Hill of Corton Evening

11 Apr 2013: First I must declare that the theme is a little misleading, as we only tasted Grand Cru wines from this marvelous hill. It would have been more appropriately named had we also included examples of the lively and minerally Pernand Vergelesses Premier Cru whites and those of the fleshy and floral reds, as well as wines from the other 2 villages.

My roasted quail in red wine sauce

We had this dinner at La Maison, Swatow Street, Wanchai which seems to have upped its game with the quality of food based on our most recent experience - Richard's deep fried cauliflower was really delicious, perfectly cooked, and dipped in mustard mayonnaise. Everyone's main course looked rather good. I was impressed by my quail with red wine sauce and Richard had a very decent medium rare steak. My neighbour's rack of lamb also looked deliciously pink!


As for the wines, we just had the corks pulled without decanting them in advance. We took our time to try them in sequence.


The trio of Bonneau du Martray Corton-Charlemagne


We started with 3 bottles of Corton Charlemagne by Bonneau du Martray from the vintages of 2008, 2006 and 1990. Both the 2008 and 2006 showed a bright pale lemon core. The 2008 immediately showed off its lush and oaky aromas of white flowers, pear and a hint of cinnamon spice, with smokey nuances. Mid weight palate, laced with mineral-infused flavours, lifted by racy acidity. Incredible purity, complexity, delineation, balance and long finish. A punchy wine that is going to live a long time! Perhaps best to enjoy this wine from 3 years' time. Simply marvelous! 18/20

The 2006 was expressive of its vintage characteristics, while retaining some of the Bonneau du Martray signature minerality. The nose was a little closed initially and opened up to reveal ripe notes of almonds, floral, toast, ripe apple, apricot and spice. On the palate, vibrant acidity and minerality accompanying the richness conveyed by the waxy texture and ripeness of fruit, giving sufficient lift to the rounded mouthfeel. A great balancing act in ensuring the co-existence of harmony, richness and weight - superb effort. Drinking well now with a long age ahead. 17/20

The 1990 was from a warm vintage. Deeper lemon in colour than the 2006 and 2008. This wine seemed less fresh and looser in structure than previous bottles that we tried. A mature bouquet of ginger, pear, acacia, toast, coffee, caramel and smokey notes. The acidity was evident without being racy and the mineral characteristics on the palate not quite present. Nice finish. 16/20

We had organised the reds into 5 flights.

Flight 1:



The 2002 Corton flight


2002 Château Corton-Grancey, Louis Latour: A blend of 4 different cuvees (Les Bressandes, Les Perrières, Clos du Roi and Grèves), not equally proportioned. Needed time to develop in glass (which sadly we didn't have as we needed to move to the next flight). Nose of gamey, savoury, plum, violet, herbal and underbrush. Supple mouthfeel, low-ish acidity level. A well balanced wine, with a nice finish, though lacking in concentration. 16.5/20

2002 Corton Clos du Roi, de La Vougeraie: A ripe and sweet fruity and spicy nose of plum, red cherry, raspberry, violet, cinnamon and nutmeg, with notes of game and earth. Vibrant acidity, ripe fine-grained tannin, giving this wine a lovely velvety texture, framing the beautifully ripe flavours. Lovely concentration and long finish. Quite atypical if you're looking for a rustic Corton style wine. Still rather youthful for its age. Drink now and over next 10 - 15 years. 18/20


Flight 2:



1998 Jadot Corton-Grèves

1998 Corton-Grèves, Louis Jadot: This definitely needed time! A meaty nose, with red cherry, plum and Chinese dried mushroom notes. Ripe but firm tannin with good level of acidity, with stony flavours. Good weight, well-delineated, if a little austere in style. Finish got better and better. I rather liked it! 17/20


Flight 3:



Faiveley Cortons

1995 Corton Clos des Cortons, Faiveley: Another austere wine. Not very generous on the palate. Leather and farmyard notes. Firm acidity. 16.5/20

1993 Corton Clos des Cortons, Faiveley: A very elegant expression of the Corton terroir. A wine that has aged rather gracefully, having shaken off its more rustic former self. Griotte, cherry stone, herbal, with earthy and mineral notes. The wine seems to have found harmony at this age. Lovely finish. 18/20




