2006 John Duval Wines Shiraz Entity

Dark purple color, nose has alcohol, blackberry and vanilla. Tannins still way too strong and high in acidity. Fruit intense but not overpowering. Finish long but lacks a bit complexity. Not as good as remember tasting the other years.

John Duval is a ex-Penfolds man and produces some very good wines with good character. Look forward to trying the other wines soon from him in Barossa Valley.

John Duval Web Site

2005 Cape Mentelle Cabernet Merlot

Blackcurrant, pepper, tobacco leaf and a bit of animal. Very good with the steak. Grainy, high tannins, acidity and finish that is not long but with the sticky mouth feeling.

Good wine from Margret River. This wine is very popular on the web. I guess also a very good wine to go with Pizza, as mentioned by Carmen.

Cape Mentelle web site

2002 Sylvie Esmonin (Michel et Fille) Bourgogne Cuvée Sylvie

Again, impressive wine and food match. The Sylvie Esmonin has red cherry bursting, with yeasty, cinnamon and little earth. Nice finish, very smooth and went fantastic with the Black Truffle angel hair! Well done Heline!

2005 Cloudy Bay Chardonnay

Golden yellow chardonnay to go with the fatty tuna. Apple, honey, pears and light oak and smooth long finish with mineral tones.

This wine could be said as superior to the Green Point and very distinct Marlborough New Zealand . Very good matching with food and a very good drink even on its own. Excellent!

Description of wine of Cloudy Bay website.

2006 Green Point Chardonnay

Wine selection at Heline's wedding in Singapore was very good. Very good marriage of food and wine. The first was Green Point Chardonnay. Light yellow with strong vanilla, creamy and yeasty overtones. Fresh peach and citrus. short to medium finish. With time and warmer, still well balanced and suburb wine which went really well with the lobster. Very impressed with this Yarra Valley wine.

Remember tasting the sparkling wine before, which was also impressive.

Green Point Web Site

N.V. Pol Roger Champagne Brut Réserve

Excellent N.V. Champagne with fine bubbles, great citrus and green apple flavors. Medium bodied, fine integration of acidity and body, nice round and fat. Fantastic wine to start off the evening with, and also excellent value for money!

2004 Chateau Calon

Reasonable wine from St. Georges, the satellite of Montagne-St. Émilion. Very good nose of black fruit with spicy overtones. Short finish and lacks complexity. Excellent value for money at around HKD150.

2006 Shafer Chardonnay Red Shoulder Ranch - Carneros

One of the best Chardonnays I have had from the US. Very well balanced oak, bready but not overpowering. Grapefruit, pear and tangy feeling for the great refreshing acidity. A Chardonnay that feels that it is from a cooler region with refined structure and elegance. Fantastic wine and well worth the money for this 2006. It compares well with the French Chardonnays and probably more people will like it with it excellent balance.

Shafer web site

Press release

1999 Château d'Yquem

Of course there is honey, there is cinnamon, there is apricot, there is orange peel and the slight trace of ginger. When drunk, not as powerful as one would expect, quite simple and approachable with less concentration, but great acidity and structure. Not too fat, but round and reasonably long finish. It might not be the best d'Yquem but it is certainly a very enjoyable Sauternes.

1996 Château Montrose

Drank so much of this wine during the wedding. This is what you would expect from a Saint Estèphe wine, although it does have the modern touch of being softer and being more spicy. Black fruit, cedar, earthy, tobacco and still lots of tannin. I remember that it drank well even after 2 hours but this time finished it within 1.5 hours. Excellent nose, well structured, good acidity. Always so much more better than the 2nd wine! Very good length and aftertaste. Among the St. Estèphe we have drunk in the past few months, simpler and more straight forward among the wines tasted from the region.

1990 Château Calon-Ségur

Thank you Alex for my first taste of this most romantic wine. Medium purple with fantastic nose of licorice, tobacco, spices, dark berries, plums. Chocolate, minerals, coffee, mushrooms and cedar. Medium to long finish, minty, sweet, where tannins well dissolved after the 18 years. Wonderful year and probably at a very good time to drink. Most impressive wine of the night.

2005 Felton Road Pinot Noir

Really good effort from Felton Road!! Cranberries, strawberries, with leathery overtones and great spice. Acidic, sweet and really good balance, this is my second bottle and I did not realize how good this was. Very very different from the Burgundies, but also a notch above the other Central Otago wines. This wine has elegance and stands up well with the other pinots served today.

Check out the reviews on this.

2005 Domaine Denis Mortet Gevrey-Chambertin Mes Cinq Terroirs

Can't believe we finished all 3 of this bottle within a month... sigh.... Vegetable overtones, complex, strong berries. Really enjoyable and a good example of what a modern Burgundy pinot can do.

2003 Château de La Tour Clos Vougeot

Thanks you Alex for the great Clos Vougeot Grand Cru. Cherries, berries, with strong vegetal and leathery tones. Fantastic finish with minty overtones. Fine texture and very smooth tannins. Long finish. After 1 hour, did not particularly improved but dropped off a bit. Still, a very good Clos Vougeot.

2002 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne Brut Rosé Vintage (Reserve)

Thank you Alex for bring this for the night at the Pawn. Nice simple pinkish Rosé with exellent nose, black and red fruit and little spice. Nice easy finish. Enjoyable but I think the Vintage Rich is actually better but not sure if that is a reasonable comparison.

Fact sheet of the Champagne

2005 Carmes de Rieussec

Dinner at Pawn for the night. Thank you Alan for the Sauternes. Medium sweet, medium dense, licorice, citric food, little honey. Second wine of Rieussec, and it suits the description.

