To go with chicken tortellini in a spicy/creamy sage sauce, I chose a 1995 Joseph Drouhin Domaine de Vaudon Chablis. Didn't expect it be a wow match, and it wasn't in that class like the Grange with the lamb shanks in pomegranite/fennel sauce was on Sunday--I just wanted to drink this wine, this week, and this dish was a reasonable excuse that exceeded expectations because the wine was so outstanding and there was nothing in the dish to offend it.
Saturated yellow color. In the nose, ripe pear, meyer lemon and a heady, unmistakable sweet blast of marzipan. Bob didn't immediately get what I meant by marzipan, but when I said "bear claws" he roared in agreement. That's his favorite pastry, so marzipan is something he knows and loves even if not by name. On the palate, intense flavors of flinty wet rocks, baked apple, not-so-ripe pineapple, butterscoth and just a tiny bit of petrol. Additionally, it has great texture: an oiliness you can feel as well as see on the walls of the glass, and good acidity. I acquired three or four bottles of this about three years ago, and this is the best and most balanced bottle yet. In fact, the wine just seems timeless. I am not always so sure of these things, but this time I am: this wine has everything it needs to be one of the wines Francois talks about ten years from now.
Or heck, twenty.