Dugois Arbois Savagnin '05 & Chateau Batailley '94

Over the last couple of months I have been wallowing with the eagles at night a fair amount more than is probably good for me. So the rare occurance of making it to bed before 7am on Saturday meant that I was up in time to accompany Sister, through the blazing October sunshine to Borough market in search of pork.

'Nduja is one of the many ingredients available in London at the moment that are as trendy and delicious as they are unpronouncable. It is a raw pork sausage from Cantabria made mostly with head and neck cuts and then laced with shed-loads of hot peperoncino chilli. The porcine equivalent of speedballing.

Some people like to cook with it; frying it up or adding to sauces for pasta or fish. And whilst I'm sure this is great, it's also a bit of a cop-out. It's really just a pimped up Sobressade and hence better eaten on it's own, spread thickly on crusty bread.

It's also fantastically difficult to pair. The rich porkiness that you get from cheap cuts and raw fat shot through with untamed chilli seems specifically designed to obliterate almost any wine you care to mention.

We tried a couple of leftfield juices with supper: Dugois Arbois Savagnin '05 and Chateau Batailley '94.

The Batailley was the better wine: all sour blackberry and sweet raspberry, cracking woodiness, length and balance. No angles, and right in its prime.

The Savagnin is definitely an oxidative style, with a distinct, nutty vin jaune-y nose. But the palate's dancin', with a keen acidity and buckets of apples, cut by a lemon-pith finish. This was the wine for 'Nduja- the apple played nicely with the pork, and the citrus cut through the fattiness. There's not really an answer for that amount of chilli, but it was close enough.

Soaring with the pigs in the morning.

Miquel Gelabert Torrent Negre 20 Aniversari 2005

Sa Bodeguita d'es Pi, €15 (€30)

Anyone following the annual Bordeaux en primeur pig-circus will have noticed something peculiar these last few weeks. The Bordelais no longer have good, bad and average vintages, they have different ones.

As if in some collaborative effort to prove the passing of time, growers, merchants and critics have universally hailed 2010 as neither better nor worse than 2009, merely "different".

A long overdue and begrudging acceptance of the wonderful plurality and variation available to the wine consumer? Whaddayathink?

It all sits rather uneasily in a system based around scores, Vintages of the Century, and the idea that there's some kind of objective and quantifiable definition of what is 'good' Bordeaux. Quite frankly I'm surprised the entire system hasn't imploded under the weight of its own contradictions.

Which is a pity, becuase although I quite like the stuff, it makes me disinclined to drink it. And with celebrations due I wanted some Cabernet-Merlot seriousness.

There was only one thing for it: a bottle Torrent Negre 20th Aniversari 2005 I had purchased in a restaurant the previous week. The owner had not only let me buy a bottle 'off', she had also rung the producer Miquel Gelabert on her mobile to find out what grapes were in it, and then (I discovered later) charged me precisely half what it was worth.

40% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Syrah, a curious triptych, but the Mallorquins are a funny lot so we shan't hold it against them.

The nose opens with a little brett sweatiness, though this is gone after ten minutes in the glass, leaving ripe raisins, stewed plums and a hint of savouriness.

The palate continues this, it's massive in every way, porty with big thick syrupy red and dark fruit, but little herbaceous touch on the finish. A healthy tannic structure, a seemingly well-integrated blend and no heat from the 14.5% alcohol.

Big, brash, heavy, expansive stuff, and remarkably, not the same as (for example) something else.

Chateau Trotanoy 1961

£3,000

A recent and more comprehensive investigation into the 15 or so old and dust-caked bottles at the bottom of my Grandmother's wine rack threw up a grand total of four vaguely drinkable looking results.

A centurion 1982 bottle of Muller-Thurgau, and two bottles of '76 Veuve will no doubt be good, interesting palette-educating, tipples.

As indeed was the last, a 1961 Chateau Trotanoy.

A quick consultation with google and a vintage chart, show this to be one of the finest wines produced in the type of vintage that attracts such adjectives as 'Legendary' and 'Mythical'. Retailing up to around $6,000.

80 plus years of life have made my Grandmother a very sensible woman. She declined both my offer to try to auction it for her, as well as the bottle of Gewürztraminer I had brought her ("Silly grape"), and decided the Trotanoy would be better suited paired with our supper of cold roast chicken, salad, sausage rolls and baked camembert.

The bottle was a mess, possibly as a result of having spent almost half a century in the utility room. The label was illegible under a thick layer of dirt, the cork almost saturated and the fill level below the neck; I didn't hold out much hope for it.

It decanted off not much sediment to a clear plum purple with a brickish rim. The nose confirms a miracle, it's not gone. A little dirty brett at the outset, opening into some damson or stewed fruit. The palate is subtle and seamless. There's red fruit and raisins, cherries, maybe a hint of cedar. Tannins are structured and integrated.

Maybe the fruit is a little muted - I don't know - like many people I've not got much frame of reference for this kind of thing, but it's complex stuff for sure, and pretty damn good.

At 50 this wine is exactly twice as old as me, and though direct comparison is difficult, I guess it was at least eight times better.

Great right bank wines of the 20th century: two down, one to go, shouldn't be a problem 'though: there's probably some '47 Cheval Blanc in the shed.

Chateau Petrus 1982

c. £4,000

As you would expect, my recent arrival in the United States was met with great fanfare, rejoicing and brouhaha.

