Headcheese and hachis

Met up with my friend Noel after a long slog at the shop for some headcheese and hachis parmentier at the bar of Vin Rouge. We decanted both of these bottles and drank them over a couple of hours.

2006 Hubert Lignier Gevrey-Chambertin

Started out tight with only a hint of fruit and spice on the nose. With some time it became more expansive, the spice giving way to other earthy and woodsy notes while the fruit deepened in pitch and in weight. Nicely balanced with good tannic structure, this develops into a lovely mid-weight Gevrey with wood and soil tones. I think it will probably be even better in 2 or 3 years. This could be one of those sneaky villages wines that someone will pull out of their ass in 15 years that blows you away.

2010 Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette Griffe du Marquis

Holy crap is this good. The texture is pure velvet and brings to mind the old cliché, iron fist in a velvet glove. Lots of fruit and flowers followed by minerals over the structure. Not aromatically complex yet, even after decanting, but really succulent on the palate. It makes me want to say, “very fine, indeed.” Part of me thinks this is the best Beaujolais ever made.

Dressner at 3cups

At a wine dinner at 3 Cups with Shawn Mead of Louis/Dressner

2007 Jean Manciat Mâcon Charnay Franclieu
This was exotic and wildly floral. Lots of ripe melon type fruit with honeysuckle type flowers. Some richness but not sloppy. This had an almost carnal quality to it that I found really compelling.

2007 Domaine de Roally Viré-Clessé Tradition
Showed as beautiful as ever. Juxtaposed with the Manciat, it was more mineral, linear and restrained. Lovel yellow pitted fruits with maybe some apples in there surrounded by white flowers and some herbs.

2009 Domaine des Terres Dorées (Jean-Paul Brun) Beaujolais Cuvée l'Ancien
Plump and volumptuous with pitted fruits and berries. There is the typical mineral spine, but buried pretty deep.

2008 Coudert Fleurie Clos de la Roilette
An interesting counterpoint to the vivacious Brun. This was more aromatically complex and had a tart cranberry type of fruit on the nose.

2007 George Descombes Brouilly
This was really gorgeous. Drinking superbly with tons of aromatic expression and seamless texture.

2007 Sylvie Esmonin Gevrey-Chambertin
This was another surprise showing as I expected it to be really tight. The palate was a little firm, but the nose was a very Gevrey, animal, mineral, wet earth, dark red fruited concoction. Really interesting and well delineated. I have completely ignored 2007 Burgundy, but I might pick up some Esmonin.

Afters
2004 Domaine de Briseau Coteaux du Loir Les Mortiers
This bottle seems a bit faded from the last one I had. Still has the white pepper and ash notes that I associate with pineau d’aunis. IIRC, this has some côt in it which explains the darkish color.

2009 Clos Roche Blanche pineau d’aunis rosé
I get to enjoy more of this than is probably fair. Another lovely bottle of this excellent rose. It just feels healthy to drink this.

City mouse, country mouse

My old friend and mentée Sophie was in town from her job at Chambers St. in the big city to visit family and us country folks. We put together some wines and I asked Matt, the chef at Vin Rouge, to put together a meal for us. Had I had this meal in 2009, it may have been my meal of the decade. It was the match or better of any meal I’ve had anywhere. The thought that went into the dishes to match them with the wines showed a real depth of understanding and intelligence.

2007 Pépière Granite de Clisson
Marc Ollivier is a fucking genius. Out of magnum and it still disappeared way too quickly.

2002 Domaine Ganevat Savagnin Côtes du Jura Sous la Roche La Combe de Rotalier
An interesting comparison between these two wines. This had much more aggression and “sherry” type character and was more what I was looking for. I guess I value austerity in these wines.

2002 Domaine de Montbourgeau Savagnin L'Etoile
Much rounder and less expressive. This is a slightly confounding wine as the 2000 was a much more intense and deeper experience. Not bad, just not terribly interesting.

1996 Ghislaine Barthod Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Fuées
Corked as hell. There is no god.


1995 Dugat-Py Gevrey Coeur de Roy
Clunky with that beet thing I’ve been getting from Dugat-Py recently. There was an intriguing mineral quality to the wine, but it was unbalanced and disjoint with drying tannins and no real purity or persistence. A great disappointment. I really think these are only impressive as young wines.

1999 Fourrier Gevrey 1er Cru Combes aux Moines
Showed the most concentration of any wine perhaps save the Ganevat, but without deep color or “extraction”. I think the best way to describe this is as sinewy. Tight cords of wine strapped together. The wine wasn’t particularly backward and did the best job of changing around as it opened. Had a profile I’ve come to expect from Combes aux Moines, with plumier fruit and a kind of earth/mushroomy aspect. I’m going to wait a few more years before opening another one.

2006 Ezio Voyat Chambave Rosso Le Muraglie
I had high hopes for this wine, but was disappointed. It isn’t that it was a terrible wine, it was just really bubblegum and obvious. Not what I expected at all. That didn’t change over the three hours we had it open.

