One-on-one Tuesday lunch with 3 samplers

Andy and I ordered our lunch at Jiang Nan Chun now headed by the new chef Steven Ng. Well, actually we did not order anything. Steven basically decided everything. Other than the good food and conversation, Andy brought a couple of wines to taste together.

I was hoping there'd be a Chablis this afternoon. Apparently Andy read my mind... Philippe Pacalet Chablis Beauroy 2004 had an unexpectedly rich (at least in the context of this vintage) nose laden with honeysuckle and peach. Richly golden coloured this was probably the most generously textured Chablis I've had to date but the palate bodes well with minerally, slatey, oyster shell-ish nuances highlighting the citrus flavours framing an intense midpalate. This was actually light and bracing in the mouth, with a lowish alcohol level (label read 12.5%) and a mouthwatering acid kick at the back. I like this very much. This is the second Pacalet white I've had and I'm beginning to get the sense that he's doing a marvelous job making very elegant and intense white burgundies.

The first red smelled of stems and spices, with a decided ashy edge. Initially this possessed the 'dirt' taste and some vitamins, meaty suggestion atop its raspberry and strawberry fruits. I guessed this must be a Cote-de-Beaune, which it was, but I was thinking along Beaune or Savigny due to its relative hardness. Yet it turned out to be Arnaud Ente Volnay Santenots du Milieu 1998. This wine could do with more sweetness and sappiness of fruits. And by the way, I had the leftover over the next two days and it did not put on more flesh. A good and honest wine, but for the vineyard, it really should have become more that what it was.

I decided to open up the third bottle (a spare bottle actually) and now we're talking Volnay! Red steely fruits with a formidable acid-framed spine, and now it had begun to show some bacon-fat oily aromas. In the mouth this was very pure and concentrated with no trace of heat nor heaviness. Very precise and cool (in fact almost minty) and finished with a whack of a grip. A classic 1996, and this was only a Marquis d'Angerville Volnay les Fremiet 1996. I say "only" because this was supposed to be his "simplest" premier cru. I shudder at the thought of what his Clos des Ducs would taste like in this vintage... (Btw, I tasted the leftover in the next 6 days and amazingly the wine held steady and was virtually indifferent till the end!) This is a knockout purist Volnay producer.