dujac++ and freaking quadruple A.

Clos de la Roche Grand Cru 2007
Deep and compelling on the nose. Smelling this is a heady, hedonistic experience. Tastes lovely! The CSD might be a personal favourite wine, but I see lovely, compelling beauty in this wine. As I type this up I can still remember how it tasted and I am chortling and rubbing my belly with mirth.

Clos Saint Denis Grand Cru 2001
Lovely, scented character to the nose. The palate is really soft, fruity and charming. Stylish structure. I like this super much.

Clos de la Roche Grand Cru 2001
Wow, a powerful, profound but totally beautiful nose. This smells super, super top hole. A really classy, sex-tastic palate. This is a great 2001. I loved these 2001s when I first tried them from cask and they have certainly delivered on that initial promise.

The following wines were all cask samples so not all were easy to taste. Some were amazing, though.

Morey-Saint-Denis 2008
Not showing at its best but seems nice with good concentration.

Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Combottes 2008
Still a bit alive with malo bacteria, quite reduced too. Very quaquaversal. The fruit seemed very nice to me, though.

Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru Malconsorts 2008
Lovely, lovely fruit. Super concentrated. This wine will blow your socks off once it is ready.

Clos de la Roche Grand Cru 2008
This is clearly at an awkward stage. The concentration of fruit and earthiness seem good signs, though.

Chambertin Grand Cru 2008
The fruit seems very perfumed and very Gevrey. Again this is at an awkward stage but I was really impressed with its texture.

Romanee-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru 2008
Super exotic. Super complex. Wow! Shit-freaking-hot, man. Big, bouncing tits and permissions to mash them. This will be a stratospherically good wine.

I’ve raved about Inflorescence from this producer, this is an even grander wine. Once again is is a single vineyard wine, fermented to a low pressure, etc.

Champagne les Ursules Blanc de Noirs Roses de Jeanne, Cedric Bouchard
An earthy, rich, bready nose which is totally refined and lovely. The fruit is brilliant, as is the minerality. Yum! The palate is incredible: powerful, dense, stylish and super-classy. This is knockers wine triple plus.

I popped this to lubricate the cooking of some Thai food for my Burgundian chums. It was really good, but the name of it is a bit of a mouthful.

Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg Cuvee Saint Catherine l’Inedit 1998, Domaine Weinbach
A ripe, concentrated baked-apple nose. Very mineral, very deep, rather attractive. This is serious, complex Riesling. The palate has weight and concentration, but fine, fizzing acidity as well. The balance is just wonderful. Bugger me, this is mineral. Wow, great stuff that is really up for drinking now.

My chum Jeremy and I had a little chat about these kind of super-titted-out Alsace Rieslings and we agreed that we probably won’t have to keep those we have for as long as we originally thought. Our feeling is that some we have tried have been ageing surprisingly quickly. This bottle was drinking as well as it ever would, and keeping it longer would just be a risk.

Jean Boxler makes totally brilliant wines which, I am afraid, moved me to incoherence on the last few. I really, really enjoyed this tasting. His wines are clearly my favourite in Alsace.

Pinot Blanc ‘B’ 2007
This is Pinot Blanc grown on the Brand Grand Cru. Really mineral and creamy. There is some honey too. Great fruit on the palate with a hint of astringency. Tasty! This is probably the best Pinot Blanc one can buy and this vintage of it is really super.

Riesling 2007
Nice and fruity with pronounced minerality. The palate is very juicy and tasty. Yum. Even better than the Sorg generic Riesling for only a shade extra cash.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘JV’ 2007
Young vines cuvee. Very mineral. Very fruity, too. Strawberries, I think, which is a bit odd on a white wine. The acidity is strong and a bt raw, but there is style here.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg 2007
Riper and round. Buxom, and I like buxom. The palate is classy, stylish and really mouth-watering. The balance is quite superb. This is damned good.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘E’ 2007
Oh yes!*

Riesling Grand Cru Brand 2007
Peachy, rich nose of ripe fruit. The fruit has a highly-attractive cherry character. The weight and ripeness are totally in harmony with great acidity. This is a really good, if slightly buxom, Riesling.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ 2007
An amazing nose of ripe fruit that is incredibly concentrated and amazingly mineral. This utterly compels me. The palate? Well… erm… Tits? Big, round tits.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ 2002
Quite petrolly, but the ripe citrus fruit still shines out. Lovely nose, alright. This is super fun action with great minerality. This is still tits.