A enjoyable wine, but don't expect the complexity and intensity of the more expensive Sauternes. For the price though, it offers very good value. They say it retails for less than HKD300?

2006 Two Paddocks Pinot Noir

A wine introduced for the night. Two Paddocks is the mixed blend from Central Otago of 3 vineyards. Lots of dark cherries, sweet, plums, hint of vanilla, strong alcohol with short powerful finish. Compared to the Ata Rangi, less tannins and shorter finish. Drank only 1 glass after opening, so not sure if it will improve with more time. Pleasant, very Central Otago.

2005 Ata Rangi Pinot Noir

Ata Rangi is one of my favorite Pinot from Martinborough, New Zealand. When I first tasted it, it changed my perception of Pinot and New Zealand wines.

2005 tastes of cherries, a little oak, soothing tannins and spices. Good acidity and structure which gives it a good finish. Not as powerful or as good as other Ata Rangis I have tasted before but still quite good.
Does the wine deliver on value? I does offer quite a unique experience, and is good from the opening of the wine. It improved over the night, so compared to Burgundies, it might seem like a reliable bet for the price.

Reviews on Ata Rangi's webpage

2003 Château Chabbert, AC Faugères, Languedoc

Thank you Amy for letting me tast my first AC Faugères. This AC is actually one of more expensive ones in Languedoc. Classic GSM, Grenache, Mouvedre, Syrah. It also has Carignan.

Smooth, interesting wine, with soft tannins and medium finish. Black fruit, plums and spices. After 2 hours, it become even better, with stronger fruit and more intense tannins. Again, thanks Amy for bring this back from Europe.

2005 Domaine Denis Mortet Gevrey-Chambertin Mes Cinq Terroirs

After tasting the En Champs wine of 1997 and 2005, was really looking forward to this wine. Today, finally had the chance to drink with Emilio and Amy. This wine is the year before Denis Mortet's suicide and is from the fiver terroirs, including En Champs, Combe-Dessus, En Seree, En Motrot and En Velle.

So silky, so smooth. The nose is filled with blackberries, vanilla, pine, chocolate. The wine is purplish, unlike the typical Burgundy. It is a crazy wine, with elegance from Burgundy but with the fruit and layers of a new world wine. Don't feel the tannins that much, soft leather, the earth and great great fruit. You can very much feel the mix of terroirs even though it states it is a blend of 5 terroirs. Interesting, fine and wonderful wine, will definately wait a couple more years to taste what is like! Buy it if you have the opportunity, a wonderful Burgundy wine.

1999 E. Guigal Gigondas

Thank you Berry for introducing me to this wine, after reading it on Taiwanese blogs and buying this wine back from Taiwan. My first Gigondas AC wine. It is 50% Grenache, 25% Syrah and 25% Mourvedre. Strong nose of undergrowth, red fruit flavours and yeasty vanilla. It is deep purple in color and very powerful wine. The grapes are over 40 years so it shows through the concentration and intensity. Tannins are soft, and probably it is the time to drink up.

Next time will try this wine as described in the Taiwanese blogs?

1964, 1975, 1981, 1986, 1994, 1995, 1998 Château Haut-Brion

Thanks to Kenneth in organizing this vertical tasting from his own cellars. All good years, and wine kept in good condition. Very reasonable price as bought many years ago! Thank you again, Dailoming!

1964 - Orange, brown rim. Over the peak and a little bit off. The only half bottle. Nose very strong with licorice, floral and with little berries left. Kind of weak and without the structure to support it. I remember drinking this Haut Brion over 10 years ago and this was not the taste I tasted.

1975 - Light orange rim with leathery, tobacco, cherries and still strong tannins. Very long finish. I think it is at it suitable time to drink and is very fine for a 33 year wine.

1981 - Orange rim, feels over the peak, was flat after 3 hours. Tobacco, mineral, leather. Medium body, medium finish, high in acidity.

1986 - Very slight orange rim, still with strong tannins, licorice, sweet with fruit. Great Bordeaux with classic showing of Graves. It was still going really well after 3 hours in the glass. Wonderful wine!

1994 - Understated nose tones, with moldy cardbox, pencil lead, minerals, leather overtones. Strong strong tannins, medium bodied and medium finish. Complex, very Bordeaux but probably not my kind of wine.

1995 - Silky smooth, black fruit, chewy. Complex nose with berries, floral and tobacco. Fantastic tannins and long finish. The best wine of the night!

1998 - Truffle, vanilla, floral, high in acidity, and still very tight. Shows the improvement in the technique and quality of Haut Brion. This was originally not on the tasting menu as it is probably too young. A very good wine, but I think we drank it way too early. I really look forward to drinking it in 5-10 years!

My ranking from the best to the good is: 1995, 1998, 1986, 1975, 1994, 1981, 1964. It more or less matches the prices except that the 1998 is probably more expensive than the 1995.

N.V. Laurent-Perrier Champagne Cuvée Rosé Brut

One of my favorite champagnes that I usually have at Aedes in Happy Valley. Elegant, when strawberry, floral and not too high acidity. This time, drank too soon, I think it tastes much better after it is opened for an hour or so.

It was probably a mistake to drink right from the bottle right after dessert, but I always prefer to the Rosé of Veuve Clicquot.

2005 d'Arenberg Shiraz The Dead Arm

Powerful wine of Shiraz, from the d'Arenberg. Fantastic black fruit with strong vanilla sense as but in American and French oak for 22 months. However, not as strong as powerful as expected. Lacks complexity and probably not worth the price of over $500.