These are the notes from a truly remarkable tasting event arranged by Albert Givton, at the Blue Water Café in Vancouver. It was intended to be a conclusion (along with the recent companion event that featured the best of Bordeaux) to a many decades long tradition of tasting events arranged by Albert.
1990 Pol Roger ‘2000’ Millennium Brut – this was a release of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay for the 2000 celebration (misguidedly believed to be the beginning of the next century by many people ignorant of basic chronology). Didn’t matter, it just turned out to be a two year celebration at the end of both 1999 and 2000. The wine is now showing some colour, had an excellent yeasty nose wih some lemon and cocoa hints. Crisp finish, very tasty wine.
Served with hors d’ouevres that included shrimp salad with Marie Rose sauce, Dungeness crab in rice paper, and a curried chicken samosa.
Next we headed for white Burgs and interesting comparisons.
2009 Ramonet Batard Montrachet – the nose wasn’t oak forward but rather more citrus oriented at first, although with some air time the oak came out a bit more, as well as some nice apple notes. On palate, soft and supple with good weight and alcohol a bit higher than the next wine, as well as slightly riper fruit.
2009 Ramonet Bienvenues Montrachet – this pairing had people going back and forth depending on what their particular priorities with white Burgundy was. It showed light colour, lots of oak right out of the bottle, along with lemon, and had a rich mouth feel and good balance.
2005 Louis Jadot Montrachet – more colour, and a riper nose, some worried about premox but that blew off and left a clean impression. Good length.
2004 Dom. des Comtes Lafon Montrachet – slightly lighter in colour with a fruit driven nose of delicious citrus and some tropical fruit. Oily mouth feel and good length. I detected some faint iodine notes in the nose after air. Very good.
Served with lobster tail roasted in garlic butter, lobster claws with leeks in black truffle cream and seared scallops with vermouth beurre blanc (the last was outstanding!)
The next course was accompanied by non-Burgundies, but no one complained, as the Rhones we tasted were right at the top of ranks of personal bests form most of us.
1978 Vieux Telegraphe CNduP – both of these wines were exceptional, but this one topped the CNduP pantheon for me. At the age of 37 years, it showed great still deep colour, a bare whiff of VA in the nose and an otherwise perfect copybook mature Rhone nose with good fruit, garrigue and black pepper, and huge concentration of flavour on palate with excellent persistence. In a blind tasting one might be forgiven for mistaking this for a wine a decade or more younger.
1978 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle – another great wine (which suffers in terms of pricing both from a small vintage and a Parker 100 score). I’ve had this on several occasions and this was a very good bottle. This wine has defeated my second favourite Hermitage, the 1978 Chave on two out of three bouts. Amazingly, no real bricking at the edges of this dark wine. Classic nose of surprisingly sweet fruit, a bit of tar, bacon fat and anise. Still a very big wine in the mouth and an extremely long finish, very harmonious. It was opened well ahead of time as it has historically needed to open up before drinking. Wish I had this in the cellar, but with prices closing on $2,000 a bottle, that isn’t going to happen (unless someone wants to trade me for some 1985 Sassicaia….)
Served with caillette of quail with lentils and violet mustard sauce.
1996 Armand Rousseau Chambertin Clos de Beze – mellow sweet fruit nose, sweet fruit in the mouth with an almost salty edge and good length. Not a heavy weight wine, but a complex and endearing one.
1989 Armand Rousseau Chambertin – I have drunk up all of my 1989s by now, but this one made me wish I had cellared more. Pale colour now and a good fruit based nose with dark cherry and hints of spicy orange oil. It was mouth filling and I noticed that the level of conversation dropped when this was tasted – obviously a very serious wine in perfect shape (from a cool-cold cellar).
Served with roasted squab with celeriac risotto.
Then the big guns, all from Domaine de la Romanee Conti showed up (look them up some time – they’d cost from about $2K, $5K, and $7K a bottle CAN.)
1988 Richebourg – a sweet pure smoky pinot nose with an umami soy sort of component as well as some forest floor/mushroom elements. Full, spicy and sweet on palate, and with excellent length. On any other day, in any other company this would have been wine of the night. On this night, however, it had to yield to the next two wines.
1978 Richebourg – lovely sweet ripe nose with soy and iron, a big weighty, spicy wine in the mouth, still with good length. Better than the 1988. Lightening in colour a bit.
1978 La Tache – and then the winner – probably the best red Burgundy it has ever been my pleasure to taste. It should be noted that Albert has kept this quite cool; any bottles from more normal storage may be much spottier in showing, so don’t race out and spend thousands without checking provenance very carefully. Lighter colour again, a garnet hue, and in the nose, smoky meaty noses and also some nutty caramel notes, with faint hints of clove and cinnamon, very enticing and perplexing to analyze. In the mouth, a very complete wine – layer upon layer of flavour with a weight completely contradicting the lightened colour. There was nothing at all I could criticize – I couldn’t say ’well the acidity was just a tad high’ or anything of the sort – it was as close to a perfect showing as brooked no criticism whatsoever (and I can be a pretty analytic critical guy!)
We had grilled beef tenderloin with fingerling potatoes, bacon, champignons with bone marrow and bordelaise sauce with those wines.
With a Bartlett pear sorbet (which I customarily avoid as they are always too sweet to not interfere with a wine tasting), we had:
1945 Ch. Rayne Vigneau Sauternes – aside from bringing to mind the conditions and the personnel which brought this vintage in and vinified it, we were struck by the wine itself. It was medium amber in colour and had a reticent nose for some time, but opened up to show some coconut notes with apricot. On palate it was pretty supple, only medium sweet (probably having dried out a bit over the decades) and medium long. Very decent.
Finally, with Stilton and nuts:
1875 Cossart Gordon Bastardo Madeira – I am always ready to enjoy these immortal wines (they come pre-oxidized!). Mid brown colour, a nose that was a tad hot with tropical fruit and, a bit oddly, some dill notes. Nice and long with a pleasant slightly bitter finish.
End of a great dinner that spanned three centuries.
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