TN: Monday night drinking with friends!

[JonoB]

2009 Sancerre "Les Culs de Beaujeu"; Chavignol, François Cotat 15% alc!
smoky, apples, pears, rich and toasty, quite nicely integrated. Cooked lemons, nice minerality, slate, flint and herby grass, complex, poised, lime, grapefruit, marble, quite silky, A bit warm but hugely impressive, and with good length. Sherbet, lifted and effervescent, mineral, concentrated. Acacia honey, Elderflower, candle wax, pineapple, I don't think this will age in way the way it would normally, but hugely elegant and impressive with superb mineral length, 71-72+??/100  

2009 Dog Point Chardonnay
crisp, round and spritzy, buttery, but clean and very fresh, nice balance, poised and crisp, a touch of hemp, limes, and lemons, Young, precise and very good. A bit clumsy amongst all these old world wines but with grass, and slate flavours and lovely length, a touch of sulphur and oak needs to resolve, but it is very nice. 65-68+?/100  

1996 Bourgueil "Cuvée Prestige"; Domaine de la Lande 
herbs, tobacco, kirsch, black currants, lots of sap and silk, underbrush, red plum, wild herbs, mint, rustic and classic, with grainy tannins and good freshness, blueberries, linear, focused and waiting to unfurl. Broad, herby, and with good length, beautiful with Beouf Bourguignon. Decaying fruits and forest fruits, wild and rustic. 69-72+/100  

1990 Chateau Poujeaux; Moulis-en-Médoc
tobacco, roasted herbs, underbrush and stewed plum, lean, fresh eucalyptus and plum, red starwberry and poised cassis, tobacco, cedar palate, lots of density. Dark, still brooding, lots of herbs, forest fruits, basil, rosemary, mint, leaves, earth, graphite, some minerals, not particularly Moulis on the palate, but the soft, perfumed nose hints at where this will go, congealed blood, squid ink, bulls blood, bloody Mary, really nice but the warm vintage flab makes one think "it's nice but it's not THAT nice". Complex and chameleon, fully resolved! Pure tobacco leaf, herbs, cedar wood, perfumed, with air it picks itself up. It just lacks that je ne sais quoi of vintages like 89,97,and 01. 72/100  

These were all lovely wines in their own right. The Sancerre being a brute but amazingly balanced despite it alcohol. The Chardonnay is very impressive in the company of finely nuanced old world wines felt a touch clumsy. A bull in a china shop if you were. The Loire Cab Franc was rustic and delightful with our Beouf Bourguignon which was superbly tender thanks to the chef having slow cooked it since the afternoon. Melt in the mouth soft! The Poujeaux was fabulous and fully mature but it seemed to lack a certain spark that some of the more precocious Poujeauxs have. All in all a lovely evening...

Jono Beagle's hundred point scoring system.
0-29/100 not worth bothering with
30-49/100 good wine but I wouldn't buy a case
50-59/100 very good showing grape and terroir character
60-69/100 excellent example of a wine from this country/region/grape
70-85/100 one of the very best wines that the region has to offer.
86-100/100 one of the very best wines you are ever likely to drink