only one

were s'posed to meet at the usual place saturday afternoon. all suspects confirmed. however, one missed roll call. in fact, have not heard from him since the last message received, that his ride (a marvelous piece of british precision engineering ... there must be an oxymoron or three in there somewhere) went south... anyway he did not miss much, imo.

chandon de briailles savigny les beaune 1er cru 'les lavieres' 2005

ruby; cherry, raspberry, intermittent strawberry, a little later you get some ... oh,oh ...wet leather, fur?, musk ... thankfully not enough to put me off, cedar, spice (asian), turkish delight on the nose; sour cherry and plum, some green stalkyness, chalk/stoniness on palate; quite a lot of tannin, firm but fine; lots of acid; bit chalky/stoney; lean and so young; light/medium bodied; medium length; 12.5%; hoped it would open up over the 2 hours or so, it didn't oblige; does nothing for me now. maybe in 5. POP!

their pernand vergelesses (below) was much more approachable and enjoyable at this stage.

through the mild red haze, contrarian muttered something about cool vintage and stems ... well, not sure about the cool bit cos the vintage was supposed to have be exceptional but it seems that this house likes to go the "trad" route and does not destem at all [update: read somewhere that this particular one was 10% destemmed] ...... they also do not filter... maybe that's why brett gets to hangs around a bit ...

some roast pork and that was it.

if there's a moral to this story, it's ... get a toyota, man.