In contrast to May, which if you have just read my “Recent Wines” for that month contained a mere six bottles, we drank quite a lot during June. It was a month of celebration, of moving into our new home and of a significant anniversary. I certainly won’t be giving notes on more than one or two of the seventeen bottles and magnums we drank at an anniversary party, but there are a few from the meals with friends and family that surrounded it. For the month of June as a whole there will be eighteen wines, so expect three parts, six wines in each.

The first part will showcase an old Champagne, an old Morgon, a Cornas, an Austrian Furmint, a South African red blend and a red petnat from Hungary.

Champagne Dom Pérignon 2004 (Champagne, France)

I had a few bottles of the 2004 DP, but this is my last. The vintage reflects the occasion of a previous significant year for us, and I had sort of kept this back for that reason. I do have one or two older Champagnes, and I’ve always had a taste for mature Champagne, but I don’t really see the need to hang onto many bottles for more than twenty years, save possibly the odd Clos des Goisses and Péters Chétillons.

I don’t need to tell you about this Moët-produced prestige cuvée. Although the myths about the Dom inventing Champagne are clearly just that, he was of course a significant individual, both in its journey to fame and in polishing the lustre of that fame in the modern age. Of course, there is a rather nice statue of him outside the Moët production facility at the town end of the Avenue de Champagne in Épernay, and I would not be in the slightest bit critical of anyone moved to take a photograph of it.

The production numbers for Dom Pérignon are perhaps a poorly kept secret. I know well-regarded “growers” whose non-vintage cuvée is produced as a fraction of the number of bottles of Dom. But that patently isn’t the point. It is surely a great achievement by Moët & Chandon that they can make so many bottles of Dom Pérignon and retain exceptional quality. I will add that 2004 was a rather good vintage for the Dom, at least on the basis of the bottles I’ve consumed.

The bubbles now are very fine but gentler than in youth. They coat the palate with a soft minerality. I say soft, but that is the texture. It is still intense. There’s a gorgeous, rich, brioche note. It really is an expressive wine with a sublime bouquet. It is always hard to express one’s experience with prose when drinking a twenty-year-old Champagne is really more poetic. That said, it may well be around its peak. A quick dip into the market shows this could be had today for not significantly more than the £200 Waitrose supermarkets list the current vintage (remember Waitrose has regular “25% off Wine and Champagne” offers, which is what I used to wait for if I was after this particular Prestige Cuvée).

Morgon “Cuvée Corcelette” 2010, Jean Foillard (Beaujolais, France)

I have been a long-time fan of Foillard. I’m sure that many readers, like me, will have been convinced of the true potential of Beaujolais wine through his Côte du Py. If that cuvée is undoubtedly the best-known wine he created, there are others. I’ve always had a very soft spot for the Fleurie from this domaine. Then there is the Corcelette. For me, this is no less fine than the Py.

This is a single site growing, of course, very old vine Gamay on, unusually for the Beaujolais Crus, sandstone soils (at the time of this vintage the vines were over 65 years of age, today they claim 80+). The grapes are hand harvested and fermented as whole clusters. Ageing takes place in the mixed media of old oak barrels and one large foudre.

In youth Corcelette can be quite a structured wine, but always shows vibrant and pure Gamay cherry fruit. This 2010, from an exceptional year for the cuvée, is now mellow. Another wine at its peak, perhaps? The cherry core has overlying fresh raspberry with deeper notes of nutmeg and cinnamon. The overall impression is of a fine wine with a degree of seriousness, but it also has a kind of lifted lightness, and elegance and delicacy perhaps. This is what remains after the tannic structure of younger versions has disappeared.

One thing I noticed, having quite recently drunk a Côte du Py of a quite similar age, is that the Py tasted much more Pinot Noir-like. That can happen with Gamay as it ages. This Corcelette was definitely shouting Gamay through its sea of complexity.

This is not a wine I’d necessarily call “intense”, yet it is unquestionably profound, at least for myself, being open to its charm. Is it a fine wine? Yes, I’d say so. Certainly, a rewarding experience and a pleasure to drink. I’m not sure you’ll find a 2010 now. The current vintage hovers around £40 depending on where you source it. This one either came from The Sampler, or perhaps The Solent Cellar. I’ve bought it from both in the past.

Cornas “Les Combes” 2011, Mark Haisma (Northern Rhône, France)

Cornas always used to be the Northern Rhône appellation which everyone forgot about. With literally two or three magnificent exceptions, Cornas made hard-boned wines that took many decades to come around, so long perhaps that if they didn’t, then no one would be around to take the complaints. But as the other Northern Rhône appellations became both much improved and more expensive, so did Cornas. Mark Haisma was lucky enough to begin sourcing fruit in Cornas as this transformation of its fortunes was in mid-flow.

Mark’s credentials were impeccable. He was making wine in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, working for Dr Bailey Carrodus at Yarra Yerring. I think I have one of Mark’s YY wines left in my cellar. They were always special wines for those prepared to dive deep into the Yarra. I think it was around 2009 that Mark decided, like Andrew and Emma Nielsen of Le Grappin, to make wine in France. This 2011 must be from one of his earliest vintages. I certainly recall his Cornas was more easily affordable back then.