Pinot Gris 2007
There is a lot to like about this wine: the fruit, concentration and minerality are all superb. The thing you’ve really got to love, though, is the acidity; this keeps it lively and balanced. Yeah.

Gewurztraminer 2007
Liquorice and banana on the nose. A bit confected, though. OK, but far from a cigar.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Sommerberg 2007
This is a bit sweet. However, the interplay between minerality, acid and fruit give it a really interesting texture. This is quite, quite delicious.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Brand 2007
This has the great Brand Pinot ripeness and fruit. The expressive minerality is totally beguiling. Yeah, this is what fun is all about.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Sommerberg Vendanges Tardives 2006
A voluptuous and heady nose of fruit and compelling deliciousness. After I tasted this I was dumb-struck for a period of time. Arse-bitingly good. Love the acid-trip, man.

Riesling Grand Cru Sommerberg ‘D’ Vendanges Tardives 2005
A spell-binding, racy experience of stellar intensity. This is amazing.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Brand Vendanges Tardives 2007
Very rose petal. Extremely concentrated. I never thought I’d write this about a Gewurtztraminer, but I’m lost and in love. It’s got everything. This is a sex-bomb, alright.

*Sorry, that really is all I wrote. This is an older vines cuvee which has stunning purity of expression and incredible definition to the palate. The finish was long and bursting with life. 2007 is a really top vintage for this wine, it’ll have a long, pleasure-delivering life.

This was the first tasting on our lark-fest in France. Some really good wines and when you are buying direct it is super-keenly priced kit. The 2007 Grand Cru Muscat was probably the best dry(-ish) Muscat I’ve had.

Pinot Blanc 2008
Very fresh apple fruit nose. Nice acid and creaminess on the palate. This is a great drink for the price and quite fun too.

Riesling 2007
Lovely orange rind fruit. Very fresh and charming. Good acid on the palate and it is really dry. This is a top generic Riesling.

Riesling Grand Cru Florimont 2005
Lovely nose of fruit and flowers: gooseberries and elderflower, we decided. This has a great mineral tang to it. Lovely fruit and acidity make this a really mouth-watering drink. Proper wine already.

Riesling Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2004
Really peachy fruit on the nose. Super-top minerality. This smells like a grown-up glass of Riesling. The palate has a very good, precise minerality to it which I just love.

Muscat 2007
Mint leaf and grape nose. Light and refined. However, the palate is too light with no body. Not that hot.

Muscat Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2007
More of the mint leaf greenness on the nose, but also really floral. The palate has just enough sugar to give it weight and balance it out, but it is basically pretty dry. Really great finish. Clearly one of the best Alsace Muscats I’ve had.

Pinot Gris Vieilles Vignes 2007
Peachy, fleshy nose. Nice and deep. The palate has a real concentration of fruit. Whilst this oozes charm it is just a bit short if you ask me.

Pinot Gris Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2007
Stunningly intense minerality on the nose. Great fruit, too. That’s what I like: lovely, lovely fruit, great minerality, hugely long finish. Yeah, that is what I like!

Gewurztraminer Vieilles Vignes 2007
The nose has some foam banana finesse. A perfumey, lychee aroma as well. The palate has weight, and a touch of astringency which is quite nice. Good.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Pfersigberg 2007
Orange tea on the nose and that odd aroma we call ‘spice box’ is there as well. The palate is quite light and elegant with a good vineyardy character, but it seems a bit unforthcoming, is it a bit closed? Hmmm…

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Eichberg 2007
A strong liquorice nose. It is very earthy, too. The palate is super, super charming with bags of elegance and super-refined fruit. This is a really top Gewurztraminer.

