Prunotto Ochetti Piedmont Nebbiolo d'Alba 2008

My lament is that only one glass gets washed around here these days; Erin only having wine a few days a week, which is cool though. Pitiful lament I know. But its the case so half bottle season it is! The Prunotto Occhetti Piedmont Nebbiolo d'Alba 2008 is all bells and whistles; its really everyhting you love about Nebbiolo, or Barolo for that matter, only its in a little bottle and perfect for one glass - 2 1/2 really. Chicken or the egg meets tomato/potato kind a thing if you get my drift.

Drink with juicy lamb chops
Drink till 2020
96
Quality cork 13.5%v/v $40ish Albert Street Food & Wine, Brunswick

Foster Mendoza IQUE Malbec 2010 - Half Bottle

This is just a great wine and a no-brainer when it comes to value for money. The Foster Mendoza IQUE Malbec 2010 from Argentina hits this market when Argentine Malbec is still a rising force. Dense black fruit on the nose with a strong hint of dustiness, the palate weaves around structured tannins, tort acidity and bright blueberries. In the half bottle format, this wine is a fair-dinkum no-brainer and an easy mucho fantastic! Drink with rare sirloin Drink till 2015 95 Screwcap 13.5%v/v $14 for a half bottle at the wine store in Albert Street Food and Wine, Brunswick

Batard-Montrachet, Chateau Margaux and the BYO debate

The one thing I love about my job is the array of wines I get to look at and, of course, taste. Over the years I have seen some absolute crackers, with the 1959 Dom Perignon still being the highlight.
Most of these gems I must admit are from people who bring them as BYO, which was the case of the Dom Perignon. Now BYO is a touchy subject in Melbourne; to allow or not to allow? I say BYO is cool only if the wine in question is good enough to get a gig in the restaurants wine list. When diner's bring in their Eaglehawk Merlot which they just purchased 10 minutes before entering the restaurant for $10, I gently let them down and explain to them that I have worked very hard to get the wine list where it is and that their wine wouldn't even get a gig as the base for a red wine reduction - geez I'm harsh.
Yesterday one of my favourite customers gave me a call at about 10.20am and asked if he could bring in a couple of BYO bottles. Now this customer in question will usually order a half bottle of white Burgundy and a half bottle of Bordeaux with his meal - generally a 4 course dego.
This particular day, he was dining with a friend, so the wines of choice were a Batard-Montrachet Blain Gagnard 2000 white Burgundy (chardonnay) and a half bottle of Chateau Margaux 1995 (cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cab franc, petit verdot). Did I accept - you bet I did. Now this guest trusts me implicitly to open and test his wines, so it was the Batard I had a look at first and it was gorgeous. To look at it, the colour had developed quite a lot to a cheese-cake yellow. On the nose, masses of custard coming through, which is what you should expect from this wine after 8 years in bottle, and a bit a honey dew melon. In the mouth the acid was still very relevant with grapefruit still hanging around - just for the hell of it it seemed. The wine just kept giving in the mouth, very long with licorice powder dancing around (geez that sounds a bit of a wank doesn't it) and then custard again; what a wine!!!
Next was the Margaux. I don't know what to write now. The mongrel was corked!! I was gutted. The owner of the wine however was shattered, absolutely shattered. He had just spent $1200 on this wine and it was screwed, and there was no chance of getting your money back because it was bought at auction - no refunds.
I guess a consolation of this was that he purchased a bottle of Bollinger NV Champagne to drown his sorrows.
One thing I haven't yet mentioned is that this guest doesn't see it necessary to drink the whole bottle of wine, so he gave me the instructions to decant half for himself and his guest and said that I could keep the wine for myself - I love this bloke. I then managed to draw the remaining half of the Batard for a few hours, tasting it at different temperatures and just really loving every mouth full; I have said this was a stunning wine right?
Now the dishes that went out with this wine were not what I would generally recommend, but I was limited with the menu at present. The meals I would have would be on the line of a crayfish bisque or a blitzed crab sauce tossed through angel hair pasta; flavours that are rich and gelatinous.


Batard-Montrachet; what a wine
drink till 2012
19.4/20

Chateau Margaux
drink till 2025
no rating on account of wine being knackered