BYO is available in some restaurants here and the corking fee used to be about $20. I would suspect about $40-50 now. There’s the whole sediment issue for an old wine and trying to not shake it up on the way there.
Sounds like a nice meal coming up … enjoy! I’m sure the Porto will be lovely.
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Many thanks for your offer. I might come back to you on the address of your dealer. For the time being I ordered at the German dealer Testdorpf some bottles of Emmerich Knoll‘s Wachau Riesling. Not cheap, but excellent wine, extremely dry, full of mineral notes.
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You‘re welcome 
I know Knoll very well, I was tasting his whole range once, I especially love his Vinothekenfüllungen. The Riesling from this one is IMO the best Austrian Riesling together with Smaragd Steinertal from Tegernseerhof and Ried Klaus from Jamek.
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Happy to volunteer my humble taste buds to test!
It has some excellent ratings/reviews.
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Long story to this, basically we bought this our favourite Champagne just before we were about to move house last year. Well it all fell through at great expense to us but hey ho we’ve celebrated the fact that we are staying in our wonderful home and now we have no plans to move.
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Yes, I’m certain it does. I think many people have a good tolerance for strong tannins and are able to enjoy young, tannic wines whos flavours (tannin, acid, fruit concentration, and alcohol) haven’t softened and married yet.
However, when it comes to reviews, many of the tasters/reviewers have been tasting fresh, 2 yo wines for dozens of years and are able to tell that the wine will develop into a very nice example of it’s typicity, even tho at the time it tastes quite harsh.
I have a half dozen bottles of 2016 Chateau Clarke that I wouldn’t dream of touching for another 3-5 years or more and sime Barolos that I’m pretty sure will need around 12 years as well. I can hardly imagine what they tasted like when they were released at 3-4 yo.
I have a fair amount of admiration for the peope that taste these wines as they’re released and can
actually tell (usually) what they will be like once thay have matured and lost the highly tannic and acidic taste that they, almost all, begin with.
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Last night’s lineup, only missing the Suduirat 88 which had been spirited off to the kitchen by our host, who is looking at drinking some big league bottles with friends that will appreciate the provenance and the various stories.
The 96 William Deutz was delicate yet balanced. Beautiful nose and probably almost my WOTN. The 99 Chave Hermitage Blanc maybe just shaded it but it was so close. Beautiful palate and everything very precise and defined. Next was a Chateau Chalon vin jaune with a lovely cheese soufflé - maybe not quite in tune with each other. The Noel Verset 98 Cornas had a £17 price on it when purchased. Not sure if it merits the £600+ market value but definitely enjoyable with the dusty notes of the northern Rhône and the hot sunny days captured beautifully.
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La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza 2016 which we had with roast pork yesterday - a quite extraordinary wine which demonstrates how good Rioja can be and why it is still a relative bargain
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Average Monday … good God man.
My saliva glands activated from just looking at the Barolo and the Lafite.
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try 904! ;))
Finished a WSET Level 2 course in Monaco with a lovely international bunch. Was great fun.
Now in Macon to teach Fortified wines to some Diploma students.
Always love an excuse to get my Sherry hat on!!
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This is not a very good photo, but this lovely sweet wine which I bought at the Klein Constantia winery a couple of weeks ago was sensational.
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need to see a photo of that Sherry hat. want to see if it’s much different from my port chapeu 
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Taking 2007 Vin de Constance to a South African lunch next month. Always consistently good and ages well if you can resist.
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I have! I went to a great Rioja tasting organised by Tim Atkin a few weeks ago and La Rioja Alta were there so I was able to try the 904
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Lovely glasses
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This had a slight chemical nose when opened … my brother would say it was corked. It’s an organic CdR with 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah. However, after decanting the nose was reminiscent of dark fruit, with minimum tannins once tasted. Went well with a mild dal, and later with cheese.
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Looking at the condition of the label I was expecting it to be from 1915 not 2015
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