Vertical

The straight up-and-down approach is best. Honest and being open. We love PB - Push Biker - he's as straight as they come. Gritty anf fun with it. He knows how the make wine too, so it was a pleasure to spend an evening with him. SWMBO, the AC Electric Man, and AM Academic Man, all had a night ambling into our favourite neighbourhood eatery, then heading home for a vertical tasting.

Over dinner, we were presented with an Albert Mann Cremant d'Alsace. Fresher that what I remember it last and good for it. Not really complex, but hey, it's not Champers! Then hearty main courses accompanied by a 2006 Ch. Leoville Poyferre St Julien. Black, shiny, tight and silky, and refined with a complex intensity lurking below. Referring back to the recently tasted fleshy Lynch Bages and exotic Gruaud Larose 2006s, this had classiness.

So off home to a vertical of Ch. Montrose St Estephe. From the 'long-left cellar', we had two bottles without labels, damage from years of neglect. But my guess they were from 1976 and 1978. In between was the 1977, label intact. So out came the corks, breaking them all on extraction, they turned out to be 1975, 1977 and 1978. The 1975 seemed a bit stinky at first, as many of these oldies get, after being cooped up for such a long time. Then breathed off to reveal ripe, sweet fruit, meaty and gamy to be sure, but actually clean with secondary character rather than brett spoilage. It took us a while to make that conclusion. Not too tough and tannic, as this vintage can be. The next night a little musty, in the 'best' sense. But still soft and very together. Montrose in those days was a bit robust, and the experts then said it needed decades to come around. They were right.

1977 was a cool year, and sure enough, stalks, herbs and high acid. Nice texturally, if you ignored the acid sear. And some freshness of fruit. Quite remarkable in that sense. Some development, but really quite backward in expression. It went into the lamb shanks stock the next day. The 1978s are proving to be less and less attractive with time. Indian Summer saved the day, so they said. But we know that accelerated end-of-season heat just can't make up for a long poor growing season. Lean hard and dryish. But dark fruits showing. Sort of Jekel and Hyde for me. Hard to drink, so off went the remainder of the bottle into the lamb shanks stock too. I bought these wines in the early 1980s for under NZD $25.00. What a great buy, looking back nearly 30 years later.

To treat ourselves with some ripe fruit and sunshine, we opened up a 1998 Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon. A great, great year as we easily saw. Wow, this was backward and tight. To me, Bin 707 is the essence of Australia using Cabernet Sauvignon. As opposed to the Wynns 'John Riddoch' Coonwarra Cabernet Sauvignon, which is the essence of Cabernet Sauvignon, using Australia. But this 707 was truly varietal, intense quality black fruits at the ripe, chocolate, licorice and mocha end of the spectrum. Hints of eucalypt. Very fine extraction, but massive with it. This will keep over two decades more. The quality was superb, just like in the 1998 RWT Shiraz we had earlier this year.

Then a little something to reminds us all that time in bottle can change an outlook. The 2001 Felton Road Riesling was pretty reductive on release. It will never be good was a call. But now, the sulpjides have integrated, keeping the fruit fresher than expected - no toast or kero. But this was a savoury Riesling now, not really racy and aromatically pure. Different, but now good.

At the end of the night I was still vertical. The others sloped off, one by one, to become horizontal. Being older, you learn how to keep going...