WTN: Big Bottle Banquet

From magnums.

Gaston Clicquet Tradition Brut (nv) - showing some colour, and nice fruit and yeastiness in the nose. Clean and refreshing.

2004 Albert Mann Riesling Rosenberg - this bottle looked like a bloddy Indian club (the kind they use for juggling) or some sort of lethal weapon. Nice petrol in the nose, quite dry (the Rosenberg isn't, always) and very nice levels of fruit on palate.

1982 Ch. La Dominique - dark St. Emilion with a nose of earth and cassis as well as a sort of dusty pages thing. Up front fruit, still significant tannins and medium length. No rush here.

1990 Moulin Touchais Coteaux du Layon - nice nose with hints of lanolin and grapefruit, not too sweet, just off dry, really, with a lengthy finish that showed faint hints of cinnamon. The only regular sized bottle.

With a lovely dinner that included beef rib steaks that would have challenged Fred Flintstone.

Thanks - I have a magnum fetish, personally. Mann is a good producer - those big Riesling bottles are a hoot. I have double magnums of 04 Weinbach Riesling, but just recently read the vintage characteristics on the Faller website and will hang onto them for a bit yet. But I digress. Thanks again.

[Jenise]

I didn't take notes, my brain too fried from the nearly three hours it took to make this one-hour commute at the end of which my husband and I were barely speaking--so I just sat back and repaired in the comfort of a warm room with good friends, wine and food.

The Gaston was served with white anchovy draped cherry tomatoes, proscuitto wrapped figs, rosemary sausage with pistachio pesto and chanterelle-in-cream topped crostini. Although it was a brut, I found it on the sweeter side of brut. Not a complaint, just a comment. Very pleasant and refreshing, as you said.

Re the Mann, I've never seen a magnum of that style bottle before, and I loved it. The wine in it was great too and superb with Dave's flammekuchen, I think that's called.

The '82 La Dominique with Dave's grilled tomahawk rib chops--fantastic! A gorgeous wine that made us all ponder which recent vintage, if any, will rival the '82's.

Enjoyed the Moulin Touchais, too, especially with the contrast of that creamy-nutty and astonishingly good Quebecian blue cheese and Susan's display of rare apples.

[David M. Bueker]

That "sweetness" in the Gaston-Chiquet is likely the Pinot Meunier talking, as they keep to the low-mid range of dosage. The Meunier is so richly fruity that it does show sweetner than it is.

I just picked up 3 mags of the Gaston-Chiquet. Need to lay them down for a while, as they are 2010 disgorgements.