Gewurztraminer Selection des Grains Nobles 2001
This is super concentrated essence of Gewurztraminer. Lychees and bacon fat are here in abundance. Lots of botrytis. What a nose! It is brilliant! The palate is wonderfully rich and extra, super balanced. A really good SGN.

I’m just back from France with a bag full of wine and a book full of notes. The notes will be written up and posted over the next few days, so do check back.

I may as well share some thoughts with you. 2008 in Burgundy looks like a vintage with a lot of promise Some of the wines were a little difficult to taste thanks to their stage of evolution, but I feel pretty confident that most will turn out extremely well. The wines showed good concentration, acidity and fruit, with the harmony to be properly noble.

2007 is a wonderfully charming and delicious vintage for Burgundy. Plenty of serious wines made, but most seem to be for the medium term of pleasure provision rather than things to hide in the cellar for ages.

Just down the road in Alsace 2007 seems like a totally top vintage across the board. Pretty much everything we tried seemed delicious and some have good cellaring potential.

Restaurant l’Arnsbourg is still an amazing place to eat.

I’m gong on holiday tomorrow. I probably will not have regular internet access so updates will have to wait until I get back in 13 days time. And there will be reports on my return: in Alsace we are going to Boxler and Sorg then we head to Burgundy for Dujac, Mugnier, Roumier, Lambrays and Arlaud. This is where I say “Ho ho ho, that’ll be fun!”

I really like Jacquesson , they have improved greatly in recent years. The Avize Grand Cru is an amazing vintage fizz. This is a bit more ‘basic’, but it is not terribly basic.

Champagne Brut Cuvee 732, Jacquesson
A fresh, lively nose of bright, crisp fruit. Lots of apples are there, lovely English apples. I suppose this is a French wine, but those apples are Granny Smith’s (who wasn’t allowed to sell her apples until her daughter gave birth) rather than Golden (not very) Delicious. There is some biscuitty complexity present as well, which is very pleasing. The palate also has a lot of that bright, crisp apple fruit to it. It has a lovely mousse and just bursts with life. This is a really enjoyable drink, has perked me up no end. Serious pleasure in a bottle.

A few people have said I should sign up for Twitter. I know little of it, but I seem to be aware that I have more to say than it allows, and I don’t say it that often. It wouldn’t really work.

Moreover, I like to run my own sites, it is good to keep control of what you write. In view of that, I wondered if I could keep my Twitter-happy readers content if I set up my own website based on a similar idea.

Serendipitously, I found an application for my phone which would automatically upload pictures you take to an FTP server. Daniel kindly wrote a ASP.NET application which presents the pictures, and with that a photo-blog is born!

If you want to see the latest thing to interest me head over to http://whatinterests.davidstrange.net/. Descriptive URL, eh? There is also a link on the right of this page.

I find Corton to be the least satisfying Grand Cru in Burgundy.

Corton Clos du Roi Grand Cru 2004, Prince Florent de Merode
It is quite pale. No matter what else I say about it, I cannot deny there is some nice strawberry and cherry fruit on the nose. There is a hint of greenness, too. It is quite stony, but just a bit uptight and correct. Where is the love, man? There is some greenness on the palate as well, but a reasonable amount of fruit and some concentration. It is a reasonable wine, but burgundy should be lovelier than this. If I want to be really rude about it the most damning thing I feel I can say is ‘It is rather Corton-y’.

I keep thinking I should write a ‘hilarious bargains of the wine world’ post for here. Two wines that would feature near the top of that list are Manzanilla sherries from Hidalgo: La Gitana and Pasada Pastrana. Earlier we drank some of the Pasada Pastrana with dinner at Salt Yard and I was, once again, stunned by its savoury, characterful and thrilling charms. Top stuff.

