Dinner with the crew at Pop's

Dinner at one of my brother’s restaurants with a mixture of wine business friends and normal friends. Always interesting to see how that works out. Rather well on this night. We had great luck with the wines as well, the Baudry, Geantet, and Occhipinti in particular.

2004 Baudry Chinon Blanc La Croix Boissée
Great fucking wine. Matthieu is still getting the hang of it, so it doesn’t reach heights like this every year (I found the 2005 overblown), but when it hits like this, I think this is destined to be one of the great chenin blanc wines of the world. Planted on the top part of Croix Boissée where the cabernet franc kept dying because of the high limestone content of the soil. The vines are young, less than ten years old, but in 2004 there is a density and purity that is admirable. It doesn’t have the wooliness of chenin closer to Tours. What it does have is an electric balance between fruit, soil, and acid each weaving in and out of the other. Really superb and I urge you to try it if you can find it.

1998 Geantet-Pansiot Charmes-Chambertin
A great showing for this wine which is definitely in a sweet spot right now. Good deep dark red pitted fruits with a hit of spice over the top and some bottom notes that were in the leatherish end. The balance and freshness here are really remarkable and there is plenty of snap and structure to the fun. Exactly what Charmes should be, charmant! I think that Geantet wines don’t get enough respect. Lyle from Rockss and Douche even gave me a little grief about liking them back when he was at Crush. I don’t understand why, the wines aren’t spoofed, they aren’t really oaky, the vines are all old with most of them pinot fin. Yes, he bottles on the early side, but so does Leroy. Anyway, miss these wines at your own peril.

2000 Georges Mugneret Nuits St. Georges 1er Les Chaignots
Susannah really liked this, and I brought it because she had liked a bottle of the 1999 so much a couple of years back. This lacks the precision of that previous wine, but it is showing very well right now. In fact, my experience over the past year with 2000s has been fantastic. While I liked it very much, others really liked it, even more than the Geantet. They’re wrong of course, but it was good.

2005 Occhipinti Nero d'Avola Sicilia Siccagno
An excellent showing for this wine as well. Sappy and deeply pitched, well fruited and just a very happy wine. It had the right structure and balance to get us through the end of the meal and enjoy some afterwards. This wine had dramatically improved over it’s year in NC.

1981 R. López de Heredia Rioja Blanco Gran Reserva Viña Tondonia
Others liked this more than I did. I really enjoyed a younger version at Tia Pol not long back, but this was a bit much. Probably would have been better with the correct food instead of by itself after a meal.