WTN: Champagnes, Burgs and others

Thursday evening, Arnie and I were at Old Manila in the Peninsula for a food tasting and wine pairing for the Chaine des Rotisseurs' induction dinner this March. Potential wines were provided by the hotel and Straits Wine Company.

Salon de Ning Deutz Rose NV - The Champagne house of Deutz supplies the house Champagne of the Peninsula hotels. Salon de Ning is the Peninsula Manila's newest outlet and this is the pouring Champagne there. Old rose, lightish color. A rather soft Champagne but with good weight and length. Crisp finish. A good Champagne but a neutral match with the canapes. We decided to try it again with the dessert of roasted pineapple with a peppered mango ice cream. The match with dessert was outstanding.

Peninsula Brut NV - Another Deutz Champagne again tried with the canapes. Light and fresh. A good wine for the cocktails and so we decided to have this for the starters.

Laurent Perrier Brut NV - Supplied by Straits Wine Company. Rather fruity style, green apple and very fresh. Although marginally preferred to the Peninsula Brut, we decided not to use this wine due to the price.

Max Ferd. Richter Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett 2007 - Very light and somewhat grapey. Lean and racy with a measured amount of sweetness. A good match with the foie gras terrine and the tandoori seafood.

Lingenfelder Estate Gewurztraminer 2006 - Classic lychee and touch of rosewater on the nose. Very light and a rather bitter finish. This was also considered for the foie gras and tandoori seafood but lost out to the Riesling.

Louis Lequin Santenay La Comme 1er Cru 2005 - A rather ripe, rich and hefty Burgundy. Crunchy fruit and some earth and mushroom going very well with the beef in porcini sauce. The wine was still a little chunky but the food smoothened it out. I thought this wine was excellent by itself and with the food. Although we also had another Burgundy and a Shiraz, this is the wine we decided to use. Good price too at around P 1800.00.

Kaesler The Bogan Shiraz 2007 - I had my misgivings about using this wine and in my opinion, this was not a good match with the beef. Extremely dark. Too much oak and very rich and ponderous. It came across as clumsy, to my taste, anyway. Admittedly, I am becoming more and more sensitive to heavy oak use. Possibly this might just be too young and in need of time for the wine to absorb the oak.

Mischief & Mayhem Nuits ST. Georges 2006 - Rather dark for a Burgundy, smooth texture but quite woody flavor. Lacks structure. Somewhat flabby. Not too interesting.

Two Hands Brilliant Disguise 2009 - An Australian version of Moscato d'Asti. The grapiness of this seemed dialed back a bit but the spritz was good and refreshing. This was recommended for the cheese course which was mascarpone with some gorgonzola and raisins. This was a very mild cheese course so that although this wine was not as fruity as most Moscatos, it did a good job with the cheese.

[David M. Bueker]

Interesting exercise! I am glad to see Lingenfelder showing up. We miss his wines in the USA since he left the Theise portfolio.

You mention the price on the Laurent-Perrier. I had a long with a distributor rep for L-P back in December, and he reproted that when they first raised the prices theree was an actual sales bump!

I had a long with a distributor rep for L-P back in December, and he reproted that when they first raised the prices theree was an actual sales bump!

While it sounds odd I have seen the same thing with the jewelry that my wife makes. If the price appears to be too low people won't buy. I can only guess that they must have a belief that price equals quality and if it the price appears to be too low it must not be a quality item. There are things that she has made for which she had the raise the price from what the normal formula would say it should be priced at just so they would sell. My guess on the jump in sales for L-P is that it brought in new sales from people who before passed on it because it was priced to low to be "good Champagne".

More on L-P pricing, I was able to find L-P 1996 in a supermarket for the same price as the regular NV Brut sold by the official distributor. Go figure.