Beaune 1er Cru les Marconnets - Maison Remoissenet 2009

Expect to see more good reports on this Beaune house over coming years. It changed hands in 2005, and since, a key character from Louis Jadot (Bernard Repolt) has joined the team. 2009 was a pretty good year in the region. Fruit all round is fairly concentrated and deeply coloured, and it's expected to cellar well in the short-medium term (acid is in the main a little low, so although tannins are good, long-term cellaring might not pay off so well)

This partiular one is from Les Marconnets, a sub-region of Beaune, just out of town, and carrying Premier Cru status.

Pieropan Soave 2011

There's a whole heap of Soave out there that makes it hard for any decent producerer in the region to charge a reasonable amount for their product. It's a bit like all that $5 Australian Chardonnay, in that it's created a niche for itself that is broadly "tastes OK for a cheap wine". And so, we can buy any number of Soaves off the Dubai shelf for about 30AED - they've got a little in the way of aromatics, some zing, and are always good with food (probably because they are so watery and neutral).

But just like Aussie Chardonnay, that's not what Soave is really all about. It's about a grape called Garganega, which, when made well, has an intense level of natural spice, is fragrant and floral, and has a long and flavoursome finish full of citrus and stone fruit. In the Soave Classico DOC, where this Pieropan wine hails from, the alluvial soils are less fertile than on