Lovely wine dinner with impeccable wine pairings! Superb whites, vibrant mature reds and exquisite sweets. Armand de Brignac Rosés in magnum were astonishingly delicious!

Windfall Wine Estate Single Handed Chardonnay 2019
A new name to me, but promise. Actually, Geographe as a region promises much, even if it will forever be branded as ‘Margaret River-lite’. Chardonnay is the highlight here too, and this white plays the balancing act well – it’s mealy and nutty with white peach, subtle fruit and then prominent grapefruit acidity without being intrusive. It’s just a little clumsy through the finish – trying to be both taut and trim, yet ripe and full at the same time. A small gripe for what is otherwise quality. Best drinking: now to five plus years. 17.7/20, 92/100. 13.5%, $32. Windfall Wine Estate website. Would I buy it? Worth a few glasses.

Bordeaux has been on a hot roll lately. Think about it. 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2018 and who knows, even though it is early, 2019 is also looking good!
Each vintage has its own mark, its individual sense of identity and uniqueness of character. 2016 Bordeaux is such a great vintage!  Consider this. Out of all those above-named vintages, there are 2016 wines better than you find in any of those years. And that is really saying something!
In 2016, like in all great years, every appellation produced beautiful wines, and each has its own stars. You can find fabulous wines on both banks and in all price ranges. The Petit Chateaux are superb. Right Bank wines are gorgeous and some of the best wines from the Medoc are potentially the best-ever from their respective vineyards.
2016 has it all. The wines combine concentration of flavor, purity of fruit, zesty acidity, ripe tannins, power, elegance, refinement and richness. The aromatics are complex, and the length and mouthfeel go on and on. The best wines offer the ability to age and evolve for decades!
2016 is the most recent bottled vintage in Bordeaux. The wines are currently available to consumers. If you are seeking to enjoy the best of the best, this article is for you.
During both tasting trips to Bordeaux this year, I tasted close to 500 recently bottled 2016 wines. These are the top 25 wines of the vintage.

Clos des Lambrays 2017 / "Produced from what is nearly a monopole grand cru - Domaine Taupenot-Merme owns 0.004ha - Clos des Lambrays is always marked by its 90% whole bunches, but the style is very well done in 2017 under new cellarmaster, Boris Champy. With 50% new wood framing the palate, this is subtle, nuanced and focussed, with polished tannins and bright acidity. Drinking Window: 2025-2035.

The 5th day of Champagne Magazines annual The 100-Best Champagnes of the year 2020 -tasting!

American Beauty -tasting with Dominus, Dana Estate, Ovid, Caymus, Colgin etc.

QUINTA DO NOVAL NACIONAL VINTAGE PORT 1931 –The most scarce and one of the best and most youthful matured Vintage Ports of the world: Very concentrated, but balanced toffee and fruity notes on the bouquet. Still some soft tannins with toffee, honey and malty notes on the palate. Very long and multi-layered aftertaste. This Port is far from being old and tired. What a pity that one does not have one or two cases to accompany its development in the future. 20p Now - 2100

Penfolds g4 ($3,500, cork, 14.5%). A couple of years ago, Penfold's released a wine from their intermittent Special Bin series called ‘g3’. It was a non-vintage blend, in the tradition we have seen in the past from wineries such as Vega Sicilia with their ‘Único Reserva Especial’ and Chapoutier, as they once did with ‘le Pavillon’. It was a blend of varying, though undisclosed, percentages of the 2008, 2012 and 2014 Grange (obviously the older vintages were transferred from bottle). 1,200 bottles were made, at a release price of A$3,000 (which very quickly went up to A$5,000 on the secondary market).

Now we have ‘g4’. A blend of four of the greatest vintages of Grange from this century – 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2016. Again, the first three were transferred from bottle. 2,500 bottles have been released, with a price tag of A$3,500. Each bottles comes in its own beautifully presented wooden box. As good as the ‘g3’ was, for me, ‘g4’ is a significant step up in quality. Under cork it might be, but the corks are covered in wax. Always looks great but they are messy and difficult. Mind you, if that is the biggest criticism thrown at this wine then I suspect Penfold's won’t be too upset.

What was interesting was that this time, Gago was happy to acknowledge that this was the second in a ‘g’ trilogy, with ‘g5’ to come at an unspecified date in the future (supposedly sometime in 2021). Again, percentages are not released. One can assume that the 2016 forms the base. Peter would confirm that there were double-digit contributions from each of the other vintages. 

My thoughts on ‘g5’ are speculation only, but with 2018 such a spectacular vintage for Penfold's, hard to imagine that it will not form the basis of ‘g5’. As for other vintages, just a guess but Peter’s love of 2010 is well known and it has not featured as yet? The production will be marginally greater than for ‘g4’.

‘g4’ is a brilliant wine. Wonderfully complex, with the benefit of some age here. Chocolate, tobacco leaves, coffee grinds, roast meat notes, dry herbs and cigar box characters. Gorgeously silky tannins. More subtle than the 2016 Grange, it is fabulous to drink now, though surely has time ahead of it. I wavered between 99 and 100. The following day, I was no longer hesitant. 100 points. That astonishing extra level of finesse was now apparent. A truly superb wine

2018 Wynns Coonawarra Estate V&A Lane Cabernet Shiraz / Medium deep crimson. Intense violet, camomile, India ink chinotto dark berry praline aromas. Generous supple and inky textured wine with blackcurrant, blackberry, mulberry fruits, chinotto herb garden notes, integrated mocha, espresso oak and fine velveteen-like tannins. Finishes minerally/ al dente firm with persistent pure fruits. Animated style with plentiful pure dark berry fruits and linear freshness. The cabernet and shiraz are neatly aligned bringing an extra level of complexity, richness of flavour and buoyancy of fruit.  13.3% - Now – 2034 97 points

2011 Quintorelli Giusseppe Amarone della Valpolicella Classico – A lighter more elegant Amarone that is beautifully composed, well balanced with a lingering finish. The magic of this wine is the lightness which belies its intensity and concentration. Long finish with layers of floral notes that surfaces at the end.

Château Haut Brion 2009 / Extravagant and exotic, but still lively, this is a super-concentrated and elegant wine that's already breathtaking, yet has enormous aging potential. Plenty of wet earth and mushroom character alongside the cassis and blackberry aromas. Super-long, perfectly balanced finish. Drink or hold. (Horizontal Tasting, London, 2019) 100 points

Already in the 1600s, Fiacre Taillet was a wine-grower in the small village of Merfy in the Massif de Saint-Thierry planted in mostly sandy soils, while Chartogne-Taillet was formed in 1920. Today, Chartogne-Taillet is still a family business. Alexandre Chartogne run a quality-controlled property with access to very old grapevines—even a little pre-phylloxera rootstock. Alexandre was educated in Burgundy and has a strong faith in the recipe: low yield equals high quality. He also worked with Anselme Selosse and returned to the family estate in 2006. He took full control the following year, and his influence has elevated the domaine to the top ranks of grower-producers in the region.The grapes come from 11,5 hectares in Merfy, Chenay, and Saint Thierry. Fiacre is a brilliantly refreshing, elastic, potent wine with a deliciously concentrated young fruit. Truly genuine terroir character is, of course, missing but this deficiency is well compensated for by its tart, rich, fruity cannonade. The Clos des Barres is a beautiful and super intense pure Pinot Meunier. Close to 4 stars today.