2003 Giscours for Valentines Dinner

[dstgolf]

Drinking very and has come into its own with last bottle about 3 years back still showing its youth and a little awkward. Tonight opened 3 hrs before tasted and recorked with no decant. Fragrant nose of those classic Margaux berries that we've come to love but hard to describe. Tannins have softened nicely with cherry, dark berries and a little background tobacco with earthy notes just starting to develop. A lot of life yet but drinking well at the moment.

Another success story for the controversial 2003 vintage and I question whether I and others may have been misled by early harsh reviews as this and several others have been a surprise becoming much more integrated with age than they were projected to be and I question whether I pulled the trigger too early on most of my stock with very few left but the recent pulls from the cellar have all surpassed expectations. I'll have to try another Pontet Canet soon to see where it's at and draw an updated conclusion on another suspect BWE wine.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SPDATuDCZstdZgAk9

[jckba]

Nice - I too ended up pulling an ‘03 tonight but my Valentine’s selection ended up being my sole bottle of 2003 Calon Segur; double decanted for an hour and the aromatics were jumping out of the glass with black currant, cedar, cigar box and fresh cut herbs that led to a ripe, black raspberry, earthy and tobacco driven profile that was plush and polished. 92

Marinated pork belly, crispy potatoes and spinach

D2E75253-AF08-4B15-A641-0A69116C57F2.jpeg (114.93 KiB) Viewed 784 times

[jal]

Very nice, Danny and JC,
A just about to go over the hill 1979 Pichon Lalande with some sous vide duck breasts. Still nice but fading fast. Much worse than a bottle we had last year. We had started with a stunning 2012 Louis Roederer Philip Stark rosé champagne.

[AKR]

Calon Segur is THE Valentines day wine! Very nice photos

[Nicklasss]

Very nice guys. Even if 2003 seems a little bit roasted to me, i understand some producers achieved to make excellent wines anyway. These two producers re among those I would guess made the right things.

And i agree with AKR, that Calon Segur or a wine from AOC Saint-Amour, are THE Valentine wines.

By the way, I wanted to open a Calon Segur too on Saturday, but Marie-Claude did not wanted to drink two bottles of expensive wine two nights in a row (2016 JL Jamet Côte Rôtie on Friday), so end up opening a 2017 Chateau Tour de Pez. Again, that is another strong proof why i will never understand women!

Nic

[s*d*r]

Danny, what is that sauce?

Stu

[dstgolf]

Stu,

We've talked demiglace in the past and we can get whole frozen ducks fairly cheap here. I partially thaw them just to allow me to be able to carve off the breasts from 2 ducks and usually refreeze two and eat two the same night. Wrap tight each de-breasted duck in foil with a mirepoix on bottom(carrot,celery,onion large chunks)/4 cloves garlic and provincial herbs/salt/pepper and everything in oven at 350F for 4 hrs. At this time I either make a rillets from the legs and wing meat mixing some of the fat/jus with shredded duck season and put in terrine...to die for. If you prefer you have four lazy confited legs that you can freeze/eat.

All of the left over goodness goes into a stock pot. Bones fall apart/spent veg and defatted jus all in along with a new carrot/celery/onion and garlic. Peppercorns/thyme/rosemary and a couple of bay leaves. Simmer for minimum 4 hours or overnight. Amazing how much gelatin comes out of these ducks. I put the stock outside in the winter over night and defat in the am. Boil down a bottle of cheap red wine to about a cups worth and add it to the defatted stock along with a couple of tbsps tomato paste and tsp cocco powder. Again simmer down until you coat the back of a spoon to have that nice gelatin unctuousness. I then pour this into ice cube trays and freeze to use about 4-5 cubes for each sauce for the two of us and skies the limit with this base.

For this duck it was a blueberry duck sauce(I also like raspberry/rosemary same way just change jam and fresh berries or a l'orange) with a diced shallot/garlic clove sauteed in butter then deglazed with red wine vinegar til almost dry...a couple of tbsps then 1-2tbsps of a good blueberry jam(I make my own) to the pan to make a gatrique. I melt that down/add a handful of fresh blueberries then 4-5 cubes of the frozen demi and if too thick I pop a couple of cubes of frozen beef or turkey/chicken stock in to dilute it to the consistency you like. I usually put a pinch of provincial herbs/salt/pepper to taste and voila. 24hrs later you're dining at a 5 star French restaurant.

It may seem like a lot of work but once you've got the routine down you do it a couple of times a year and the sauces are incredible.

I like a lot that's done on Kenji's Serious Eats website and his modification of what I outlined above is close to what I do as a more formal guide that I saw last year but I didn't change from what I do. This may help.

https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/01/bro ... stock.html

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/202 ... ecipe.html

Hope it helps and not too long.

[jal]

Danny, that sounds and looks awesome!

We made sous vide duck breasts (also Kenji's recipe in Serious Eats), crisped the skin on a pan for a good 15 minutes. We then microwaved some blueberry jam, added a tablespoon of red wine vinegar and that was it. Yours sounds so much more elaborate and yummy!

