What I do for my friends

Went to dinner at Rue Cler with Matt. Brought his two favorite wines since he is leaving for a month.

2002 Azienda Agricola Stanislao Radikon Jakot Venezia Giulia IGT
A deeper color than when I last had it. After some air, the nose really opens up. This is my favorite of the Radikon wines and while this bottle doesn’t have the intensity of past bottles, the 2002 vintage was probably not a great candidate for aging. Not that these bottles should be aged in any event.

2003 Clos Rougeard (Foucault) Saumur-Champigny Le Bourg
This showed a lot of wood on first opening. After about an hour in the carafe, the wood started to become more of a complement, with notes of spice, rather than a focal point. This has excellent texture with a nose and palate that is pure Bourg. This wine, along with the 1997 of this and Breton’s Perrières of the same vintages, is the wine that made me question perceived wisdom about vintages and to start asking questions about how the wine can be so remarkable and fresh in such a hot and challenging year like 2003. What this comes down to is not so much ambient temperature, but soil depth. There is very little topsoil at Bourg and underneath is pure rock, according to Nady Foucault. The same is true of Perrières, according to Pierre Breton. This same topic came up a couple of years later with Kevin Harvey at Rhys when discussing his various vineyards. Although the Skyline wasn’t the coolest of his vineyards, it had the poorest soil which really makes the plant struggle to ripen and forces the roots very deep to find water.

Vin de Soif

Having dinner with my friend RJ who was packing things up before closing on his house and heading out to Seattle for good. Had a light dinner of apps and charcuterie at Vin Rouge. Excellent.

2002 Radikon Jakot
This is my favorite of the Radikon whites for reasons I cannot fully explain. I am of the belief that these, with exceptions, gain nothing from extended bottle aging I convinced RJ to bring out his last bottle. It showed OK, but a bit more loose than previous bottles. While still a very good drop, I’ve had better bottles.

2008 Foillard Morgon
When you are in the mood, nothing else will truly suffice. Again, this was not the best bottle of this I’ve had, a bit less overt fruityness (which was sort of what I was looking for) but still able to tickle all the right spots on my palate and even spine. If you don’t like this, you really need to ask yourself if wine truly is your beverage of choice.

Old notes but still germane

Some friends and an old professor got together to celebrate my good friend RJ’s completion of his PhD. It’s a group that doesn’t get a chance to spend time together very often as we are spread out over the country at different universities. I haven’t laughed that hard in years.

1999 Gosset Champagne Brut Grand Millésime
Showed pretty well. Definitely made with a “house style” in mind, but that’s OK with me. It was a bit doughy and such but with good structure and a fine mousse.

N.V. Pierre Peters Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Cuvée de Réserve
Out of magnum. Very good bubbly. My regular Champagne these days, to the extent that I drink Champagne. I like the leanness and minerality.

2004 Breton Bourgueil Nuits d'Ivresse
From magnum. Ready to go and showed pretty well. We were telling old stories, laughing, eating, and drinking. The wine seemed perfectly suited to that kind of conviviality. Never my favorite of the Breton line-up, every wine has its purpose and this one was fulfilling it perfectly.

2006 Domaine Brana Irouléguy Harri Gorri
A bit disappointing. I was hoping for something more interesting. Kind of glossy and flat.

2002 Radikon Venezia Giulia Jakot
What I love about these wines is that people are immediately drawn to them. I’ve had people say to me that the wines are unsellable and that people don’t get them. I think that’s horseshit. At a table full of people that like wine, but are not geeks by any measure, they all loved the wine without any prodding from me. It’s delicious and great with food. I’d drink it every day if I could afford to.

30 yr old Chinese Liquor
WTF? Crazy.

Johnny Walker Blue Label
Delicious. We drank the whole bottle. If it were cheaper, I’d have it on hand all the time.