WTN: French wines (+ Coturri)at a church (Burgs, Loire, etc)

Every year my friend Alex and brother-in-law Cal put together a fundraiser for their church's social action programs (which includes contributions towards my group). Cal arranges a musical program around a theme, Alex makes a meal to complement (so when they did Viennese music, there was schweinelendche and sachertorte). This year musical theme was fin de siecle France, an easy theme for Alex as he used to own a restaurant in Paris.

I don't go to the church, but am close to many there, so had volunteered to contribute a case plus of wine (not counting what I was bringing for my table). The Bordeaux I decanted in advance. These were mostly sniffs and tiny pours, so not full notes:

2005 Ch. de Beaumont (1er Cotes du Blaye) (6)- one corked, four with dark fruit and medium tannins, not especially friendly, but by serving time a few people said there really loved. When opened the sixth bttle was seemingly a different wine, red plums with a vegetal note. Strange.

2005 Ch. Canon (Canon-Fronsac) (2)- stern, tannic at first, opened nicely with a little decanter time

2005 Puy Guilhem (Fronsac) (3) - big for appellation, tannic, very good dark berry and plum fruit, nice length.

2006 L'Esprit de Chevalier (Graves)- medium bodied, ripe tannins, pretty nice for price.

There were also bottles of 2006 Guion "Cuvee Prestige" Bourgueil and
2007 Delas "St Esprit" Cotes du Rhone, but I didn't open those in advance.

I delivered those in advance, went home and changed, and then back to church bearing wine. I was at a table with my in-laws and some members of my local wine group, several of us had brought our own wines:

NV Piper-Heidsieck Champagne Brut
Very nice, apples and citrus, a little bread yeast, medium bodied, good length. A nice surprise. B+

2007 Pascal Cotat "Les Monts Damnes" Sancerre
Firing on all cylinder. Citrus, very full bodied, excellent length. Bright and brash, delicious. A-

2005 Clos du Tue-Bouef "Le Brin de Chevre" Touraine
Light to medium bodied, herby, good acidity, nice wine. B

First course was a duck terrine with Armagnac, followed by boeuf Bourguignon with potatoes and fennel. We went through some reds:

1973 Bouchard Pommard
This was a bit of a throwaway, low expectations (but low price). Lots of gunk, cork starts to slip in when I try ah-so. Use a cork, but it breaks, we get a bit of crumble in wine. No decanters, so a power pour gets most out. Dark color, a touch weedy, slightly tired dark berry fruit. With some time it really surprises, fruit seems to perk up, there's some smoke and tar. I'd actually never peg this as Burgundy blind. But a pretty decent mature wine, meaty. B

1995 Jean Chauvenet " Les Vaucrains" Nuits St Georges 1er (from magnum)
I was counting on this one, and it came through. A little tight at first, but opened nicely. Light tannins, good acidity, solid black cherry fruit accented with earth and forest floor. Medium bodied, good length, showing well. B+

2006 Jaboulet "Parallele 45" Cotes du Rhone
This was the house wine, for tables that didn't BYO. Not bad, lighter styled, red fruits and a little spice, nothing like the '95 P45 but ok drink. B-

After dinner everyone moved to sanctuary for concert, Betsy and Cal did a great job on a movement of a Ravel duo, the Aureole Trio did Debussy and Ibert, there were some Faure songs, a Massenet piece,and an ensemble finished with more Debussy. Extraordinary concert, and then everyone went back to tables for chocolate mousse and more wine. At this point I bounced between my table, and the room where the musicians were having dinner:

2005 Baumard "Paon" Coteaux du Layon
Ripe apples, apricot, some citrus zest. Ripe, sweet enough to qualify as dessert wine, good length. Just a hint of botrytis. Could use a bit more acidic zip. B

2005 Coturri Chauvet Zinfandel
Well, it wasn't a bacterial minefield! Very ripe approaching pruney, some residual sweetness apparent, just a hint of funk. I think others liked this more than I did. I won't discount my own prejudices based on some other Coturri experiences coloring my view. C+

1999 Paul Garaudet Volnay
A touch of brett, but not overwhelming. Red fruits, light tannins, earthy. A bit clunkier than I would have hoped, no real Volnay elegance. Still, decent Burgundy, and the musicians appreciated my offering. B/B-

2008 Clos Roche Blanche "Pif" Touraine
Young, fresh, with red and black raspberries, some easy tannins, nice length. Might could use a little time, but as others have noted with fake cork I'll err on drinking young. B+/B

Really fun night- great people, great food, great music.

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.  

Wow, variety doesn't get more miscellaneous than that... Very generous of you to contribute so much, even taking into account that you are one of the beneficiaries. What's a power pour?

I think what Dale is referring to is quickly decanting from one wine bottle to another, the trick is to get a steady but continuous flow of wine (thus it makes a steady gargling sound) leaving about 25 to 30 mls of wine and hopefully all the “gunk” behind. This is what we refer to a “power pour” anyway. Just a way of decanting the wine.

Salute

Oswaldo,
I have too much wine, and these were all things I got better than market deals on, and have more of. So everyone who wanted to have wine got at least a glass of something a tad more upscale than the P45.

As to power pours, Victor got the concept, but in this case the goal was slightly different. I've done what he mentioned in situations where a slow decant wouldn't work. But what was happening here was some cork was at top of bottle (I got out about 90% of cork, rest was floating). So I did a quick dump of top 4-5 oz of wine, and got almost all of the cork. If one poured slowly, as bottle tilted cork pieces would slide away from opening.