WTN: St Emilions (winner winner chicken dinner)

Wednesday our Bordeaux group was doing one of our blind appellation tastings, this time focusing on St Emilion. Despite Metrto-North woes, I was almost on time to La Mangeoire. As we assembled, we enjoyed the 2005 Donnhoff Oberhauser Brucke Spatlese. In a nice place, full and rich (Auslese-ish), with pear and tropical fruit, a minty herb edge. I see I have a bottle of this -think I’ll drink sooner than later. B+/A-

I started with a special of white asparagus, with poached egg and tarragon vinaigrette (ok, winekiller, but I just drank lots of water). Then we all had the roast chicken, fries, and salad.
We bagged the bottles, rotated, and then numbered, so no one knew which wine was whose.

Blind St Emilion #1
Lean with a (nice) green streak, funky and elegant, I guessed this was a Figeac
A-/B+
1993 Cheval Blanc

Blind St Emilion #2
Balanced ripeness, mineral, long finish. A-
1989 Canon

Blind St Emilion #3
Corked. Too bad, Paul says he feels like there is nice stuff underneath.
1986 Figeac

Blind St Emilion #4
Young ripe and full. A-/B+
2000 La Croizille

Blind St Emilion #5
Mature, herby, good length. A-
1990 Figeac

Blind St Emilion #6
Quite modern, dense, black plum, structured. I thought this might be something like ‘98 Pavie. B/B-
2005 Fonplegade

Blind St Emilion #7
Dark color, dense,young, extracted, but fairly plush on finish. B+
1998 Angelus

Blind St Emilion #8
Very sweet fruit profile, cocoa, but good acids and I liked more than some others did. B+/B
1989 Troplong Mondot

Blind St Emilion #9
Tannic, a bit unyielding, fairly young. B
1982 Magdelaine
(this was a total shocker, most of us have had several times and everyone was nonplussed).

Before we unveiled, we did our usual 3/2/1 voting (6 pts total, I actually voted 2/2/1/1)
Top 3 wines
1989 Canon
1998 Angelus
2000 La Croizelle

Plus we had
1990 Climens (375 ml)
Honied, apricot, guava, orange marmalade. Drinking well. A-/B+.

With all of our blind bottles bagged on table, we attracted interest of guy at neighboring table, he generously sent over remainder from his wine and his backup bottle

2011 Montevertine Pergole Torte
Young, tart, big red and black cherry fruit, tannin. B for now

2009 Mica
Ripe, extracted, sweet fruit and chocolate, not my style. B-/C+

Fun night, great people, very good wines. And I got free dinner for the Canon.

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.

[Jenise]

Oh god. If I manage to secure tickets for Hamilton anywhere close to in this lifetime AND one of your Bordeaux group dinners, can I attend?

Jenise,
if you come to NYC I'm pretty sure we can see to it you are adequately welcomed!

Oh god. If I manage to secure tickets for Hamilton anywhere close to in this lifetime AND one of your Bordeaux group dinners, can I attend?

For a price tickets to Hamilton are available. Now a chance to attend one of Dale's tastings may be more difficult than just showering money.

Not for Jenise, I'd even cover her wine.

[Jenise]

Lou, I did look into the "for a price" angle, and was disgusted to find Ticketmaster actually selling tickets from what they called, can't remember the exact term, but something like "other sources". IOW, they're scalping legally. Around $950 per seemed the going rate for a ticket that would have been around $200 at the box office!

Dale--we'll get there eventually. Had tix last November but had to cash out due to a pet's final illness.

Great stuff, Dale. Nice collection of old school St Emilion there. I have a bottle or two of the 90 Figeac. When to drink?

Amazing about the 82 Magdelaine, though thinking about how good the 1970 showed last year is an indication of how long these can go . I won 4 pristine bottles of the 82 last fall, I guess there's no rush!

Lou, I did look into the "for a price" angle, and was disgusted to find Ticketmaster actually selling tickets from what they called, can't remember the exact term, but something like "other sources". IOW, they're scalping legally. Around $950 per seemed the going rate for a ticket that would have been around $200 at the box office!

"Hamilton Makes Bank." Sounds historically accurate to me.