We didn't open the 1976 Leroy Aloxe-Corton 1er Cru


1993 Corton-Renardes, Leroy: A totally harmonious and elegant wine. A very distinct nose of bacon fat, savoury, liquorice, truffle, cinnamon, nutmeg with violet, prune, plums, blackberry compote, coffee and notes of caramel. (Someone said Worcester sauce.) Remarkable intensity and complexity, with the firm tannin having integrated into the wine, lifted by a good dose of acidity, keeping poise, balance and freshness in check. The harmony is staggering here, as is the long silky finish. Drink now and over next 10 - 15 years. 18.5/20


Flight 4:

1995 Corton, Calvet-bottled (magnum): This definitely showed its age, but in a nice way. A very mature bouquet of game, leather, dried fruit (date), coffee, truffle, earth, sous-bois with just a hint of the hoi sin sauce. Silky in texture, but some volatility has started to set into the acidity and finish. Still an admirable effort for this age! 16/20


We took a vote at the end and most people voted for the 1990 Bonneau du Martray for the white wine of the evening and the 1993 Leroy Corton-Renardes for the red wine of the evening. A few of us were more enticed by the purity and tension in the 2008 Bonneau du Martray. As for the reds, there were some outlying votes for the 2002 de La Vougeraie's Corton Clos du Roi.

What did we learn?  There was no question that these were beautiful Cortons, but we could not identify a conclusive style, and we found that the wines seemed to demonstrate more the winemakers' styles and vintage characteristics. In any case, we had too few samples to come up with any conclusive comments, but this tasting did give us a chance to focus on this much under-rated (priced) Grand Cru - let's hope the Cortons stay this way (price-wise)......!

The Class of 1990: a great all-round vintage

8 Apr 2013: Alfred and Maria treated us to dinner at Ming, a new restaurant in Causeway Bay (5 Moreton Terrace) that seems to be on everyone's lips and comes with very good pedigree: a manager-owner with great track record gained from Victoria City and Fan Tang and a team of chefs who have worked at Victoria City, Fan Tang and Fu Ho. Alfred chose the menu extremely well, heeding the fact that we were expecting some rather big wines. We started with a number of starters, including Shun De style spare ribs, deep-fried lemongrass spare ribs, and Shanghainese style stir-fried shrimps. This brilliant array of starters was followed by steamed crab in chicken fat and Shao Xing wine. The braised garoupa with bean curd was simply delicious and worked wonderfully with the 1990 Ausone. The rich sauce of the braised goose webs and dried Chinese mushroom was no shy partner to the 1990 Haut Brion. The skin of the deep fried chicken was wafer thin and crispy, topping the succulent and flavoursome meat. A pinch of the five spice-salt on the chicken did wonders to the enjoyment of the 1990 Haut Brion! The final dish was a stir fried beef cubes with wild mushrooms was just what we needed to go with the bigger 1990 Hermitage La Chapelle.

The class of 1990

My brief notes on the wines:

1990 Dom Perignon: Deep lemon core. Notes of brioche, acacia, nuts, rich apple tart, coffee and caramel. Still preserving the very fine persistent bubbles but less of that zest on the palate. Much more evolved than the last bottle we tried. 17.5/20

1990 Krug: Deep lemon robe. Compared to the Dom Perignon, this showed much more energy and verve. The very mature Krug nose of toffee apple, digestive biscuits with acacia, stem ginger and cinnamon. Mature, but still vigorous.Still very fresh on the palate, the creamy mousse delivering a very long and complex finish. Seriously delicious. It went very well with the steamed crab in chicken fat and Shao Xing wine. 18.5/20
1990 Chevalier Montrachet, Michel Niellon: Lemon core. A very expressive bouquet of saffron, cinnamon, ginger, fig, pear, honeysuckle, with layers of beeswax, toast and grilled hazelnut nuances. Some mineral notes still linger on the palate, enhancing the rich and intense flavours, just balanced by the assertive acidity, and finishes long and spicy. 18/20

1990 Mas de Daumas Gassac: Garnet core. A very sauvage and aromatic bouquet of garrigue, dried lavender, herbal, plum, with notes of menthol. Supple, good acidity, smooth texture, slightly astringent finish. We tasted this wine blind and it took all of us by surprise how well it showed because one would expect this wine to be drunk within 10 years of its life! 17.5/20

