Prepared - among other - Châteaubriand with Sauce Béarnaise for Patrick, Rainer, Remo and his girlfriend Nicole. Andrea and Albino showed up later in the evening, too, especially since I had told Albino there would be some Lafleur to taste.
Prager Riesling Dürnsteiner Smaragd Ried Hollerin 1997
Thanks to Rainer. A lovely, now nicely mature wine that I have had the pleasure to drink a number of times thanks to him. Light golden colour. Tarragon, limey lemon with a touch of mint, fine minerals. Excellent balance, body and length. Will still keep, but hardly improve from here. Emptied quickly, its donor was surprised by how much everybody loved it. Rating: 93
Château Montrose St. Estèphe 2003
Thanks to Rainer. A blend of 63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot. Opaque plummy purple, purple-red rim. Blackcurrant, licorice, jammy warm, quite full bodied (with the “only” 13.2% alcohol integrating perfectly), green Havana tobacco leaf, faint smoke, long sweet aftertaste. Tender chocolatey bitter note to the big tannins. Merely faintly rustic, but still masculine style of wine. Violet, nicely floral for the vintage. Firming up with airing. What sweetness off elderberry syrup, yet also minerally soil expression! Noticeably cleaner than the 1990 or 1989, a bit New Worldish perhaps, but modern and typical of the vintage in an altogether positive manner (not seemingly Chilean as the Cos from the same vintage). Rating: 95+?
Château Lafleur Pomerol 1994
Thanks to Remo. Lightly purple ruby-black. Smoke, tobacco verging on eucalyptus, faint Kirsch top note only, zucchini, tight tobacco-flavored tannin, the fruit is just mildly dry for a 1994. Finesseful finish, on a faint Perigord truffle note. More red fruit notes such as raspberry with airing, more Kirsch, faint blueberry. A more intellectual wine compared to the 1995 La Fleur-Pétrus, as Rainer observed. Showed just a little more sweetness with airing. Not the ripeness of vintage to overcome the Cabernet Franc leafiness, but luckily made with enough of a light hand, but as with the Le Pin in this a vintage, one admires the stylishness more than the opulence of the fruit, or the sweetness and perfume. Elegant, but also a bit light, Rainer even called it “a bit meager”. Needs time, but one of the best balanced 1994s, and certainly one of the least dry. Attractive minerality. The nobility of the terroir seems the raison d’être here, but Lafleur should really be flashier (the reason I love Lafleur, my benchmark vintages remaining the 1982 and to a lesser extent the 1990, is that in top vintages it ideally combines intellect and emotion). Rating: 92+
Château La Fleur-Pétrus Pomerol 1995
I like the 1995 Pomerol vintage and am surprised by how well the wines are showing at this stage (that is, already!). We have lately had the L’Evangile, Gazin and now this, and I am planning to open a bottle of the La Conseillante soon (all, in my humble opinion, top second tier Pomerol producers). Despite cool storage, these wines are all coming out of their dormant closed phase now, not mature in the sense that they could not still gain more secondary nuances, but in many ways in the best phase a wine can be in: open to scrutiny, fun to drink and on the way up.
Full ruby-black, nice density. Ripe, round, pretty mushroom top note, quite gorgeous to drink, fine tannin, long and dense with cherry and soft plum fruit. Less complex than the 1994 Lafleur, more of a belly wine, less deep. Châteauneuf-du-Pape-like sweet fruit, perhaps a touch of brett, but what a tasty wine! Reminds me (LOL!) of a Masseto, so round and smooth. Rainer and I agree we prefer this to the Gazin from the same vintage by a hair, and that is saying something! This is more like the Evangile in character, perhaps a fraction more serious, hard to tell from memory. Rating: 92
Giuseppe Quintarelli Amarone della Valpolicella Superiore 1991
Pruney garnet-ruby with a black hue. Very sweet raisins and milk chocolate, chamomile tea, high alcohol, quite volatile in this vintage. Chocolatey prune, soft smoke with airing. The tannin is mild and shows none of the greenishness the 1991 Valpolicella does (used to). Several of my guests thought this the wine of the evening, although Nicole would not drink it saying it was too much for her. I ended up having three glasses, but also find it fairly hot with alcohol at this stage. Rating: 92-?
Château La Mission-Haut Brion Pessac Léognan 1988
A coolly stored half bottle I shared with Rainer on Sunday following the trade tasting at Martel. Deep garnet-ruby-black, still almost opaque at the center. Juicy tobacco, roasted brick clay and herb tinged blackcurrant, black cherry, smoke, oyster, sea salt. Nice body, but not the power nor the thick density of fruit of e.g. the 1982 and 1989. Fairly long on the finish. Lovely balance of soil notes and mouthwatering fruit, lovely minerally black cherry sweetness after an hour’s airing in the decanter, more peat and cedar, too. Drinking so well now, it seems pointless to suggest this will improve further with cellaring, although it will certainly keep. Rating: 93-
Greetings from Switzerland, David.