Oliver felt that it wasn't enough for him to spend eight hours a day, five days a week with his sales team, and so booked a 'bring your own bottle dinner', held at Trinity restaurant in Clapham. With Bordeaux being the mainstay of what we taste here at Farr Vintners Towers, it was decided Burgundy was the theme and that all wines would be served blind. So what did we end up bringing? Wines from Hungary, Italy, a couple from the Rhône and a one from Germany - 10 out of 10 for following orders chaps!
We were seated for dinner early, it was a school night after all and without hesitation everyone opted for the delicious tasting menu. This has to be the best value tasting menu in London and we would urge you to visit Trinity if you haven't already been. It is, in a word, superb and only £38/head.
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Olly made us all feel instantly at ease by declaring that Farr Vintners customers expect the highest standard of knowledge from us, so anyone getting the wines wrong could look forward to being fired the following morning. Well, the first white was not going to be mistaken. Riesling, of the highest quality, so it must be German. All correct, but what vintage? It was the majestic 2001 Maximin Grunhauser Abtsberg Auslese, Von Schubert. This represents, like most German Riesling, unbelievable value for money and was the epitome of poise and precision with its tightrope balance of fruit, sugar and acidity. The bar had been set high.
A brilliant Cep and Autumn Truffle Velouté was served with white wine number two. "I think this is mine" said Edward immediately. As the newest member of the Farr Vintners team, we knew Ed wasn't about to disobey orders, so he had to have brought a Burgundy as instructed. As we hovered around the various villages in the Cote d'Or, it was agreed that the nervy, minerally qualities meant it was most likely to be from Puligny Montrachet. Edward nodded, and Olly smelt victory. Out of nowhere he called it - 2006, then 'Domaine Louis Carillon'. It turned out to be Puligny Montrachet, 1er Cru Perrieres 2006, Louis Carillon'. Absolutely spot on.
The next white arrived, served along side an exquisitely fresh and balanced dish of Walnut Crusted Fillet of Halibut with Kale, Wet Walnuts and Lemon Purée. It was revealed that this wine was in honour of our esteemed colleague Tom Hudson, as it was one of his favourite wines. After much deliberation and ginger beard stoking (from Henry) it was George who called it as Condrieu. The wine was a brilliant Condrieu, Coteau du Vernon, Domaine Georges Vernay 2006'. We were all in agreement that this majestic wine was as good as it gets and simply 'a MUST buy' for any wine lover.
We began to get in to our stride, and a brace of reds soon arrived. We had a Vosne Romanée face off, both wines from the stunning 1999 vintage. Domaine Cathiard 1er Cru 'Orveaux' in one corner, versus the mighty Domaine Engel 1er Cru 'Brulées' in the other. Punches flew, tasting notes compared, and opinions aired - but it was the purity of fruit from Cathiard that won the day. It was still very youthful like most 99's, fresh, precise and concentrated whilst also having the unmistakeably Burgundian characteristics of hedgerows and forest floor. Stunning stuff!
Then the dish of the evening arrived in the form of Slow Cooked Venison with Creamed Celeriac and Semi Dried Russett Apple. The wine to accompany this beautiful creation was thought to have been supplied by our resident Kiwi, Alastair Woolmer, so we all assumed it hailed from the land of the long white cloud. It turned out that Alastair is not as patriotic as he pretends, so what we were actually drinking was a 2001 Brunello di Montalcino, Ciacci Piccolomini. This great wine was dense and brooding with flavours of cherry, raisins and dark chocolate. It has a mammoth score of 98 points from James Suckling and made us all agree that we needed to try more Italian wines in the company of resident expert Jonathan Stephens. You see the sacrifices we are prepared to make in order to further our knowledge!
A gigantic, ripe, 2003 Côte Rotie Côte Blonde from Rostaing was decanted and next up. This had us completely flummoxed, as the unique vintage conditions had produced a wine so different, that we were led on a merry dance across the globe as we tried in vain to guess where it was from. When the wine was revealed, we all nodded knowingly (you can't win them all) and concluded that this profound, voluptuous, and complex wine which fully deserved its high praise from Parker (97 points) and was agreed to be the best of the reds so far.
What followed was a dessert of Valrhona Chocolate Hot Pot with Rum 'n' Raisin Ice Cream - so exquisite and sexy! Still, it was my wine next (elementary deduction my dear Watson). We were back in Burgundy with what was revealed to be a 1990 Gevrey Chambertin Vieilles Vignes from Gerard Dugat. Whilst we all felt it was a fitting conclusion to the evening, it had perhaps seen slightly better days as the fruit core had definitely waned somewhat.
Not to fear, Oliver had a surprise up his sleeve and produced a 1999 Tokaji Szt Tamas, 6 Putts, from the Royal Tokaji Wine Company. This brilliant effort, with its flavours of orange rind, Christmas pudding, acacia, mouthsearing acidity and spice was the perfect end to a lovely night. We loosened our belt buckles, settled the bill and rolled merrily in to the crisp winter night, looking forward to another eight hours in the office tomorrow.
You'll be happy to hear that nobody's lost their job....... yet.
