This weekend Don Rice hosted a Foreau-a-Thon which had apparently been in the making for a long long time. People were more than ready to make the trek north bringing their bottles and gastronomic delights. Myself, Jeff Grossman, Cliff Rosenberg, Jay Miller, Brad Kane, Eden and Scott (plus Pierce), joined Don and Melissa for several rounds of pleasure.
I debated bringing something else just to offer our brains a change, but in the end the only bottles we drank were Foreau Vouvray.
Sparkling
2002 Brut Reserve - This was a lovely way to start the evening. Fizzy fruity and elegant. I heard Brad complaining about bitterness but nobody else seemed to mind.
2004/2005 Brut Reserve - Corked.
Sec
1996 - A lot of folks liked this but it was a bit too autumnal apple for me. Admittedly it gained weight and depth on the palate which one wouldn't have predicted from the nose. But it still didn't stir me. Others thought it was the best of the secs.
1997 - Surprisingly this may have been my favorite of the secs. It took a while to open up but when it did it was juicy racy bright and fun. Certainly more generous than the 96 but it also had a rocky edge. Yet I think Brad called it too ripe. Which meant that I was disagreeing with him in the wrong direction. Wow!
1999 - Austere and severe. Plus sulfur. Some folks tried to put a positive spin on the wine by calling the smell 'saffron'. But the rest of us were not deceived!
2006 - Friendly and juicy but a bit too young and soft right now.
2007 - I think I liked this a lot more than other folks. Sure it was young and still unformed. But something about the chalky mineral drinkability was great fun. Not stacked with fruit, it slid down my palate.
Demi-Sec
1995 - Various debates about how this shows over time. Again, for my palate this mainly fell in the "too autumnal apple" camp and was difficult to focus on. Although with air it picked up more and more precision which meant I preferred it to the 96 at the end of the night.
1996 - This showed brighter, sweeter and friendlier than the 95. Perhaps a touch soft right now (although surely a 96 spine is there?), it was more fun than the 95 at first but then it stayed too soft.
1997 - More in line with what I expected from the vintage than the 97 sec. It was too diffuse.
2005 - Structured and still sorting itself out.
2008 - Everyone else loved this but I thought it was showing a bit awkward. Sure it was lively, crunchy, and very zesty with those big bright acids. But my glasses always came off as unformed and I much preferred the 08 Moelleux for drinking now.
Moelleux
1996 - Starts off in autumnal apple territory but with air shows some nice maturing complexity to the flavors. The texture is very tactile and layered but remains bright enough to sparkle the mouth even after 24 hours of air. Nice.
1999 - Sulfur. Teeth shattering sulfur. Same as the sec.
2003 - My other big surprise of the evening. This was not at all silly. Sure it was ripe but it was also decently fresh and it stayed lively even 24 hours later. This was very nice and I'd be interested to see it in the future.
2008 - This was very impressive. So zesty so mineral so fun fun fun. Big big acids but enough fruit covering the bones. Very delicious and only gets better with air.
Moelleux Reserve
1976 - Starts off loose but pulls itself together and shows the bracing directness that is apparently common for the vintage. I didn't dig it because it seemed matured out past the interest of its structure and my palate. But Brad was a fan (and he recently acquired it), so that was good.
1989 - Corked. This was such a shame.
1990 - At least we had this to make up for it. Much more advanced than the 1989 and probably not something to hold as long. It was almost the color of coca cola and at first the flavors reminded me of iced tea. But it gained grip with air and was thick, sweet, evolved, complicated, delicious, delicious, delicious. Comparisons were flying about Tokaji Essencia. Perhaps. This was one of the last bottles we breached but I think it was the first bottle emptied!
2003 - Much more of a poster child for the woes of 2003 than the regular Moelleux. Don't know if that will improve with time, but for now I'd stick with the regular.