1996 Pierre-Jacques Druet Bourgueil Fiefs de Louys
At one point, the nose was really intriguing, but I think this wine is past it’s best for my tastes, although others who like really old wines might like it in 10 more years. I liked it a lot more several years ago.

1994 Ridge Monte Bello
Surprisingly, this might have been the most complete wine at the table. Still, it didn’t show as well as a bottle of 1993 enjoyed in the last few months, it was richer but lacked the style and finesse of that wine. However, this is still a good bottle of cabernet that doesn’t stomp all over the food it’s served with. Luscious fruit with some hints fo American oak herbiness and a hint of vanilla that are integrated rather than sitting on top. I don’t’ think there is any point to further long term cellaring of this. It should drink well for a good 7-10 years. I’ll drink my last bottle in the next couple of years.

2004 Conde de Hervias Rioja
It was late and this was a bit woody, but not too much so. Still had some structure. Did really well with the venison. I might actually grab some of this to lay down, just fro shits and grins. I have no idea what’s going on, but I don’t have any tempornillo in my cellar so what the hell.

Best laid plans

These are some old notes from dinner at Lantern with a couple of friends. Despite picking some wines that would normally seem to be excellent, it was one of those nights where none of the wines were that interesting. It happens.

2007 Do Ferreiro Albariño Cepas Vellas
Good as always. This year’s version seems leaner and more obviously structured than in the past few years. It could just be the lack of babyfat. Lacked a bit of aromatic intensity tonight; however, this is generally a very cool wine that everyone should try at least once.

1998 Bernard Dugat-Py Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru
Eh. Never really became interesting. There was a beet thing that sort of threw me off (the beet thing is something I’ve come across in quite a few Dugat-Py wines). The cork was a bit soaked, so it may have seen some temperature before it got to me. Regardless, I think that these wines are not really for me.

1981 R. López de Heredia Rioja Gran Reserva Viña Bosconia
I’ve had this wine several times and this was a good, but not great bottle. This could have something to do with stemware and serving temperature or it could be that some bottles are just better than others.

WTF is Orin Swift?

My friends Matt and Michael had a rare evening off a few weeks ago and we got together at my place to hang out, have some roast chickens and drink some wine.

2006 Fourrier Gevrey VV
I decanted this for about an hour and a half. I liked it more than my buddies who were at dinner. I think this was a classic example of where Fourrier is right now. You camn see the kinship between these and Pacalet, but where Pacalet’s wines are strident in their definition of what they are trying to be, Fourrier’s wines seem to acknowledge that there are other ways of thinking about wine, while subtly making the case for this way of thinking. Aromatically pure, yet completely impossible to pin down. A moving target that when you try to grab it, it flows between your fingers. Ready to go now and may develop more with age, but I don’t think anyone has quite figured out yet what the aging curve is going to be for Fourrier’s wines.

2000 Château Haut-Bages Libéral Pauillac
This was a big surprise. I have sort of laid off of Bordeaux over the last decade, but this wine was very good. It still had some nice primary fruit of the blue and black sort, but there was also a nascent trickle of woodsmoke, tobacco, and herbs framed by really fine grained tannin. At the right price, I’m a definite buyer of this.

2007 Billard Saint Aubin 1er Cru Les Castets
This was definitely young, but snappy and full of verve. It was slightly better a few days later from the re-corked bottle. Well balanced with the sort of snappy, crunchy fruit that has a sort of cloud of herbs and flowers around it. A promising wine from a producer that I don’t know much about but I will try more wines from in future.

2005 Orin Swift The Prisoner
This was terrible and truly undrinkable. I really don’t know how folks can put up with such a pruney, soupy mess. Really bloody awful, someone should be ashamed.

Excellence and surprise

Had dinner with my good friend RJ at the iconic Durham restaurant, Magnolia Grill

1998 Mugneret Ruchottes-Chambertin
After the calamity of a corked bottle the night before, this bottle was wonderful, if still a bit too young. Upon opening there was a quick rush of heady Gevrey aromatics, framed by a very sublime spice-box type note. After that it shut down for a while before slowly opening over the course of the evening. As it so often is with great wines opened before their prime, the last glass was the best and left me aching for more. It showed true breed and excellence. Not open for business yet, but something to enjoy over a long evening if you are in that sort of mood. I can imagine a 6 hour conversation with Blackwood over this wine. This is the last vintage before the section of the oldest vines were pulled up due to disease (the replanted section is now the villages Gevrey). I would hold another couple of years.

2004 Salvo Foti Etna Vinupetra
This was at least three different wines on the night. None of them were as dilute as a bottle a couple of months back. This wine was denser and more aromatically unexpressive at first, then it just popped and was wild and exotic without being overblown. Towards the end of the night, it became seeded fruity in an almost petit sirah way. A very unique wine that always gives something different. This bottle really sneaked up and surprised me.