Here and there over the past year, we’ve tried to get a small group together on Monday evenings over at our friend Ed’s house. On a recent Monday it was just 3 of us, but we did our best to consume a lot of Chinese take-out and drink several outstanding wines.
1996 Gosset Champagne Celebris Brut. Our first wine of the evening presents a deep and bready nose of yeast, ginger, lemon tea, poached pears and botanical herbs. In the mouth, it’s powerful and vibrant--with great mineral-tinged acidity to go with the lemon slice, ginger, dark peach, poached apple, chopped nut and light caramel flavors that are strong and directed but smooth and fine-flowing. It’s a strapping, mouth-filling sort of Champagne that finishes long and lasting.
1990 Trimbach Gewurztraminer Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre. This wine features an almost insanely spicy and piquant bouquet chock-a-block with lychee, rosewater, honeysuckle, peach and brown spice aromas that are complex, vibrant and full of life, yet somehow restrained and controlled in that Trimbach sort of fashion. In the mouth, it has a bitter-tinged minerality on the attack but really opens up and fleshes out in the mid-palate. It’s dry, medium-weighted, quite classy and reined-in relative to some styles, but still plenty giving, plenty generous and plenty delicious to drink right now.
1990 Domaine Weinbach Riesling Grand Cru Schlossberg. There’s a fantastic nose to this wine, with a broad and fanned-out bouquet of blue slate, petrol, kerosene lantern, peach and gentle musk aromas flowing out in waves. It’s really lovely and inviting. On the palate, it’s rather big-boned and broad-shouldered—with lots of white peach, citrus and herb flavors showing more lushness than chisel. It cinches up a bit on the finish, and my overall take is that it’s a really nice wine but is probably best drunk up soon.
1979 Château Certan de May Pomerol. This Pomerol shows off just a delightful bouquet of rawhide leather, cranberries, crab apples, red currants, graphite, cigar ash, carob nut and decaying earth aromas. It’s an old-fashioned, complex and elegant sort of nose that’s so pleasant to sit and sniff, though I have to admit it started to lose some of its charms a few hours into the evening. In the mouth, it’s a mid-weight effort that has a pretty and airy feel to it, and is definitely showing some aged character. It gets a little narrow at times with its flavors of cranberry and crab apple fruit, but it all leads to a very agreeable finish showing fine balance and resolved tannins. It turns a bit more savory and earthy later in the evening, but it stays strong and true for a good long while and offers a great deal of pleasure for my tastes. It’s pretty much time to drink up, though.
1979 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande Pauillac. Oh man, there’s a knee-bucklingly good nose here flaunting gorgeous aromas of creamed cherry, cassis, black raspberry, red flowers, loamy dirt, Turkish coffee, leather and scorched earth that are sexy, seductive and inviting all night long. I just love it. In the mouth, it’s resolved, soft and warm--with loads of silky-smooth and glossy black cherry and black raspberry fruit flavors to go with leather and sweet earth tones. It’s very generous, balanced and free-flowing, with juicy, luscious flavors and a succulent finish that stays strong all night long. It’s an absolute delight.
1999 Éric Texier Nôble Rot "Botrytis". Served from a 375 ml bottle, this wine possesses a nose redolent of yellow raisins, figs, iced tea, melted caramel and botrytis spices. In the mouth, it’s viscous in texture but also brightly acidic. Flavors of caramel, fig, raisin and clementine are plush and generously sweet but also bright and lifted.
1986 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey Sauternes. Served from a 375 ml Cordier bottle, this wine has a nose that is gorgeously glazed with aromas of frozen persimmon fruit, burnished apricot, honeyed nectarine, meringue topping and fabulous botrytis spices. In the mouth, it has very lively acidity to go with sweet and luscious baked apricot and cooked-down nectarine flavors. It’s an unctuous wine with excellent cut and lift—bringing it all together in a wonderfully-balanced package built for the long haul.
-Michael