1990 Ausone: Bricking at the rim. Very tertiary nose of animal, leather, graphite with some blueberry and five spice notes, and a hint of orange peel. Lowish in acidity. Rather weak mid palate, the fruit seems to have receded. Dryness on the finish. This bottle probably past its peak and on the decline. I think storage could be a possible explanation here. 16/20

1990 Haut Brion: A very unmistakable and alluring Graves nose of blueberry, cassis, plum, graphite, gravel, cedar and cigar smoke. Supple and well-chiseled. Very classy palate that shows intensity, breed and complexity, within a medium frame of fine ripe tannin and a good level of acidity. A long and fine finish. Can definitely be enjoyed now and for the next 10 - 15 years. 18.5/20

1990 Montrose: Ruby core, just a little bricking at the rim. A bold and intense bouquet of dried fruit, raisin, fig, cassis, stewed blackberry, with hints of eucalyptus and graphite. More mineral notes on the fleshy palate, with palate-staining flavours coating every corner of your palate. Remarkable richness, concentration and power, bolstered by vibrant acidity. This wine took a while to open up. A massive (in every sense) and brooding wine that is going to take some years to unwind fully but it is drinking perfectly well today with all its pomp and fanfare. Try again in 5 years' time and drink over the next 20 - 25 years! 19.5/20

1990 Hermitage La Chapelle, Jaboulet (from magnum): This would be my favourite wine of the evening, with the 1990 Montrose closely behind. A very sophisticated expression of Syrah and its most pedigree terroir. A gloriously youthful bouquet of black cherry, blackberry, plum, violet, pot pourri, black pepper, with spices of cloves and liquorice and savoury notes. On the palate, the wine showed plenty of vigor and power, with very profound depth and multi-dimensional character. The velvety structure belies the very ripe tannin, which has totally integrated into the texture of the wine, and a freshness that begged you to return to the glass (and the magnum bottle) again and again. Incredibly long and complex finish. Totally seductive! There is definitely no hurry to drink up this wine, which will continue to drink well for 25 - 30 years. Yet why wait, when it can be so dazzingly beautiful and an absolute nectar to imbibe right now! 20/20

What a marvellous line-up! One thing that was clear was the importance of storage and provenance. It's a very good sign that a fabulous dinner was enjoyed by all when the next dinner date was already agreed before the end of the evening!

Great Finds in Baden: Food, Wine and Music!

4 April 2013: We enjoyed the performance of the Berliner Philharmoniker so much at the Easter Festival in Salzburg last year that we decided to support their move to Baden Baden and signed up for a couple of their performances this year. It was not a good idea to go to a 3-hour opera with jetlag - it was the Magic Flute! I had difficulty staggering out of the concert hall. The second evening's performance of Mahler Symphony No. 2 was much more animated, especially with so many instruments and musicians being involved - the percussionists at the back were most agile in their swift but unhurried manoeuvres from one station at one end of the stage to another at the other end. (You can also find the Sir Simon Rattle recording of Mahler Symphony No. 2 in the Cathay Pacific's inflight music library!!)

We stayed at the Brenners Park Hotel (www.brenners.com) where there is a 1 Michelin star restaurant Brenners Park-Restaurant. The hotel probably belonged to another era, with its opulent grandeur, classic architecture and elegant deluxe, but the service was extremely friendly and professional. We had a room which looked onto the famous Lichtentaler Alley behind the hotel, blending into one picturesque scene. With the overnight snowfall just before our departure, this was transformed into a romantic view of calm and splendor, rather mesmerizing.

I highly recommend the gourmet restaurant which featured a wonderful à la carte menu, together with two degustation menus, one the gourmet menu and the other thoughtfully designed for vegetarians! My favourites were the carrot dish and the espuma of potato and leek with black truffle - vegetarian dishes can be so beautifully presented and complex in texture and flavours!  Here are our recommendations:



Greetings from the chef - I loved the combination of beetroot, smoked eel and green apple foam!



Purée of Ancient Carrot, finger carrots, earth of mixed grain bread and golden quail egg
(Almost too pretty to eat!)



Espuma of potato and leek with black truffle
(Richness without heaviness - heavenly!)



Two kinds of brussel sprouts and savoy cabbage, with macadamia nuts,
purée of butternut squash and lemongrass-coconut emulsion



Breton turbot with perigord truffle butter, ravioli with confit onio and watercress
(best turbot dish Richard has ever had!)


