Champagne Off-Line
Alba Restaurant, Whitecross St, London
11th March 2005
NV Cuvée Petraea XCVII – MM, Raymond
Boulard
Creamy vanilla. Very pleasant wine. I feel it’s much creamier than the
XCIX, but it’s not as distinctive either, and given the choice, I’d prefer
the XCIX. Very Good Indeed.
NV Gosset Cuvée Excellence, served from
a methusaleh (that’s six litres or the equivalent of eight normal bottles)
This took some opening: up to four people were working on it, and even a
monkey wrench was brought to bear. Reportedly bottled for the millennium,
so it has at least 5 years bottle age, though when you’re dealing with
something the size of a methusaleh you’d expect that bottle age would need
to be at least tripled to have the same effect as in a single bottle. So,
all the more surprising that this has quite an aged nose with a touch of
reduction. Creamy citrus flavours on the palate, but clearly showing some
age. Very Good.
1996 Charles Heidsieck Mis en cave
(served blind)
A light, fresh citrussy nose. Very fine and elegant. Quite prickly with
white pepper. Fairly powerful with a sold backbone. Very Good Indeed. I
guessed at a 95 or 96 Laurent-Perrier.
1996 Lanson Gold Label
A very curious, soapy nose. Quite racy acidity. Full on the palate, but a
touch coarse. Good.
1996 Dom Perignon
Pale lemon colour. Crisp, lightly creamy nose. Very elegant with lots of
white pepper. Lovely finish. Very Good Indeed.
1983 Dom Perignon
Almost a coppery gold colour – incredibly different to the 96. Is the
difference really down to just the 13 years of extra age? Remarkable toffee
fudge nose. Full and a touch caramelly with cocoa butter notes. Although
I've not had DP before tonight, I'd hazard that this wasn't a terribly good
bottle. At least I'd hope that was the case. Good/Very Good.
1983 Alfred Gratien
Much paler than the 1983 Dom Perignon – a light straw. Peach and limey
citrus on the nose. Very elegant. Nice weight and depth. Very Good
Indeed.
Artichoke and potato in puff pasty,
Robiola cheese sauce flavoured with truffle
A nice dish, though fairly rich. The Robiola sauce was jolly good and the
whole thing was powerfully enriched with truffle.
NV Gosset Cuvée Excellence (making its
second appearance – there was a heck of a lot of it!)
Now showing a touch of iodine on the nose. Rich and creamy. Good drinking.
Risotto with wild mushrooms
Very well cooked risotto with the mushroom component well balanced.
Unfortunately the dish was marred by being rather over-salted.
1991 Clos des Goisses, Philipponat,
disgorged 2003
A rich gold. Quite a closed nose, though with time it starts to show some
medicinal notes. This is a very nice champagne indeed, and quite
distinctive. Explosive on the palate – very prickly and exploding with
flavour too. Becomes much more briochy and spicy on the palate with time.
Excellent. My wine of the night.
Monkfish casserole with Savoy cabbage
and crispy bacon
Not a terribly successful dish – rather muddy flavours and not the most
wonderful bit of fish. The savoy cabbage and bacon were the highlight.
1976 Diebolt Vallois, blanc de blancs
Mid gold. Very powerful nose with blackberry leaf and some honey.
Magnificent on the palate: full, ripe fruit, yet still very elegant.
Excellent.
Saddle of rabbit with sauce saubis with
mushrooms gratin
Another powerfully-flavoured dish and again quite heavy, with the rabbit
gratinated with cheese. Curiously my supposed saddle of rabbit had a leg
bone in it. Curiously ‘80s presentation with white sauce feathering of the
brown sauce. Ah, yes, that was a bit of a problem – the sauce was brown and
nothing more than a heavy demi-glace.
NV André Clouet Cuvée 1911
Low dosage. Young and a bit undistinguished on the nose. Very tough to get
to grips with. OK.
NV Laurent-Perrier Rosé
This and the Taittinger following were a virtually identical mid salmon
colour, the L-P slightly paler. Lovely nose. Attractive on the palate and
very light. In comparison with the Taittinger Comtes de Champagne, this is
very simple and a bit coarse. Good (though I think it would rate Very Good
in less illustrious company)
1996 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Rosé
A very delicate strawberry and white chocolate nose. Very, very fine and
elegant on the palate. But if I’d been served this blindfold, I’d have been
hard pressed to guess this was a rosé. Very Good Indeed.
1990 Pol Roger
Corked
1990 Krug
A mid to deepening gold. Rich and biscuity on the nose. Superb balance.
Lovely acid freshness balanced by a rich fruity yeastiness. A heavy
champagne and quite a bruiser. Just a tad too lacking in elegance. Very
Good/Very Good Indeed.
NV Krug
Very pale lemon straw. Lovely yeasty nose. Elegant and very young. Very
citrussy on the finish. Very Good Indeed.
Cheese
Round about this time a plate of some excellent Italian cheeses
circulated. Quite probably the highlight of the meal.
1988 Bollinger Grande Année
A deepish colour. Creamy, washing powder nose. Rich and very full, and you
can almost taste the lees on this. Very much representative of the power of
Bollinger’s style, which is never quite to my taste. Very Good Indeed.
1964 Royal Champagne Brut, Charles
Heidsieck
Dark gold, turning coppery. Nutty and almondy on the nose. Immediately on
pouring there are some bubbles and a delicate mousse, but it disappears
within seconds. What’s left is very dry and just a little too oxidised on
the palate: a very curious wine. If I were served this blind, I’d probably
guess at a very old crémant de Jura (if fizzy) or something else from the
Jura/Arbois. Not really a wine to mark, though if served entirely blind,
I’d probably say Good/Very Good.
NV Ayala, Chateau d’Ay Champagne Extra
Quality Extra Dry
No alcohol content was shown on the label, which gives an early indication
of the likely age of this. A rather unappealing mid tan brown. Dead on the
nose; and overall the impression is of darkness, death and graveyards.
Truly nasty.
Dessert: Bünet
Bünet is a Piedmontese relation of crème caramel but incorporating chocolate
and amaretti macaroons, and this is the first time I’ve seen it, let alone
tasted it in about 20 years – since I came across it in one of Marcella
Hazan’s books and thought it sounded interesting. This was a very deep
yellow and not the lightest of crème caramel type concoctions. Yet after
all that champagne it was very welcome.
NV The Wine Society’s Private Cuvée
Champagne Rich, Alfred Gratien
A very pale straw. Quite a floral nose, tending to muscattiness. More demi-sec
than rich in my book, and I’m sure this was not as sweet as the last time I
had a bottle of this, three or four years ago, and not as good all round,
full stop. Good.
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Last updated: 15 December 2005