Marie & Denis Chevassu Cotes du Jura Chardonnay '08

c. £14

As legacy-killers go dying in public in an improbable but slightly
amusing accident on Friday 13th is right up there with writing an
autobiograpgy of your time as a DEFRA minister, or a paedophilia charge.

No matter how many starving African children you've rescued from
burning buildings in the last six months, you're always going to be
the person who fell down the stairs of the number 88 'cos you were
googling the clap on your phone or was poisoned by a rogue platypus as you
took lunch at the zoo cafe.

With this in mind I cleverly decided to stay at home all day and drink
Chardonnay.

Chardonnay is a barometer grape. A taste for it neatly divides the
world into those you may want to drink with and others who should be
drowned in a butt of Sauvignon.

The Jura is a barometer region. 'Though it divides the world into
insufferable wine geeks, and normal people who haven't heard of it.

A tricky one this then, and consequently best drunk in bed at 3pm when
there's unlikely to be anyone else there.

There's not much info out there regarding Denis and Marie Chevassu's
operation but they appear to make varietal wines from all five grapes
permitted by the area's AOC*. And at
least one merchant claims the elevage of this Chardonnay is sous voile,
'though I'd probably call that particular claim.

On the nose there's big concentration of honeysuckle and cream and a
richer toffee pudding note. The palate cuts through with a pretty
searing acid streak, lemons, melons.

At the price this is an outstanding bargain. There's proper
delineation and varietal typicity here.

But the anchovies and raw onion I ate for lunch were about the last
food left in the house. Which now means I am a little drunk and
probably needing to go to the shops to buy food.

See you in the obituary pages.


* Chardonnay, Savagnin, Pinot Noir, Trousseau, Ploussard. Open goal.

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.