TN Nunc est bibendum Hello, The AAB revellers manged to meet at our place yesterday. Theme of the night was Provence. Atmosphere was suitably subdued since it is evident that the gang is if not actually breaking up, at least getting seriously unhinged as one couple has gone into retirement (enjoying their opium cum digitalis, as we say) and are moving to Southern France, while the husband of in one of the others is AWOL in Thailand since OCtober last year, there to build a house in which they are going to enjoy THEIR ocd. We started the subdued entertainment with the non-Provence entry - Cremant d' Alsace, from Dom Friedrich Engel, imported by our friends the GWI. A rather good cremant, as such things go, I'd say with a good portion Pinot Blanc and a bit of Chardonnay. The cremant seemde to cheer up the revellers no end and we got on to the serious tasting, which was half-blind - each knew his-her entry, but not the others. Som creative misunderstanding concerning which was number 1 and which number 5 served to furhter enlighten the mood of the tasters. 1 Ch Courac 2003 Cote-du-Rhone A delightful nose of black olives, prunes, and bitter oranges, with a mouthful of cherries. A good tannic structure tosee it through the next few years. At SEK 89, a must buy for the long dark spring nights. OT Spring has hit us in Southern Sweden with unaccustomed ferocity, and as Dillscented oak on the nose, wortles, cherries, bitter almond. A fresh acidity and a lovely CabSauv palate which owes nothing to Haut-Medoc. The price DKK 108 is extremely reasonable. 3 Dom la Bernarde 2001 Cote de Provence Butter and oak, liquorice and cherries. Big tannic structure but a bit of donutshaped body (=there's a hole in the middle). In context, a bit extravagant at EU 15.50. 4 Ch Minuty Cuvée de l'Oratoire 2004 Cotes de Provence Strangely chemical nose, which I identified as sulphur. After sitting in the glbutt for about half an hour, it wafted away, revealing nice walnut-honey-cherry and a juicy grenache cherry palate. 5 Ch Ste Anne 1999 Cuvée Normal Bandol This is th ordinary cuvée, with about 65% Mourvedre, and the rest divided between Grenache and Cinsault. Nose very animal, barnyardy, seaweed even. Blackberries. Very tannic. Currently dominated by Mourvedre, would have benefitted from further cellaring. As for food, we had (unaccompanied) mussles marinated in lemon, parsley and olive oil, then a daube of beef, marinated 12 hours and cooked on low fire for 10 hours - this I think qualifies as slow food, eh, Mike? To me, wine of the night would appear to be number 2 - the Vignelaure. 1 would have to be the follow-up. Cheers Nils Gustaf -- Respond to nils dot lindgren at drchips dot se 
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