Oooh la la!

Sorry chaps, dear readers, everyone, but yesterday I had a really great afternoon, having been invited to a wonderful lunch by my kind and generous friend YT. Lots of fine wine and a great digestif defined a very fine lunch, fully orchestrated by our friend, the multi-talented chef Michalis Dounetas at his Wood Restaurant.

Wood is primarily a meat restaurant and this was a red wine afternoon, mainly. The food was personally prepared or stewarded by the chef and was pretty impressive, with every course being spot-on and perfectly matched with the wines, all of them; this is, after all, one of YT's great talents. In any case the wine was so amazing that it would have been able to combine with anything, and even more so with the great productions of the Wood kitchen, unfussy, intelligent and bursting with flavour.

All the eleven attendees were wine people of some sort, from the professional (yes, loyal reader, I still belong there, just!) to the amateur but keen wine lover end of the spectrum, and all were friends with YT; most of us were also friends, primarily through our shared love of wine. The bonhomie was palpable, the enthusiasm also, as wine after wine was presented, tasted, combined with food, dispatched and dissected

Before you get the idea that this was just a group of guys getting pissed on a Saturday afternoon, just with a better quality of wine, you could not be more wrong. Sure, by the end of the afternoon I had had plenty to drink and eat, as had all present, but we were not rowdy, not loud and abusive, not combative. Wine lovers are not die that and we were all respectful of the good food, the great wines, the kindness of our host and, of course, each other; it was a wonderful, relaxed but extremely pleasurable afternoon.
The food, of which only two photos are included, was up to the task of accompanying this truly outstanding collection of southern French red wines. It was also shamelessly meat-centred, as is the restaurant itself, which prides itself on the sourcing of its ingredients. We ate:
Carpaccio of Greek beef, slightly spicy, with marinated vegetables - superb.
Mushroom risotto, lamb, graviera (greek cheese) foam - saltier than I would like but full of flavour and excellent with the trio of wines selected.
Ragout of Greek black pig with a celeriac puree - for me the dish of the day, outstanding, subtle layers of flavour and refinement out of essentially a simple country dish.
Filet of beef in a pepper sauce - simple, tasty, elegant and not over-peppered, spot-on.
Duet of chocolate mousse - palate cleansing and pleasant, if for my taste lacking intensity, excellent with an espresso or two...
But this lunch was all about the wine and the amazing intensity and variety of flavours in southern French reds... so naturally we started with a white wine, Vin de Voile 1997 from R&B Plageoles, Gaillac, which was delicately nutty, complex and long, not unlike a light version of an amontillado sherry.
Each of us had three glasses for three different red wines, so we could taste and compare almost as we saw fit. Of course ideally we would have had six different glasses, but in a busy restaurant this is not realistic, with our simple rotation system working very well. KL (Master of Wine) set the running order and off we went in pursuit of greatness. And there was lots of it around, in no particular order:
Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1998, Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe 1998 from a magnum - rather ethereal, majestic ripe and complex nose, lots of ripe red fruit, palate full and complex, long but a bit hard on the finish.
Domaine de Trevallon 1990, from further south (Baux de Provence), older, a stunning still-young wine, big and chunky (hello cabernet sauvignon!) with a hint of bitterness, clean and intriguing, for me the best in standing up to the lamb.
Cornas-Reynard 1999, Domaine Thierry Allemand from a magnum, one of the top wines of this area, round and rich, ripe and ready, surprisingly without hard edges.
Hermitage 1995 Domaine J.L. Chave, explosive nose full of red fruit, apples, violets, a big wine of complexity, ripeness and style, balanced and classy. A definite wow!
Mas de Daumas Gassac Cuvee Emile Peynaud 2001, this jewel of a wine from the Languedoc either was going through an awkward phase or suffered in a line-up with more juicy, more exuberant Rhone wines, this being 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. A very fine wine indeed unfairly treated?
Cote-Rotie 1999, Domaine Burgaud - Oooops, have mislaid my note on this, sorry! From refresher discussions I believe it was rich and untypical, with a pronounced minerality.

For our finish, we were fortunate enough to have a rare find, an old distillate from a domaine long consigned to history, vieux marc du Beaujolais 1949 from Domaine du Pinay et du Vivier. This had an old-fashioned rustic/refined character with a massively alcoholic nose, aggressively chunky and powerful palate, long and intriguing - woof!

To say the occasion was remarkable is a simple statement of fact, hugely enjoyable a wretched understatement. For all of us there it was also an education.

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