In celebration of Laura's BD/Pig+Fig; Sue Noel hosted us for a luncheon & allowed me to ransack her cellar. These were three we tried:
1. Dom.LesGoubert Gigondas (13%) 1985: Med.dark some browning color; strong smokey/Rhonish old Rhone some earthy/dusty/OV slightly mustymetallic/wet army blanket very complex beautiful oldRhone nose; fairly tart bit dried out oldRhonish/smoky slightly tired rather cfedary/pencilly quite complex some earthy/dusty quite interesting flavor; very long/lngering bit tired/drying out oldRhonish/earthy bit wet wool finish w/ light drying tannins;still alive & lots of old SouthernRhone character but drying out somewhat on the palate.
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2. Ridge Calif MonteBello/MonteBelloRidge/SantaCruzMtns (13.2%; 80% CabSauvg/11% Merlot/9% PetiteVerdot; 89 tons/92 acres; 40% Selected; bttld May '98; Drk: 4/78-4/10-4/13: PD) 1996: Very dark color; intense MB/toasty/smokey/oak rather herbal/blackcurranty rather dusty/OV some SCM/earthy quite perfumed/rich some complex nose; fairly tart/rich/lush strong blackcurranty/Cab/bit licorice quite dusty/OV strong SCM/earthy strong toasty/smokey/vanilla/oak structured fairly youthful lovely flavor w/ some chewey tannins; very long/lingering complex structured finish mimics flavor; not showing a lot of aged character & still very youthful; a beautiful example of a MB that can still go for more yrs.
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3. Ch.Filhot AC: Sauternes(MeBaC; 14%) Comte H.de Vaucelles 1979: Deep gold colr; intense botrytis/orangey/bit peachy some toasty/oak rather earthy/dusty quite complex nose; qu8ite tart/tangy bit lean/tight strong botrytis/peachy/orangey bit earthy/dusty strong toasty/oak slightly sweet rather complex flavor; very long/lingering orangeyy/botrytis/peachy slightly sweet complex flavor; a beautiful classic Filhot; starting to dry a bit on the palate & transitioning into an apertif Sauternes.
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More dillyscarp from TheBloodyPulpit:
1. When I pulled the Goubert from Sue' cellar the day before, it was a totally mystery wine. The label was badly eroded w/ only parts of it showing, totally unreadable, except for the vintage date on the shoulder. I could tell it was French from some of the scattered letters & suspected it might be a RedBurg, given Bruce's penchant for those wines.
But Laura took a pic of the label & passed it thru some sort of software on her iPhone. The label flashed back was a Dom.Goubert clear as daylight. Mystery solved. A Southern Rhone blend.
Laura is a big fan of Ridge MonteBello so I knew a MB was a de rigueur choice. I was a bit surprised by the youthfulness of of this '96.
Since we were celebrating Laura's recent BD, we had to delay the celebration several weeks because she was on a no-wine regimen on her actual BD. I thought it would be a bit gauche to ask her to bring her own cake to her own BD party & just buying a cake from a baker seemed so quotidian. So Susan faked it. We had a Panettone from DarrellCorti from last Christmas. Susan sliced it into 3 levels & dribbled some Contratto sweet vermouth on it. She then layered each level w/ a mascarpone/Contratto/lemon curd/whipped cream spread & restacked it & used what leftover as a light icing. It was absolutely delicious & everyone love it.
Tom