Another month, another wine group dinner. The Swan wine stood out from a flight of three Californian Chardonnays, to the extent that I guessed the producer blind. The fruit has that eccentric but attractive old straw character. The surprise was that two of the three wines had the alcohol level on the bottle twice with conflicting values - and it didn't even seem to be just a question of rounding to half a degree to satisfy European regulations. Curious!

Three Chateauneufs from 1997 were good wines - I'm not sure I've drunk many before but I had a feeling this wasn't a well thought-of vintage. Doesn't look that way from these wines. I was a bit surprised that of two 1994 Chateauneufs the Vieux Telegraph was really very good and notably upstaged the Beaucastel. I tend to ignore VT a bit, feeling the wines are good but ultimately not so interesting. Judging by this wine I should pay them more attention.

And then Filhot 1990 similarly upstaged Guiraud 1990. Now Filhot is another property I don't particularly look out for, but for the time being I'm writing this one down to Filhot having produced an exceptional wine in that one vintage.

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