Returning from visiting my darling kids in Skegness, I received a text from Ashika Mathews, glamour model and ex-buyer from Venus and Wine Rack. “I’m going to the Loeb tasting. Were you planning to go?” (She wasn’t really a glamour model.)

Well, I had a couple of hours to kill and I was minutes away from King’s Cross. Short of drinking a Pink Chihuahua at El Camion, I couldn’t think of a better way to occupy my time than to be drinking smart Burgundy and Riesling at the Westbury Hotel.  

Some of Loeb’s usual suspects were there, like Louis Michel, whose unoaked, uncluttered 2010 Chablis AC had a fluffy, snowy purity and terrific marble-like minerality under the fragrant apple fruit. Great value (£14ish?) 

However, this isn’t a comprehensive review of the tasting, rather more a collection of things I feel are worth saying.

So.

Let’s start with a nice young chap called Antoine. Antoine Gouges. This was his first trip to London on behalf of his family’s famous Nuits St. Georges wine estate. I understand from his cousin, Aurelia Gouges, the UK wine industry’s very own, very beautiful fairy godmother (and Antoine’s actual godmother) that he was ‘broken in’ at the Hollywood Road branch of Brinkleys later on that day by Loeb’s own wine assassin, Francis Murray.

Antoine was charming and knowledgeable. So he should be, and he was presenting an interesting and comprehensive range of Henri Gouges wines at the tasting. One particular wine though, the one down the page, I found most fascinating.

Unusually for a NSG producer, they make a few whites. I have tried their unusual, aged Pinot Blanc that is released from the estate, but not this wine before. Partly, I guess, because I don’t get invited to tastings like this very often, and partly because it was the most expensive wine in the room, at about a monkey a case. Trade. (Around £500 per dozen, to any foreigners reading this.) 

Well, why? And was it worth it? I guess the 'why’ is because it is a WHITE 1er Cru Côtes de Nuits from a vineyard that most Burgundy nutters would consider to be hallowed RED wine ground. Judging by the number of white wines in this area of the region, the Côtes de Nuits is a white wine racist. Growers in Burgundy have told me many times that it’s simply because growing Chardonnay here is inappropriate, but this wine really proves them wrong.

I found this wine riveting. It’s over six years old, and it is invantile in development, but judging by its shape, this may just be down to the fact it comes from the Côtes de Nuits. It may be Chardonnay, but it is definitely from Nuit St Georges. The DNA is in every drop.

Now, for us wine nerds, we know that NSG, and even more specifically, Pierre and Christian at the Henri Gouges estate, make structured, super slowmo-evolving reds that need a decade, even in generously proportioned, hot years, to show their sexy side. (That’s Kristin Scott-Thomas sexy, by the way: they still don’t smile much even then.) These wines aren’t for people who like young bouncy and curvy. If you’re a Salma Hayek man, banish yourself to the Côtes de Beaune. There is nothing here for you. However, for every curve and flash of cleavage that a Côtes de Beaune white has, this one shows you some fine-boned décolletage, or a withering, sexy stare. It’s hard. Uncompromising. But beautiful. It feels like holding a lead-crystal glass egg, in the mouth. There’s not one tiny little flaw or edge or join, but at the same time its’s unyielding and pure. Crystalline. It’s weird to sense such ripeness and smoothness, but to remain so removed and disconnected from what’s inside. It’s verging on the sado-masochistic. Especially if you have just paid over £65 pounds for this hot date. Maybe the wine is telling me more about 'me’ than 'it’. Brilliant.

Perversely, two of Gouges’ more famous red wines were on show from the immensely accessible, soft and cuddly 2006 vintage. Soft and cuddly they weren’t, but they were far more friendly than any five year old Gouges wines that I have tried in recent times. They still need a good couple of hours in a carafe, but I found these wines to be detailed, articulate, immensely complex and vigorous. I’m sure that a seared Charolais entrecôte and some Pommes Sarladaises are all that are missing from a brilliant night in with the boys, apart from the forty odd quid it’ll cost you to buy them.

Next? Ah, yes. Champagne.

I’m not really up on my growers’ bubbles, but these were more than just a pleasant surprise. I think I’ve seen these wines before in restaurants dotted around the city, but I would have remembered if I had tried them before. The Brut was fine. Fireworks and rockets that go weeeee. But that was that. A chat in a pub, not full-blown sex. The next bottle, the Blanc de Blancs 1er Cru 2002 was empty, but in the interests of due diligence I felt duty bound to try the Brut Rosé.

