October 2024: 2012 Moulin Saint-Georges, 2010 Chasse-Spleen, 2019 Colgin IX Estate, 2004 La Conseillante

2010 Château Chasse-Spleen. Popped and poured over dinner at Imperial Treasure Great World, 03 Oct 2024. Deep purple. Some early secondary development on the nose where plummy characters and mahogany dominate. Medium weight, imbued with a slick oily density of predominant red fruits that exude cool elegance. Very beautifully proportioned and balanced, highly supple with understated intensity throughout its delicious length, culminating in a lifted glow. Excellent. Probably the best value claret ever.

2012 Château Moulin Saint-Georges. Double-decanted for an hour ahead of dinner at Bedrock Bar & Grill, 14 Oct 2024. Deep garnet. Moderate bouquet of red plums, violets, blueberries and mahogany. Beautifully supple with rounded warmth, its detailed earthy tannins imparting a distinct gravelly mouthfeel at first, giving way to some degree of plush velvetiness after some time, displaying fine linearity with moderate depth. Good balance and proportion, wonderfully lithe and agile as it finished with a dash of sweetness. Quite indeed the poor man’s Ausone.

2016 Domaine Thibert Père et Fils Pouilly-Fuissé Les Ménétrières. Popped and poured over dinner at home, 20 Oct 2024. Pale yellowish. Delicate glow of clear citrus, distant green fruits and floral hues. Somewhat minerally at first with some mid-palate glare, giving way to a moderate teasing intensity of tropical fruits as it warmed to the correct temperature though it never quite gelled with the minerally spine, accentuated further by its attenuated depth.

Champagne Delamotte Brut NV, tasted at Vintage warehouse, 24 Oct 2024. Pale greenish. Effusive in fig and green fruits. Good presence, displaying fine clarity of clear citrus and lemon bitters with overtones of icing. Not too dry.

2021 Domaine Grand Veneur Alain Jaume Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Fontaine, tasted at Vintage warehouse, 24 Oct 2024. Pale greenish. Good lift of floral hues and summer hay. Medium-bodied. Well-structured with fine clarity and understated intensity.

2019 Château de Chamirey Mercurey 1er En Sazenay, tasted at Vintage warehouse, 24 Oct 2024. Classic pinot tint. Warm ripeness of abundant raspberries and cherries, boasting supple refined intensity and good balance.

2017 Valentin Zusslin Les Kammerlas, tasted at Vintage warehouse, 24 Oct 2024. Powerful nose of kerosene leading to a sleek medium-full palate of nutmeg, spices and green capsicum, displaying fine inner detail and balance.

2020 Racines Sta Rita Hills Pinot Noir, tasted at Vintage warehouse, 24 Oct 2024. Californian pinot noir that is a collaboration between Étienne de Montille and Brian Sieve of Burgundy and Rodolphe Péters of Champagne. Good colour, exuding a very lovely rosy fragrance to match the cool fleshy ripeness, elegantly dressed in refined tannins. Very correctly nuanced with great understatement.

2019 Colgin Cellars IX Estate Syrah, tasted at Vintage warehouse, 24 Oct 2024. Deep garnet. Restrained bouquet of red fruits leading to a fleshy presence of dark plums and black truffles on the fullish palate, boasting fine tension and sleek acidity. A case of controlled hedonism.

2004 Château La Conseillante. Poured from magnum at Yang Ming Seafood (Ubi), 24 Oct 2024. Deep garnet, proffering plums, mahogany and raspberries with an initial restraint. Medium-full. Became rounder and more velvety over time, fleshing out with layers of delicious dark fruits and currants before its tannins turned a little earthy and austere. Needs plenty of time.

2019 Senses Charles Heitz Vineyard Chardonnay, courtesy of Carey at Yang Ming Seafood (Ubi), 24 Oct 2024. Pale. Rather delicate. Medium weight, boasting a refined inner detail of tropical fruit amid overtones of icing, tapering with fine linearity to a modest finish.

2018 Domaine Rapet Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Sous Frétille. Aired in bottle for almost three hours prior to dinner at Crab At Bay, 28 Oct 2024. This wine opens with an oily density of chiseled chromatic white tones imbued with an incisive high-toned acidity amid overtones of longans. Doesn’t quite plumb the depths, developing a prominence of stony minerals over time with emerging lemon bitters that impart some degree of austerity at its modest finish.

2016 Château de Chamirey Mercurey 1er La Mission. Aired in bottle ahead of dinner at GEMMA, 30 Oct 2024. Displaying luminous hues, this monopole opens with aromatic white tones that suggest some early chalky maturity, displaying lively acidity with good inner stuffing and detail of icing and caramel. It blossomed over time with regal intensity, underscored by a distant tow of nutmeg and crystalline minerals. Excellent but still half a step behind the illustrious 2014 and 2017.