A tasting at Cornerstone

A wine tasting session organised by Cornerstone over the weekend. Second wines from a few good house in Bordeaux including
Chateau Pouget 96,00,03,05
La Chapelle de la Mission Haut Brion 2005
Le Fleur de Bouard 2006
Le Pardon de Angelus 2007
La Chapelle Lafon Rochet 2005
Le Haut de Smith 2005

The vertical of Chateau Poget on the left. Overall, not very impressed. Perhaps it was the weather, environment, or the stemwares. Only the SHL / La Mission were decent enough to warrant a purchase.

The crowd and the surroundings of #01 at Cornerstone building in 61 Lorong 17 Sims Drive.

A tour of the 2nd of 7 story building by 3rd generation owner Clinton An of 'Twelve Degrees'', one of the noted storage facilities for fine wines in Singapore. I've EP wines stored here!

My wines, a palette full of Lafite...*Dreaming*

Thanks to Willy Soh from Cornerstone for the warm hospitality!!

*Clink!*

Marina Bay Sands: Wilmar & Co. 03; Reserve la Comtesse 06

Had a good weekend at Marina Bay Sands. Wilmar & Co 03 by TK, toasty on the nose at first, but somehow toast went missing after an hour after opening.

Reserve de la Comtesse 2006, 2nd wine of Pichon La Lande. dark fruits, minerals, some pepper, excellent with imperial treasure cuisine. Yum. Realised that the bath tub had a tray..what an ideal loaction to take pictures of the wine!!

Lynch Bages 1975 - Poor man's Lafite?

Domaine René Engel, Vosne Romanée, 1Er Cru, Les Brulées, 2003
Lynch Bages, Pauillac, 1975
Chatéau Pichon Lalande, Pauillac, 2004
Domaine Christian Serafin, Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru Les Baudes 2004
Chatéau Léoville Barton, St Julien, 1993

Lynch Bages, Pauillac, 1975
Very aged Pauillac, 1975!! Thanks to Morgan, what a privilege. Fruit very much present, this must be what 'silky smooth' wine means. Tannins are faint, very well aged, and there's still a decently good finish!!

Domaine Christian Serafin, Chambolle Musigny 1er Cru Les Baudes 2004.
2004 known to be a cool year, hence grapes weren't optimally ripe. Christian Serafin is vinify in classic burgundian styles. Uncork @ 10am, decant at 2pm, in cool environment. Very strong perfume through the day, dark fruits intertwined with Figs, very strong tannins.

Drinking time 8pm onwards: The strong 'Ribena' nose is not there, with forest floor, green tea?, herbal, some figs on the nose, complex palatte, good finish.

Barton 93: Very big, quite heavy still, TK opened since noon.
Lalande 04: Opened for 2 days, initially when it's cold, flambouyant nose and sweet palette, upon warming up, nose of the Left Bank was present... Excellent preparation.
Le Brulee 03: Very delicate, classic figs on the nose, light and very enjoyable on the palette.

Dom Perignon 2000 Blanc, 1998 Rose, 1995 Enotheque

A fantastic wine tasting event by Crystal Wines. www.crystalwines.com of three of the classic champanges from Dom Perignon!

The 'regular' Dom, my first Dom ever. I've heard so much about it, read about the Gold awards that this wine has been winning around the world, and finally I've go to taste it! Nose of ripe citrous, hint of toast and oak. Yummy and delicious, balanced palette and an amazing 50seconds finish! Dom usually spend at least 6 years on lees and it's a mixture of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and one can be hard pressed to pick up a dominant grape in the finely balanced bubbly.

The Dom Perignon Rose 1998. Perfect with Sushi, Salmon Sashimi!? The wine merchant went to Akashi and 5 pax spent $3.2k on food and 8-9bottles of Blanc 2002 @ $220/btl!! Talk about indulgence!

The customised Champange flute for the Blanc 2000.

The favourite of most at the tasting, which I found it very lacking in the nose. Has yet to open at all. Enotheque is a greek word for 'wine library', and such will spend easily 9 years on the lees before a 2nd release of the wine is made. Once the wine warmed, the nose still wasn't appearing. Palette was complex with a decent finish. I'll try this with a Pinot glass and at least 1 hr of uncorked time before going near this fellow. And this cost >SGD$500/bottle!

The Wine of the Night! A sneak at the 1998 Rose...

Twin bottles of the very lovely, absolutely balanced and beautiful rose. Rose comes from the skin of perfectly ripened grapes and Dom Perignon has grapes only from the 17 Grand Crus in Champange. And since Dom Perignon is a 'vintage-only' champange, we don't get the Blanc on a yearly basis, and much less the Rose!! (though in some years, the Rose was made by not the Blanc!)

The 'must-have' family portrait, with my clear favourite on the 'top step of the podium'!!

I did buy a bottle of 2000 in the end of the evening and went for a yummy Yakitori dinner with Nick @ Robertson Quay.

Imperial Treasure

The Gosset 1999. An under-rated house, this is impeccable vintage champagne
with toast on the nose and a hint of honey on the palette. Value for money!

A very well prepared wine, which opened up ery beautifuly. The 2000 Clos Fortet did remind one of the left bank instead of the classic St-Emillion. The 2004 is a step ahead of the 2000 in my opinion with fresh bouquet and a very balanced palette.

Masterclass with Christian Seely (Pichon Baron!)

Thanks to Jackson from Denise wineshop / The Straits Company, we had the chance to taste some great wines from Bordeaux. Led by Christian Seely, the session was held at the Denise wineshop at Tanjong Pagar.