The timeless pairing of good strong beer and Xanax had seen away an overnight train ride with ease, and I arrived in Camden ready to take on the South. The Americans were going to have to pull some pretty peculiar stuff out of the bag if they were going to surprise or unsettle me this time.

I was off to visit the US contingent of the Russian's large and complicated family, who had recently relocated from California and were in the process of spreading themselves thinly amongst a number of indistinct towns in South Carolina.

An early victory in the campaign saw us locate the single shop in town that hadn't closed down and procure from them an excellent pirate hat, as a gift for the Russian's little sister. And buoyed by this, we headed for home and the bright beacon of his father-in-law's superlative wine cellar...

A cursory inspection revealed a large number of bottles, mostly Bordeaux and Burgundy, and largely adorned with labels saying things like Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Lafite and 1947.

"This ought to go well with the steaks," opined the father-in-law, breaking my reverie. 1982 Chateau Petrus. Well, yes- I imagine it might. Food and wine pairings rarely a problem for the man one suspects.

Flame-grilled steaks and one of the most expensive wines ever produced - staggering generosity - the Americans evidently were really very pleased to see me.

The wine, as you would expect, but probably can't imagine, was sublime. The nose was heady, almost Bugundian, but with a little more spirit. Tannins were hitting a luscious integrated peak after 18 years, the palate beautifully balanced with complex with red fruit, lead, leather, tobacco, earth... I could go on, but trying to describe this wine is somewhat moot; as a university lecturer once told me the only apposite response to sublimity is "FUCK ME!" By some distance the best I have ever and probably ever will drink.

Not, of course, several thousand pounds a bottle better, but that's wine people for you- mad as snakes.

As I finished my last few drops I was hit by an overwhelming sense of personal failure. I knew they had done it again- gone and surprised me.

Laithwaites Grand Tasting

The message simply read 'Help'

When I found him sometime later, dribbling to himself in a back corridor at Vinopolis it transpired that he had gone rogue and ended up cornered by a German lady who was alledgedly making him smell mushrooms before offering any of her Pinot Noir. The Shock and Awe approach to the Laithwaites tasting had been decided upon some time before, but it was clear now that TOD would need some guidance and a little more nerve if he was going to make it through.

Some other spirit knew this too, because, excellently, on our way back from the corridor we got lost and ended up in a pub. We did this I'm pretty sure without leaving the building. Sensing the hand of God at play I bought a couple of ales and we sat down to assess the situation.

Some time ago we had procured tickets to Laithwaites first 'Grand Tasting' session in the cavernous Vinopolis at London Bridge. The show promised 200 wines from across the globe served by their enthusiastic producers, lectures and tutored tastings from industry experts, friendly and knowledgeable staff on hand to offer advice and 10% off any wine bought on the day. We were clearly going to be hopelessly out of our depth...

On re-entering the arena TOD immediately latched on to two young ladies in Laithwaites shirts who were serving Le Chai au Quai with a big plate of cheese. They didn't seem to know much about Bordeaux, but were contented to listen whilst he told them all about how much he loved cheese. The wines were fairly nondescript apart from the top-of-the-line Pauillac, which had a nice attack.

I left him to go remonstrate with the German lady from earlier. She was still trying to get people to smell mushrooms and Liquorice Allsorts, but having been briefed on this I flatly refused. Instead I ate some of the Liquorice Allsorts and had a glass of Chilean Pinot Noir, which was, interestingly, mushroomy. We then made our way back to the main hall via a man who who had some Whisky to get us in the fighting spirit.

Downstairs we set about some more serious drinking.

The producers stalls were mostly set out by country, to aide the nationalist set. An Aussie gave me some fizzy Shiraz which the winemaker had, rather unimaginatively I thought, made taste exactly as you would expect, i.e. of Vimto.

Onwards to a pleasant Spier Pinotage 2008, nice but lacking a little varietal distinction. I chose not to believe the man’s optimistic declaration that ‘This is probably the finest red you will taste today’ but it seems others were more easily gulled as this was voted the crowd’s favourite wine of the day.

A brace of modern, zippy Rieslings from Von Buhl were good enough, but didn't really excite, so I moved to the next stall with the intention of practising my inimitable Spanish on a woman from Carinena. 'Though this was scuppered when she inexplicably took against me when I asked if her wine contained any.

Meeting up with TOD again we spotted an opening at the sole Argentinian stand, and an opportunity for one of his famously prolix Proustian eulogies on the joy of Malbec.

Unfortunately before he could really hit his stride the producer happened to mention Chilean wine... "Bastards the lot of them!" exclaimed TOD loudly as the atmosphere around the table darkened. The man serving the wine looked frightened, but another, standing beside us made the mistake of pressing TOD further on the finer points of his assertion. He muttered something about the Chilean being an unpredictable sort before declaring them "Untrustworthy in matters of business and affairs of the heart." This did the job and, as people started to edge away, I kept a close eye on the Chileans at the stall next door in case the scene turned ugly.

Up until this point the highlights had been some cracking NZ Pinot Noirs, especially the Forrest Wines Stonewall 2008 which matched a cracking savoury nose, to a smooth deep and long fruit palate. But the best was saved 'til the very end.

The final NZ stall we visited was that of Seifried Estate, whose ice wine Riesling was a revelation. Full and honeyed in the mouth, with bags of clean lime acidity on the finish.

We left with the firm intention of taking advantage of the 10% off deal at the shop, but queues were prohibitive. Instead we stole a couple of tasting glasses and made our merry way.