Over Christmas we spent four night in the famous Dr Holms Hotel in Geilo in the middle of Norway. There was plenty of snow and some very low temperatures, especially on our first day there when the temperature was – minus 20˚C. This ‘wedding cake’ hotel was originally a sanatorium and proved to be a very comfortable place for a four day stay. Despite the high cost of buying wine we had to celebrate Christmas plus a 30th birthday on Christmas Day.
Christmas Eve & Day:
We drank two bottles of Crémant de Bourgogne from Charton et Trébuchet, now owned by Grands Chais de France. The first on Christmas Eve was an intriguing and very successful, fine and complex blend of Pinot Noir, Aligoté and Chardonnay. We had the pure Chardonnay on Christmas Day, which after the blend that we drank the day before was a disappointment – lacking finesse and complexity.
Welcoming in 2023 @Newtonmore
New Year’s Day
For our first dinner of 2023 we had some some smoked salmon with the 2002 autographed 2002 Puligny-Montrachet from Olivier Laflaive, which I had been given a number of years ago while on a press trip to Burgundy. Fortunately there was no sign of the excessive oxidation that spoiled a number of white Burgundies from this era. Instead this was a delicious reminder of how good white Burgundy can be – pity it is now so expensive…
Our main course was local, very tender roast roe deer that was very well matched with this softly opulent 1978 Côte Rotie Côtes Brube et Blonde from Guigal. Unfortunately the cork had stuck to the sides of the neck of the bottle, so it was impossible to extract it. Instead an opening in the cork had to be made and the 1978 then strained and decanted. This made the wine a little cloudy but this didn’t stop us enjoying this memorable bottle.
Les 5 du Vin 