Short write up of Mr Christian Seely
Born in 1960, Christian Seely was educated at Harrow School and Trinity College
Cambridge where he took an M.A. in English in 1982.
During the following months he accompanied his father, James Seely, wine merchant
and writer, to Bordeaux, to work with him on his book “The Great Wines of
Bordeaux”.

Following this experience, Christian Seely created his own company, “Presents of
Mind” specialising in wines and gastronomy.
After obtaining his MBA at INSEAD in 1987, and after a year spent at l’Oréal in
Paris, he worked for Guinness Mahon Development Capital, for whom he managed
the turn around of several companies in which they had investments.
In October 1993 he was able to unite this work experience with his passion for wine
when he was named Managing Director of Quinta do Noval, a new investment of the
AXA Millésimes group in Portugal.

In the year 2000, AXA invited Christian Seely to take up the position of Managing
Director of AXA Millésimes, following the retirement of Jean-Michel Cazes. Since
that time he manages the AXA Millésimes group of vineyards, whose head office is
based at Château Pichon-Longueville Baron.

Besides this prestigious Pauillac Grand Cru Classé, Christian Seely is responsible for
looking after Châteaux Pibran in Pauillac, Petit-Village in Pomerol, Suduiraut in
Sauternes, Mas Belles Eaux in the Languedoc, as well as Domaine de l’Arlot in Nuits-
St-Georges, Disznókı in Hungary and Quinta do Noval in Portugal. He is also the
President of the Compagnie Médocaine, the Bordeaux Négociant, which is wholly
owned by AXA Millésimes. Apart from these AXA Millésimes companies, he is
managing director and part owner of Quinta da Romaneira in the Douro, and cofounder
and joint owner of Coates and Seely Ltd, producer of English Sparkling wine
in Hampshire, England.

He lives today in the city of Bordeaux with his wife Corinne, stepson Antoine, and
sons Theodore and

2010-04-18 Grandeur of Wine!

The Grandeur of Wine, organised by Peter Knipp holdings Pte Ltd and held and the lush Hilton Hotel in Singapore was simply fantastic! With more than 50 booths touting wine fines, great food provided by Hilton Hotel and a large array of wine masterclasses!
Ticketed at $58 per pax, I was fortunate enough to garner two free tickets kudoes to Gold 90.5FM! Thank you Hamish!

The wife and I arrived sharp at 11am, anticipating 'Bordeux Tasting with Oz Clarke', only to find out that he's stuck in an European airport due to the ash spewing volcano in Iceland.

It was to the wine rounds then!
Fantastic oysters, at only $9 for 5 pieces!!


One of the good finds....!

More good food.. Gnocchi with Gogonzola cheese....and an entire plate President select cheeses...heavenly!


The Schott Zweisel Tasting by Laurent Vialette was an eye-opener. With wines
2002 Ridge Santa Cruz Mountains Home Ranch
2006 Ridge California Monte Bello
2005 Ridge Santa Cruz Mountains Estate
in 3 different Schott glasses, it was supposed to be a learning experience to smell and taste the effects wine glasses have on wine.
Glasses used were not the usual 'large' bordeaux wines suitable for the Cabernet Sauvignon but instead smaller tasting glasses like stems were used. They were: 1872, Cru Class and Clear *** (can't recall the glassed used here).

The effects were startling, a 2mm difference in the height of the glass was enough to mute one of the wines.

It remains a debate and struggle to pick out the perfect glass for the perfect wines!


Panna water, it really does taste great..and cleanses the palette unlike any other water!

Finally we went for the Veuve Clicquot Champange base wine testing with Francois Hautekeur who is the Oenologist of Veue Clicquot. By then, I was really tipsy and starting to spit wines and not taking notes. By the 3rd base wine..I was concussed and Wifey woke me at the end when the fermetted bubbly was served and what a way to end the wine event.
Oh..before the final round. Thanks to everyone!! Till the next year! Cheers!!

St Emillion and St Emillion. 2nd Jan 2010

I"m hardly a right banker. A big fan of the Right, TK has been involving me with interesting stuff from Pomerol and St Emillion. And what a night to succeed the gastronomical heights which I was brought to just a night before(refer to the 2010 new yr's day post). Here we have Willy Wong, big fan of the Canon la Gafferliere, and we had the 2004, and with 3-4hours of decanting, the OMG it had great bouquet, balanced palette the finish lingered with sweetness of (can't find a word to describe..)! My mind was blown the very forward 2004, and and I was ...a FAN!! The other wine is a garage wine, the Chateau Fombrauge which opened after ...10hours of decanting! However, standing next to the great CLG, the Fombarge had to take 2nd place!

The Brand New 2010. Chateau Lanessan 92, La Croix de Gay 2000,

It was a the perfect way to start a year. The well-balanced mixed-duck with al-dente pasta, followed by exquisit steak in trufflie oil complementing with flavours of sea and flower salt, PLUS amazing a 2000 La Criox de Gay (pomerol), absolutely fantastic Chateau Lanessan 1992, intriguing 2007 Errazuris Wild Ferment Chardonnay and a Bottega sparkling muscato, plus great entertainment from William, Kin & Barney topped by the culinary skills of TK, it was...truly..amazing.

The first bottle of the 92 was a tad sour. Known to have bottle variation, we had a second bottle and thank goodness we did and it turned out great! The pomerol, on the other hand, started off at 8hours of decanting and that wasn't enough!! and only until 10hours did it truly open and on my...I've finally tasted pomeral which suits my palette. The chardonnay was intriguing, as I thought it is too acidic on an earlier tasting but this turned out really pleasant on the palette and unlike any Oz over-sugarred Chardonnays. The Bottega was a tad sweet for me.

The only regret is not capturing the food, and I shall bring my DSLR in future!!