Of course, Hidalgo make other sherries as well. His dry Amontillado from the same vineyard as the Manzanilla Pastrana is is a similarly classy, stylish drink. The vintage-dated Oloroso I tried at the London Wine Trade Fair a few weeks ago blew my socks off; quite delicious. Then there are the very old, dry Oloroso and Palo Cortado sherries which cost serious money but are such exciting, burning entities of intensity that you cannot help but love them.

I admit, I have a bit of a soft spot for Hidalgo sherry. The generous and charming Javier Hidalgo gave a tasting in Oxford about fifteen years ago which will forever be burnt on my memory. All those wise enough to turn up were stunned by the expressiveness of his wines and ratted after getting through the vast quantities he insisted we all drink. Lovely fellow, lovely wines.

But the fun you can have with sherry extends beyond even the mighty Javier’s offerings. Lustau have an excellent range, which includes the novel, and delicious, East India sherry. This sweet sherry is said to be the only type that will improve with age in the bottle. I have one in the cellar to test this. Pick any bottle from their range of Almacenista sherries (wines sourced from small producers) and it will be an exciting pleasure.

Valdespino also have good stuff; it was the sherry which fortified me whilst working for one particular employer. Fino Innocente is a top bunny-grade sharpener. Their Pedro Ximenez sweet sherry is one of the few wines my mother has got through a case of (OK, I helped a bit). It may have been sweet action-a-go-go, but it certainly exceeded the quality of most sugary wines in its price bracket.

The final producer I’ll mention is Gonzalez Byass. Tio Pepe is a passable drink, but some of their other stuff is properly good. The thirty year old Amontillado del Duque is a good example of the style, nice and dry. Clocking in at the same age is the Matusalem sweet Oloroso: a really stylish, complex drink. My chum Dan really loves the super-sweet Noe Pedro Ximenez, which I think is a bit too crazy to sit down and drink for any extended period of time, but you’ve got to be impressed by its wacked-out bonkers-ness.

All of these wonderful things to buy and drink, and sadly most people in this country think that sherry is either Harvey’s Bristol Cream or something from Cyprus (which it most certainly isn’t, it isn’t ‘British fortified wine’ either, am I clear? I mean this very seriously). Get out there, spend a few quid on a bottle of La Gitana, stick it in the fridge then when it is cool pop it and be perked up. If, on a warm summer’s day, you cannot enjoy something as delightful and refreshing as a good bottle of Manzanilla or Fino then there is probably something wrong with you.

Some 2007s have closed up, this isn’t one of them.

Riesling Kabinett Graacher Domprobst 2007, Willi Schaefer
This is burning with limey life on the nose with a fantastically focussed slatey minerality. This smells totally thrilling and completely delicious. There is a satisfying purity to the nose as well. Oh I like this, it speaks to me. The palate is totally refined and pure, amazing fruit, great, exciting minerality, and quite stomach-scorchingly wonderful acidity. The complexity is certainly there. For a humble kabinett this burns across my senses with style, grace and class. This is what I like.

I’ve mentioned before that I am not the biggest fan of Zind-Humbrecht wines, all too often they are booze-tastic monsters. I’ve seen them clocking in at 16.5% in the past and this is not how I like my white wines. So imagine my surprise when I saw this on a bottle of Riesling Clos Winsbuhl Vendange Tardive 2004:

9%! I’m amazed! Fermenting with natural yeasts in a cold cellar does lead to some unpredictable results. I bet it’ll be very sweet, I hope it has the acidity to match. 9% is the kind of strength you’d expect in a German Auslese, I wonder how similar in style this will be. I’ll give it a few years before I find out.

Yes, yes, it is more of those podcasts; me speaking drivel as it occurs to me. I feel audio notes are quite good to get one’s raw opinion of a wine, but the little bit of extra reflection that goes with writing way well help.

The Fergus 2006, Tim Adams
Click the bottle to play the podcast

The Fergus 2005, Tim Adams
Click here to play.