Party Time - Formal Dinner Party .....................................................................................................................................................................................................

The formal dinner party is when you often really push the boat out and ultimately the choice is endless and will very much depend upon your budget and the style of food you will be serving. An aperitif would normally be served which, if wine, could easily be a glass of good champagne or sparkling. Fishy starters go well with buttery chardonnays or crisp, fresh Sauvignons. Fuller whites would go well with a more substantial main course fish dish. Cabernets and Merlots go well with simpler grilled meats whilst heftier Syrah/Shiraz or Grenache wines partner game or cheese well. Pinot Noir is always good with cheese, particularly rich smelly ones but many people are discovering that a white Burugndy or New World Chardonnay compliments the cheese course well. Sweeter wines can either be served with the dessert, although care needs to be taken that the wine is sweet enough to cope with the sweetness of the pudding, but such wines often go extremely well with the cheese course - especially blue cheeses. For those of a more robust constitution the cheese course heralds the arrival of a bottle of decent port - traditionally always passed to the left on the table! Finally there is the choice of digestif - whether it be a fine Early-Landed Cognac or Armagnac or perhaps a farmhouse Calvados or a Kümmel on the rocks!

Chablis, 1er Cru Mont de Milieu, 2004 - Domaine Pinson - £16.20 per bottle Richness combined with a finesse and complexity that can only come with careful wine making, to produce this full-bodied 1er Cru, rich with honeyed fruit and tremendous concentration of flavour. Ample and rich. Lots of depth. More intense. Nicely steely. Lovely long finish. More power and more depth than the 1er Cru La Foret. Established in the early 17th Century, this 10 hectare estate is one of the most ‘senior’ estates in Chablis, both in terms of its reputation and the sheer quality of its wines. The Pinson brothers’ grandfather, Louis, established the estate’s pedigree in the late 1940’s and became one of the first growers to bottle and sell their own wine. This exemplary family estate is now run by Laurent (who is in charge of wine-making and the cellars) and his brother, Christophe (who is in control of all vineyard and viticultural work). The vineyards are sensibly replanted, giving an average age of vines a little over 30 years old, whilst tight pruning ensures carefully maintained yields. All the grapes are manually picked and vinification is traditional, with the initial fermentation of all the wines taking place in stainless steel vats and then the Premiers and Grands Crus are transferred to a range of new, and not so new, oak barrels for ageing. This process allows the wines to have a wonderful purity and intensity of fruit (they are not dominated by oak which comes from barrel-fermented Chablis) and a richness which is so often lacking in the wines from this region. These are world-class wines which benefit a sensible amount of ageing before being released. FISH/CHICKEN/SHELLFISH/CHEESE/VEGETARIAN ..................................................................................................................................................................

Rioja, Imperial Gran Reserva, 1996 - Compania Vinicola del Norte de España - £19.61 per bottle Intense ruby red resulting from the long maceration. Deep berry nose and liquorice predominating in the powerful structure. There are fine hints of toasty oak with fine balsamic nuances. On the palate it is full, generous and rich. It is made from 85% Tempranillo, Graciano 10% and 5% Mazuelo. Imperial is one of the big brands of Spain. It is a true classic in Rioja and was first produced in the twenties. Its name comes after a special bottling for the English market, in a measure called 'Pinta Imperial' or 'Imperial Pint' (an Imperial pint, half a litre approximately). From 1928 these wines could be found at the top restaurants and shops all over Spain. It has always been characterised for its very high and constant quality, in every vintage. The Imperial range includes a 'Reserva' and a 'Gran Reserva' and is only produced in exceptional vintages. In 1879, two brothers set up a business in the recently flourishing trade of the wine business. C.V.N.E., Compañía Vinicola del Norte de España (The Northern Spanish Wine Company) or la Cuné, as it is commonly known in Haro, was created. The Cuné winery in Haro, is made up of a group of buildings, mostly from the 19th century and arranged around a courtyard surrounded by pavilions for the purpose of wine production, aging, and bottling and it was one of the first wineries of Rioja to bottle its own wines. In 1900, the winery had an extraordinary aging capacity of 80,000 bottles, which was most unusual at the time, as most wineries were selling their wines as soon as possible. GAME/BEEF/LAMB/PORK/CHEESE/PASTA ..................................................................................................................................................................