Somehow or another, I got myself invited to a late afternoon tasting at the Flickinger Wines warehouse -- which I would be able to see from my front window, if it weren't for the building across the street. They do a brisk business in collection consignment and also some direct importing; they've been an excellent source for me over the last nine months, and they're nice folks and good to do business with.
It was quite a scene. Somewhere around a hundred wines opened, I'd say (so, you know, kind of like the old King Fung offlines, but with three times as many people). I tasted maybe a third of them, and still felt like my palate was tiring about halfway through. The biggest crowds, of course, were at the tables of aged wines, but there weren't so many people there that it was unmanageable. I wasn't taking written notes, but the highlights, lowlights, and interesting points included...
...my first tastes of old (or, come to think of it, any!) first growth Bordeaux (along with some seconds and thirds) of which the highlights were the Château Margaux 1950, delicately but somehow also intensely aromatic and with more substance on the palate than the color would lead you to expect, and the Château Latour 1975, which I found to be the most perfectly balanced of the wines on that table, though challenged by the Château Palmer 1989. A Château Lagrange 1949 was hanging in there, and a couple of 1990s, from Léoville Las Cases and Canon, seemed way too young by comparison, though extremely promising -- and I might not have had that reaction had I not begun with such delicate and elderly bottles.
...a tight chronological sequence of red Burgundies -- Dujac 2000 Clos de la Roche, Comte de Vogüé 2001 Musigny, and Pierre Bertheau 2002 Chambolle Amoureuses -- that all seemed to be in a great place, developmentally: still fresh enough but with significant tertiary development, and, most of all, wide-open and expressive. I think the Amoureuses was my winner. There was also a Barolet 1952 Morey St. Denis that was supposedly likely to have been beefed up with neutral grape spirits and which actually wasn't bad. People were raving about a Boillot 1993 Volnay Les Caillerets but I found it out of whack, tannins too intense and rough.
...a table of aged New World reds that surprised me in its stylistic variation. The oldest wine and the outlier was a Diamond Creek 1985 Red Rock Terrace Cabernet Sauvignon, which would have fit in better among the old Bordeaux than among its table-mates here, and was really a beautiful expression of old-school California Cabernet, not über-anything, but an evocative and probably slowly declining pairing of leather and sunny fruit. I didn't taste everything here, but I did like a Shafer Hillside Select 1995, which I thought was quite elegant, as well as a Hundred Acre 2001 Kayli Morgan Cabernet Sauvignon, which also had a surprising degree of finesse and complexity, at least compared to the Peter Michael 2002 Les Pavots, which had an expressive nose but was unpleasantly hot and sharp, and a Colgin IX Estate 2003, which was the syrupy, confected monster that I expected most things on this table to be. I skipped Sine Qua Non, Dominus, Pride, and Phelps. There was also a Penfolds Grange 1998 on the table that I couldn't grok; pickled beef jerky tannin syrup that I somehow didn't dislike but just couldn't figure out.
...a vertical of Château de Beaucastel CdP Hommage à Jacques Perrin, 1989, 1990, 1999, 2001, and 2003, which I got to way too late in the tasting, so I confined myself to comparing the 1989 and 1990; the preference in the room seemed to be running toward the 1990, which had slightly more characteristic Beaucastel animality as well as more of a feeling of power in reserve, but I preferred the 1989, maybe because it seemed more fully open.
...an Italian table that included an Emidio Pepe 1975 Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, still alive and kicking, not exactly delicious but interesting, sort of like the 49 Lagrange; and a Giacomo Conterno 1998 Barolo Cascina Francia. I tasted this at about 4:35, as my third wine of the night, and it was spectacularly aromatic and singing; I went back for a tiny final pour at 6:00, and it was much more muted -- which just goes to show you how little you can predict about anything based on a .75-oz. pour from a single bottle at a single moment.
Those were just the "classic" tables. Among the current release wines, I was particularly impressed by a 2014 Domaine Dublere 2014 Chablis Grand Crus Bougros, which was concentrated but very well-defined, minerally and saline; a 2015 Domaine Guiberteau Saumur Rouge, fresh and bright, with a nice interplay of fruit and earth; and a Maison Alex Gambal 2013 Clos de Vougeot, which seemed to me to combine power with length and precision better than the other reds on the table, and which they were offering at a substantial enough discount to get me to bite. I assembled a case out of those three.
I also thought the Château La Caze Bellevue 2012 St. Emilion, a 80-20 blend of Merlot and Cab Franc, was a great bargain for an everyday red at $18, not too plump, with the vintage and the addition of the Cab Franc giving good definition. I tried a few other 2012 Bordeaux as well; I wasn't surprised that I liked the Gruaud Larose 2012 St. Julien, which was surprisingly aromatic and seemed in good balance; but I was surprised that I liked the Tertre Rôteboeuf 2012 St. Emilion, which I expected to be a hedonistic fruit-bomb but which had better definition and structure than I anticipated from its reputation.
When they had offered some Rhônes from Domaine du Tunnel, I was intrigued but suspected they might not be my style and resolved not to buy without trying. Having now tried the 2013 St.-Joseph, I'm glad I waited: it's certainly not a bad wine but it's way more fruit-forward and extracted than I'd prefer. Likewise, at the Italian table, I found the Andrea Oberto wines (a 2015 Langhe Nebbiolo, a basic 2012 Barolo, and a 2011 Rocche dell'Annunziata) to be more forward and fruit-driven than I'd usually prefer, although the 2015 Langhe Nebbiolo had a freshness that, combined with the relative absence of tannins, made this almost like a Gamay-style Nebbiolo, which has its attractions.
I know tastings like this are business; but in this industry, business and pleasure, strategy and generosity, get mixed together, and when it's done right, they mix gracefully, not awkwardly. This was a great example of that, I thought, and I'm grateful to have had the chance to taste a lot of things I don't expect to see again, and/or wouldn't be able to afford if I did.