Whole seared sole, with balsamic-caper glace, baby leaf spinach and artichokes (I did not take a picture but it really was very tasty - can easily be the best Dover sole dish I've ever had!)


The young chef Paul Stradner (who arrived in 2012) came out to greet us on our last evening there - his enthusiasm and dedication clearly reflected in the quality, designe and presentation of the dishes! We had less luck with the senior sommelier, who dismissed our questioning of the condition of a bottle of Spätburgunder from 2000 (with the alarming whiff of rusty nail and nail varnish), and authoritatively put it down to our lack of experience with local Spätburgunder!


Needless to say the food went particularly well with wines from the region. We were so impressed by the white wines from Baden, the warmest and most southern region in Germany with very diverse soil types, from granite and gneiss in Ortenau to volcanic soil in Kaiserstuhl and chalky-loess hills of Tuniberg. A third of the area under vines is planted with Spätburgunder with Weissburgunder and all other Pinot varieties accounting for about half of the land under vines. For our visit, we were able to taste some very high quality wines from the most recent 3 very high quality vintages, from the very ripe 2009, the more classic 2010 and the superb 2011 vintage: Grauburgunder, Weissburgunder and Riesling (locally called Klingelberger), as well as some Spätburgunder. The Gutswein of Grauburgunder and Weissburgunder from high quality estates offer particularly good value, at somewhere between EUR 6 - 8 a bottle ex-cellars! Given the established reputation of Spätburgunders from Baden, the wine list at the Brenners Park seemed a little light on the Spätburgunders from the region: we had hoped to see a wider selection. I wondered if it's because the top Spätburgunders had such strong followings amongst the locals that they were sold out almost as soon as they were released? We managed to visit one weingut (well, just the shop as we did not manage to get an appointment) - Schloss Staufenberg (www.markgraf-von-baden.de) (a weingut owned by the Markgraf von Baden, a relative of the UK's Prince Philip, so we were told, and recently joined the ranks of VDP!!) but sadly the top Spätburgunder was already sold out!


Following are highlights of wines that we did try and would definitely recommend:


2011 Riesling Kabinett Trocken, Schloss Neuweir: located just 5 km outside of Baden Baden, in an idyllic village called Neuweier. We had lunch at this place called Traube, a hotel-guesthouse with a very good restaurant that serves hearty dishes of local cuisine (as well as something as delicate as steamed seafood with an Asian lightly spicy lemongrass sauce) - perfect for Sunday lunches en famille (www.traube-neuweier.de). The friendly chef came out to greet us....in English!


2011 Grauburgunder, Schloss Staufenberg


2011 Grauburgunder, Dr Heger (www.heger-weine.de): great value wine, excellent quality


2011 Weissburgunder, Dr Heger: great value wine, excellent quality

2009 Ihringer Winklerberg, Riesling GG, Dr Heger: pale lemon. Expressive noes of lime blossom, grapefruit, pineapple, honey with a hint of petrol. Racy acidity, medium bodied, dry and crisp long mineral finish. A very elegant wine that will definitely benefit from bottle ageing. Very impresive.

This is the 2011 bottle.

2008 Durbacher Schlossberg, Klingelberger (Riesling), Spatlese Trocken, Schloss Staufenberg: Very expressive nose, full-bodied, and plenty of complexity. Loved the long complex finish. A great wine with the turbot or Dover sole dish. This is a weingut worth looking out for - just became a member of VDP in 2011. We also tried the 2011 vintage at the wine shop - really excellent, plenty of minerality and complexity.








2009 Spätburgunder, Franz Anton, Schwarzer Adler, Franz Keller (www.frankz-keller.de): Bright cherry robe. Savoury and red fruit bouquet of raspberry, redcurrant, black cherry, rose petals, with nuances of underbrush and mushroom. Medium bodied, medium acidity. Supple on the palate. Well-balanced and youthful, if a little lacking in mid palate for now....can do with some time to build out.


Germany has given us some very pleasant surprises since our visit to Hamburg last year, in terms of quality of gourmet food, price and quality ratio of local wines, and of course the German efficiency and organisation. There are a few other wineries from Baden whose wine we would love to have tried......good news is we are already planning next year's visit!  I am also hopeful that we may see some more choices of high quality local Spätburgunders on the wine list at Brenners Park!!!  It's a tempting thought to include German Grauburgunder to our repertoire of everyday white at home, which effectively means Bourgogne Blanc or Village!!!!