LAN dinner at Boundary, by Rob Allen

A most auspicious start to any wine dinner in London has to be to get mildly sunburnt on the roof of the venue. In the case of the LAN Wine Dinner evening at the Boundary, that made-up-rule proved to be correct. Even Trinidad (Villegas, export manager), fresh from California, joined in the fun. 

Once underway, despite all Trinidad's hard work, the wines accelerated and took over the evening and the limelight. The 2008 Crianza shone with characteristic freshness and was a wine I came back to as a benchmark by which to compare others. Served with monkfish and salt cod beignet, it proves yet again that red wine and fish can be a very harmonious combination.

The middle eight of the tasting was a pair of 2005 vintage wines; the super traditional style Gran Reserva and the über-classy Single Vineyard Viña Lanciano, which was unofficially crowned King / Queen of the evening. So generous and ripe with fantastic acid backbone and a truffle, earthy richness which worked so well with the duck.

We then hit the modern style, not so heavily oak aged Edicion Limitada 2008, which evaporated from glasses almost immediately. Coupled with an awesome spiced dark chocolate pudding, this showed the pastry chef's class and judgement harmonising with sommelier Christopher Delalonde's wine & food savvy. Finishing with the Culmen 2007 Reserva and a trio of excellent Spanish cheese (Murcia Al Vino, Mahon Tierno & Manchego).

My attempt at finishing the cheese course!

Thanks should go to Trinidad for doing so well beating her jet lag, having flown over from LA to be with us, Christopher and Peter at The Boundary for arranging such a great event and everyone who committed to having wine based fun on a Monday night c/o Chateau Boundary. 

View more information on Bodegas LAN here