Notes from a small group dinner last night.
After a pleasant Cremant de Bourgogne we moved into a course I had brought, a dollar pancake made with balsamic vinegar, tarragon and chopped mango, topped with a large dollop of crème fraiche and more tarragon leaves. I had created this from a recipe idea, specifically to go with the first wine.
2001 Max Ferd. Richter Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese – excellent varietal nose with a little sweetness and peach and pear elements. In the mouth, off dry but very well balanced, fresh and very tasty, and it worked superbly with the food. No rush here.
With steamed mussels:
2011 Les Héritiers du Comte Lafon Mâcon-Bussières Le Monsard – tasted blind I pegged this as either a white Burg or possibly a Loire based on the tropical fruit notes in the nose, accompanied by the more usual, and in this case, underlying, stony citrus. It was quite similar on palate, dry stones and clean acidity with the fruit not coming in until a beat and a half later. Fairly elegant for a macon.
With coq au vin (which probably should be called ‘pollo al vino’ as the wine in the pot was a nero d’avola):
2002 Bouchard Père et Fils Volnay 1er Cru Caillerets Ancienne Cuvée Carnots – medium colour, mature cherry fruit in the nose, leading us to believe this was an older wine, but the first taste disabused us of that idea as it showed some significant tannin. Pretty decent fruit under that but it finished a bit short and wasn’t what I’d have hoped – a bit unsatisfying in the end. The person that opened it opined that it was the weakest showing he’d experienced for the wine.
We moved on to cheese and I opened a bottle I’d brought, also blind.
1975 Château Léoville Las Cases – this idiosyncratic vintage probably requires some explanation for anyone without experience with it. The vintage was a hard tannic one like the 1928, 1948, and to a degree, the 1986, although better conditions combined with improved winemaking resulted in a much better result in that vintage. The wines were hard when young (the 1928 needed a half century to come around) and the question is always – what fruit will be left if and when the tannins abate to the point where you can begin to enjoy it? The answer is often ‘not enough’ and many 75s fell into the ‘don’t bother’ category. Others needed time and I have been enjoying wines like Beychevelle and Branaire for many years now. I did a cellar buy out back in the 90s and there was a half case of Las Cases that no one else was interested in, as based on the reviews, it was one of the sort that might never come around. I tried a bottle 10 years ago and wondered if I had made a good decision. You will see all sorts of reviews from the past condemning this as a wine that will never approach enjoyability. Don’t listen to them!
This was the second bottle I’d opened and I am pleased to be able to tell you that the bet paid off. I opened it an hour before we were going to drink it and could have done it even earlier. The wine showed excellent deep, limpid garnet colour, with clear but not browning edges. The nose was at first mostly spicy oak and earth notes, but as it sat in the glass it opened up considerably (this is not a wine to pop and pour – patience is required). The usual tobacco, cassis, and cedar chimed in and the nose just kept getting better and better.
On palate, you guessed it – still pretty firm tannins, but also perfectly adequate fruit that seemed to get sweeter the longer it was open. A long dry finish with some enjoyable toffee notes at the end. This wine has finally hit peak and from here will only lose fruit and eventually become undrinkable lean (at which point all the prophets that predicted it wasn’t going to be a good wine will probably wake up and shout “See, I told you so”). But for right now, from a good cellar, it is copybook classic Bordeaux of a style that will never be made again, and I love it!
After that it got a little ….different. My friend pulled something on me blind that was fairly dark amber in colour, and had a very unusually wet plaster of Paris and dough nose, and it was somewhat sweet. I begged off and said that I’d never observed anything like these in a wine, and he relented and disclosed that it was a locally made ‘Middle Mountain Mead’ from Hornby Island with black currants as well as the traditional honey. I told him I didn’t think I could get into the hobbit of drinking this stuff.
Then he opened a wine!
1994 Yalumba Botrytis Semillon Sauvignon Blanc - brown with VA, and in the mouth nothing but simple sweetness – no complexity at all. An attempt to make an Aussie Sauternes. I give it an ‘F’. Who knows if it was once more interesting?