Taking the very, long way home last night, I found myself walking down Rathdowne Street in Carlton where I spotted a couple of shady looking blokes drinking Moo Brew down a side street. Although there about 4 million people in Melbourne, I knew it was highly likely one of them would be Dan Clarke. Sure enough, Dan and Bert were tucking into a beer next to La Luna Bistro. Appearing from the darkness, Buzz seemed to be negotiating some kind of high level deal on his mobile.

Pleasantries were exchanged and talk turned to Spanish and Italian wine. Anthony must have some kind of 6th sense, ala Spiderman, as he arrived a few minutes later with a bottle of Barbaresco in hand. I, of course, had my customary 2 bottles of Spanish wine, a bottle of PX and a 750 of Port in my backpack, the guys pulled a bunch of wine from various stashes. Dinner was on.

We were shown to a table and offered our wine for the proper treatment, but found that our meager stash (9 bottles) just wasn’t going to be enough. Luckily, some kind soul had left 3 bottles of Spanish wine behind the bar. The WBI was now at an acceptable 2.4, with some PX, Port and a few reds in reserve.

Having no white wine, we warmed up with two easy drinking Spanish wines. Valcorso Monastrell 2005 is an organic wine from Yecla with some light fig and red fruit, a bit of spice and earth. There was a question if this was buggared or not, it seemed representative to me. A good nose, but a bit flat on the palate seemed to be the consensus. Misterio de Fontana, Tempranillo 'Robles' 2005 is a Tempranillo based wine from Ulces that gets a drive-by shooting of oak (2 months). Easy drinking with some good tannins and juby fruit.

Dan pulled a magnum decanter from nowhere and poured the Hillcrest Premium Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 into it. The wine was very tight and needed a lot of air but showed great promise over the night. The structure, balance and fruit are all excellent. A good sleep in the cellar will be well rewarded here. We munched on some house made smallgoods to keep the hunger pains away.

Talk turned to footy, although we never did work out why Dan’s performance in footy tipping hasn’t been stellar this year. When the young lady serving us asked ‘Would you like me to feed you?” we all wondered if this was some new concept in fine dining. Replying a reserved ‘Yes’, we took a punt and assumed she meant she would organize some suitable food. El Quintanal 2005 and a sneak peek at the yet to be released El Quintanal 2006 were up next. A joven wine from Ribera del Duero, both looked really fresh, juby fruit, savory with plush fruit tannins and great drinking. Everyone really liked these with some preferring the freshness of the 06, others the extra age of the 05. It worked well with the grilled mushrooms that arrived soon after.

We started to get into the serious stuff with a couple of Italians. The Vigneti in Paja Barbaresco 1995 has a great nose with some roses, violets, tar and blue fruits. Some said the palate was a bit short, I found it to be great drinking. The Fornacina Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 1995 also had a great nose: vanilla, liquorice, with red and blue fruits. Both were drinking really well, and were well received by the group. An attempt to scare the crap out Anthony and myself by telling horror stories about child birth was staged by the reproductively assured guys. It worked, but we recovered as we ate our Pork and Fennel sausages.

Alion 2001 showed its usual grace. This bottle was a bit closed and oaky. Anthony and I had a much better bottle at an offline last year. I think this one just needed some more air time, I’ll be interested to see what Buzz thinks of it tonight. M2 de Matallana 2003 was ready to go and showed great fruit and caramel oak that was an insane match with the sauce for the perfectly cooked beef steak. Could wine get much better than this?

Well yes, actually. Sitting patiently on the bar were two decanters holding the Isole e Olena Cepparello 1997 and Vega Sicilia Valbuena 5 anos 2001. These two wines were clearly the highlight of the night. Complex, gobs of mulberry fruit, loads of development and aged characters. The Valbuena had an orange/mandarin character which really worked with the chesses that had just arrived. They both look like they have years ahead of them.

An offer of chocolate pudding prompted the opening of a bottle of La Sacrista de Romate PX. A magic combo, the perfect way to finish off the night. Highly concentrated essence of PX with some orange and spice. How this can have such sweetness and flavor, but not be overly cloying and completely overwhelming is beyond me.

A quick session on Anthony’s breathalyzer (Dan had the highest reading and Bert an unbelievably low one) and a few great jokes from Buzz, we returned back into the night thinking perhaps a few less bottles next time. But we all know that probably won’t happen…

A great Thursday night. As always La Luna performed well, good glassware, great food and excellent service all night. We had good luck with corks too, we went from Joven to Gran Reserva (and Riserva) without an issue.