WTN: Sometimes a Great Offline

[Jenise]

All champagne at an all seafood restaurant in Vancouver, where the courses were small and imaginative:

NV Jacques Selosse Champagne Brut Initiale - France, Champagne
Rich golden color. Big nose of red apple, yeast and melted butter, rich on the palate with lemon pound cake. Used to buy a lot of Selosse in California when I had a source, and this was a perfect reunion. My WOTN.

NV René Geoffroy Champagne Volupté - France, Champagne
Paler than the Selosse, crisp and sweet with Granny Smith apple. Much better bottle than the last one we opened in Seattle a few months back, but tighter and showing a lot more chardonnay than it did when we purchased a six pack last December (and indeed, the wine is 75% chardonnay). I'll hang on to my remaining three bottles to allow that voluptuousness to return.

NV H. Billiot Fils Champagne Brut Rosé Grand Cru - France, Champagne, Ambonnay, Champagne
Coral pink, strawberry and cranberry fruit on the palate, lean finish.

NV Piper-Heidsieck Champagne Brut Rosé Sauvage - France, Champagne
Dark pink, funky nose. Seems very young and somewhat disjointed. Needs time.

2004 Jose Dhondt Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut - France, Champagne, Oger, Champagne
My wine. Corked. F word!

2004 Gaston Chiquet Champagne Spécial Club 1er Cru - France, Champagne
Light yellow with lots of mousse. Very tight nose at first, begins to show lots of steely citrus and apple. Very young wine with lots of upside.

1998 Ruinart Champagne Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru - France, Champagne
Bright, young (I thought), fresh, great salinity, beautifully balanced. Would have loved to drink this with the oyster course. My second WOTN.

1998 Pol Roger Champagne Brut Vintage - France, Champagne
First hit on the nose is metallic followed by brioche. Very Complex and deep. The music on the intercom is the Black Keys' "Gold on the Ceiling", and it doesn't seem like an accident. Fantastic, and my 3rd WOTN.

NV Elisabeth Goutorbe Champagne Cuvée Éclatante - France, Champagne, Aÿ, Champagne
Apples and cinnamon is all I wrote. Plus, that I found it and Devin's wine which it was paired with, more similar to each other than most of the previous pairings, and I wonder if that was the wine or my condition.

1999 Billecart-Salmon Champagne Brut Blanc de Blancs - France, Champagne
Clear light yellow. Very tight nose at first, took some time to open up, then it showed a fresher, young nose and palate with a nice dry finish.

Three WOTNs?

I have developed a real love for Champagne. I like the green apple style as much as the yeasty/bready style; I would hate to be saddled with just one. The only constant I look for is good acidity. Fortunately, despite how expensive some of the top-end Champagnes can be, they are still cheaper than most Burgundy!!

We had a 1996 Lenoble BdB from a mag on Saturday that was in the apple/citrus camp, and was incredibly fresh and young for a 16-year old wine. And I think I paid less than $90 for it!!!

You had a good variety of wines. It would have been interesting to know with what courses they were paired, and if any of the pairings were "magical."

[Jenise]

Three WOTNs?

I have developed a real love for Champagne. I like the green apple style as much as the yeasty/bready style; I would hate to be saddled with just one. The only constant I look for is good acidity. Fortunately, despite how expensive some of the top-end Champagnes can be, they are still cheaper than most Burgundy!!

Glad to hear that you've really gotten into sparkling wines. And all you say goes for me, too. In the past year I've really built up my selection--I'd ignored this part of my cellar (I go on kicks, what can I say.)

I don't believe I've done an all-champagne offline before. Oh yes, with some friends, we've had all-bubble nights, but those haven't been in restaurants with the wines paired up with great courses. The foods were interesting, and I loved the way our server ignored convention and made the wines subservient to the food. That is, he didn't serve the pinks first. He chose two whites to go with the first course--five oysters, two plain with but lemon and three with three different sauces. The Geoffroy was the best of the first two with a green herb sauce, where the Selosse really shined with an apple-ginger gelee that, aside from the pairing with the wine, was the least successful of the sauced oysters. We then went to a course of sweet snow crab, and the first set of pinks. A lobster and pea salad went with the next two pinks, and then we had a halibut dish followed by cheeses for the last two pairs of whites. Anyway, it was all great.