Sunday Betsy made chicken with snow peas and spinach, in a miso broth with shiso. Grilled trumpet mushrooms and seaweed salad on side. Wine was the 2011 Lafouge “La Chapelle” Auxey-Duresses 1er. A bit lighter and more elegant than the 2010 of this, pretty wine with red fruit, cocoa, and earth. Bright, easy to like, drinking well now but with a future. B+/A-
Monday was meatless- grilled tofu, grilled ramps, mushrooms over savory pain perdu, and sesame snow peas. I thought it was time to open the 1962 Ch. Lyonnat (Lussac St Emilion) that had been standing up a couple weeks. This was a chancy bid, but I liked a ‘64 quite a few years ago and thought with excellent fill levels this was worth making a bet at lowball price. Used the Durand, good looking cork (maybe 1/3rd saturated) but not very encouraging at first whiff (so I opened a 375 ml of another red for dinner) - tangy, thin, mean. But never say never. Halfway through the meal I poured a bit from decanter- hey, there’s more fruit showing, though still lean. After dinner it actually starting showing pretty well - no tannin, but acids keeping it lively, black plum fruit with a little cigarbox, than gets more ashtray-y towards end of night.. Good showing for a 53 yr old satellite, happy to have more. C on opening, B/B+ at high point (about 2 hours after decanting).
The replacement bottle was a half of the 2004 Giovanni Rosso “Serralunga” Barolo. Drinking fairly well from 375- red and black cherries, a little lifted floral note, fine tannins. Nice if not profound. B/B+
Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C drinkable. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice.Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.