Whilst his Burgundy wines have proved to be very fine over the years, Mark’s Cornas was a new, even potentially risky, venture. Cornas just didn’t quite have the same recognition back in the day. However, working as a micro-negociant, he was able to source his Syrah from vines over 65 years old, from “Les Combes”, a parcel up at 1,100 masl, making for a good start, great grapes for a star winemaker to handle.

Mark made this wine in the cellars of Vincent Paris, one of the newer names, at the time, who brought Cornas to greater promise and fame, especially via his “Granit” cuvées. Today this wine still has some underlying structure, but there is that classic meaty note on the nose, suggesting a degree of maturity. The palate shows nice red fruits on a velvet-smooth palate, with just a little peppery spice to finish. It’s a very fine wine. It’s worth noting that this bottle had shed the relative austerity I noted when I last drank this, four or five years ago.

I don’t know where I bought this. Today expect to pay around £50 for a recent vintage. I’m guessing I paid no more than £30 for this, on release.

Furmint 2019, Heidi Schröck & Söhne (Burgenland, Austria)

Heidi is one of the very talented women winemakers who seem so plentiful around Austria’s Neusiedlersee. She is based in Rust, a town for which I have a very deep affection, and I might add that with her winery located off the town’s large main square, she makes for an easy visit among the many pleasures Rust offers.

Furmint may be a variety associated more with Hungary than Austria, but Rust was once part of Hungary in the days of the Empire, and Furmint has a strong tradition here. Also, as I have recently noted, Hungary is little more than a stone’s throw south of Rust, just beyond the next village down, Morbisch.

We have moved now, from three sublime older wines to more simple pleasures, although this bottle still has just under five years of age. It is, for sure, a beautifully mineral wine, but it is softened at the edges by a kind of peachy flavour. There’s a lot of interest and value here. The tasting note might be short but the price, £19 from Lockett Brothers (North Berwick) is very good. I wish it wasn’t the only one of Heidi’s wines they sold.

The importer of this cuvée is Liberty Wines, though Alpine Wines usually has some of Heidi’s other wines. She makes truly exceptional Ruster sweet wines. The label says “from Rust with love” and I can assure you that she means it.

“A Rare Moment” 2019, Blank Bottle Winery (Western Cape, South Africa)

This is one of the exclusive cuvées Pieter Walser made for his friends Henry and Cassie at Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton, the label containing a cartoon depiction of Henry that my photo sadly does not feature. It’s a blend of Syrah and Pinotage from sites in the Western Cape.

This is a wine with a warm climate glow, and indeed a warm 14% abv, but it is remarkably balanced and leans towards elegance, rare in a wine of 14%. This is so like Pieter, wines which you can drink easily but getting up from the table, not as easily. He included stems and this gives the wine a little structure, but it majors on dark fruits, spice and black pepper. It would age further, even though this is already five years old. That said, it is drinking brilliantly now.

I think Butlers is getting through their stock but I’m pretty sure they do have some left. Pieter’s wines have always been a bargain, given their artisan nature, but prices have crept up thanks to forces we are all aware of operating UK-side. But this is only £22.50, which makes it especially worth trying. Blank Bottle’s importer is Swig.

Gothus is the partner to A Rare Moment, being the cuvée inspired by Henry’s partner and wife, Cassie. I think that has all gone. A shame as I have just started to read Season of the Witch, Cathi Unsworth’s Times Book of the Year on Goth. Shame. Would have made a good pairing in a “wines to read with” article that Hannah C might write.

Liner Notes 2022, Annamária Réka-Koncz (Barabás, Eastern Hungary)

This is a new, certainly to the UK, cuvée from Annamária. It’s a red petnat, a blend of 77% Cabernet Sauvignon and 23% Kékfrankos. The grapes come from a vineyard at Mátra in the Nagyréde district, a good two-and-a-half-hour drive west of her Barabás vines and winery.

It’s an unusual blend, although of course Kékfrankos is the Hungarian name for Blaufränkisch, which I’m sure you know by now. The vineyard is on volcanic soils which have an andesite base with clay topsoil. Andesite is a dark, fine-grained, soil which comes from the erosion of lava flows.

It’s worth describing how Annamária makes it. She does a gentle crush of whole bunches, followed by a five-day fermentation in closed tank. Then it is moved to fibreglass. Ageing is then in stainless steel. Bottled with only 1.5 bar of pressure. It undergoes no fining, nor filtration, and it is bottled with minimal addition of sulphur.

Like any petnet, it isn’t a complex wine. Its charm lies in its fruit and refreshing quality. It certainly is darkly fruity, and spicy too. More than anything, in a field of diverse petnats this is still distinctive. The blend helps, as does the lower pressure which produces gentle, tiny, bubbles. Only 1,000 bottles were made.

I can’t find this any more on the web site of UK importer, Basket Press Wines. It must be frustrating for them that by the time I get to write about pretty much most Réka Koncz wines, they have sold out, so sought after have they become. I can see that Prost Wine still has some for £32 though.