Phwoarr….. Juicy, creamy strawberry and cranberry fool flavours, with a moreish tang of dried orange peel and sourdough. Oops! Sorry about that. Sounded like a wanker there for a moment.  Anyway. I want to drink this now. It’s 23.07, so anything would do, but I tasted it at 3p.m. on a Monday, and couldn’t imagine a more attractive bistro pink fizz with which to enjoy the early shards of Spring sun. I can’t remember the exact price, but if you shop around the indies, it wouldn’t be much more than £30.

Having enjoyed the mouthful that I’d had so much, I re-entered the fray to have a crack at the newly opened Blanc de Blancs. Damn glad I did. Most people are probably aware how sexy the 2002 is in Champagne, but this was quite a surprise. I like BdeB one of two ways. Wiry and austere, or generous of bosom. From a vintage of such piercing acidity and youthful power (yes, still) as 2002, I was expecting the former. What I got was both. It is immediate, and tight initially, but the flavours melt, as the dosage of sweetness becomes more apparent, leaving a very, very full-flavoured yeasty, tropically ripe mouthful. After one of my extremely rare nights of excess, I discovered that the combination of marmite on toast and fresh pineapple juice can cure any hangover. Actually, it might even cure cancer. This is that.

Q.E.D. This is the Holy Grail drink. Just imagine. It is a world-class mature Blanc de Blancs Champagne from one of the greatest ever vintages, and it is also a hangover-purging morning after pill. If it could actually be made into a pill, it would outsell Viagra. Whatever that is. About £40… The wine. Not Viagra.

Ahh. Chateau Reynon. My ex prof, Monsieur Dubordieu, from the L'Institut d'Oenologie in Bordeaux owns this one.

In the 70’s, along with Brian Croser and Len Evans (Yes, them. At Ch. Rahoul, I believe), he was partly responsible for discovering the effective use of 'skin contact’ on Sauvignon Blanc, hence discovering 'New World Sauvignon Blanc’. So, if you wondered whether it was the Kiwis or the French who used it first, it wasn’t either. It was the Aussies. In France.

Thankfully Denis Dubordieu doesn’t go overboard with the 'Macération Pelliculaire’ like Go West with a mixing desk, but lets his very old Sauvignon Blanc do the talking. Some of his vines are over 130 years old. No shit. It is ripe, herbaceous, ever-so -slightly honeysuckled, with lovely textural ripples of tannin stitched through it.

This is a snip at £13.50

If you’re a lover of great German Riesling, you may well already have OW Loeb on speed dial, but here at thos tasting were just a couple of humdingers from their selection. The label on the right should be familiar to you. This is JJ Prüm.

Here’s a tip to buying Prüm. Buy anything from this estate. Any ripeness level, any vintage. That’s it. If it’s six years old or older, then it’s time to see how it’s getting on. If you drink it any younger than that, you’re an idiot.

I once tasted a 1949 Spätlese from this estate, and it was oh so perfumed, and divinely fresh. (Despite urban legend, I am not 82 years old. This was quite recently.) Take heed, and don’t store it next to the cooker in the kitchen. Unless you are thinking of drinking it in the first 5 years. (Idiot. Weren’t you listening?)

The wine on the left, is Maximin Grünhäuser Abtsberg Riesling Kabinett 2008 from Carl von Schubert. The label’s worth the £18 quid alone, and, buy way of the extra two years, and the more bohemian texture, and wonderfully open floral fragrance, teethchatteringly stoney bite, it kicked Prüm’s arse. One of the greatest wines to ever touch my lips was the 1990 Auslese from this same vineyard. I shudder to think what that would set me back today. I’m guessing a long way north of a hundred quid.

And finally this. Truly grand wine. Precise and athletic. Like a Lotus. The car, not the flower. Would love to try it couple of years older.

Trade secret of the day…..

These old Muscadet Estates are making some of the finest wine bargains in France. If you like Chablis and Pouilly Fumé and you drink Picpoul de Pinet, pissed, with your friends down the pub, pleeeeeeease revisit Muscadet Sèvre et Maine. You clearly have absolutely no idea what you are missing.

And oh. Nine quid. 

Did I mention Pink Chihuahuas earlier?…….