[s*d*r]

Stu,

We've talked demiglace in the past and we can get whole frozen ducks fairly cheap here. I partially thaw them just to allow me to be able to carve off the breasts from 2 ducks and usually refreeze two and eat two the same night. Wrap tight each de-breasted duck in foil with a mirepoix on bottom(carrot,celery,onion large chunks)/4 cloves garlic and provincial herbs/salt/pepper and everything in oven at 350F for 4 hrs. At this time I either make a rillets from the legs and wing meat mixing some of the fat/jus with shredded duck season and put in terrine...to die for. If you prefer you have four lazy confited legs that you can freeze/eat.

All of the left over goodness goes into a stock pot. Bones fall apart/spent veg and defatted jus all in along with a new carrot/celery/onion and garlic. Peppercorns/thyme/rosemary and a couple of bay leaves. Simmer for minimum 4 hours or overnight. Amazing how much gelatin comes out of these ducks. I put the stock outside in the winter over night and defat in the am. Boil down a bottle of cheap red wine to about a cups worth and add it to the defatted stock along with a couple of tbsps tomato paste and tsp cocco powder. Again simmer down until you coat the back of a spoon to have that nice gelatin unctuousness. I then pour this into ice cube trays and freeze to use about 4-5 cubes for each sauce for the two of us and skies the limit with this base.

For this duck it was a blueberry duck sauce(I also like raspberry/rosemary same way just change jam and fresh berries or a l'orange) with a diced shallot/garlic clove sauteed in butter then deglazed with red wine vinegar til almost dry...a couple of tbsps then 1-2tbsps of a good blueberry jam(I make my own) to the pan to make a gatrique. I melt that down/add a handful of fresh blueberries then 4-5 cubes of the frozen demi and if too thick I pop a couple of cubes of frozen beef or turkey/chicken stock in to dilute it to the consistency you like. I usually put a pinch of provincial herbs/salt/pepper to taste and voila. 24hrs later you're dining at a 5 star French restaurant.

It may seem like a lot of work but once you've got the routine down you do it a couple of times a year and the sauces are incredible.

I like a lot that's done on Kenji's Serious Eats website and his modification of what I outlined above is close to what I do as a more formal guide that I saw last year but I didn't change from what I do. This may help.

https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/01/bro ... stock.html

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/202 ... ecipe.html

Hope it helps and not too long.

Thanks, Danny, that’s awesome, I remember some of our past discussions. This one seems even more elaborate.

Are you aiming for that third star?

Stu

[AKR]

Stu,

We've talked demiglace in the past and we can get whole frozen ducks fairly cheap here. I partially thaw them just to allow me to be able to carve off the breasts from 2 ducks and usually refreeze two and eat two the same night. Wrap tight each de-breasted duck in foil with a mirepoix on bottom(carrot,celery,onion large chunks)/4 cloves garlic and provincial herbs/salt/pepper and everything in oven at 350F for 4 hrs. At this time I either make a rillets from the legs and wing meat mixing some of the fat/jus with shredded duck season and put in terrine...to die for. If you prefer you have four lazy confited legs that you can freeze/eat.

All of the left over goodness goes into a stock pot. Bones fall apart/spent veg and defatted jus all in along with a new carrot/celery/onion and garlic. Peppercorns/thyme/rosemary and a couple of bay leaves. Simmer for minimum 4 hours or overnight. Amazing how much gelatin comes out of these ducks. I put the stock outside in the winter over night and defat in the am. Boil down a bottle of cheap red wine to about a cups worth and add it to the defatted stock along with a couple of tbsps tomato paste and tsp cocco powder. Again simmer down until you coat the back of a spoon to have that nice gelatin unctuousness. I then pour this into ice cube trays and freeze to use about 4-5 cubes for each sauce for the two of us and skies the limit with this base.

For this duck it was a blueberry duck sauce(I also like raspberry/rosemary same way just change jam and fresh berries or a l'orange) with a diced shallot/garlic clove sauteed in butter then deglazed with red wine vinegar til almost dry...a couple of tbsps then 1-2tbsps of a good blueberry jam(I make my own) to the pan to make a gatrique. I melt that down/add a handful of fresh blueberries then 4-5 cubes of the frozen demi and if too thick I pop a couple of cubes of frozen beef or turkey/chicken stock in to dilute it to the consistency you like. I usually put a pinch of provincial herbs/salt/pepper to taste and voila. 24hrs later you're dining at a 5 star French restaurant.

It may seem like a lot of work but once you've got the routine down you do it a couple of times a year and the sauces are incredible.

I like a lot that's done on Kenji's Serious Eats website and his modification of what I outlined above is close to what I do as a more formal guide that I saw last year but I didn't change from what I do. This may help.

https://www.seriouseats.com/2020/01/bro ... stock.html

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/202 ... ecipe.html

Hope it helps and not too long.

That's very impressive. I was given KAL's book for xmas one year, but have only read a small part of it. I like the science of it!

[jal]

I like Kenji a lot but his youtube videos are sloppy. The ones I can't get enough of are Babish videos by Andrew Rea.

[Ianjaig]

Opened my last bottle of Giscours 2003 this weekend.
Beautiful floral nose, vanilla initially - distinctive cedar and leather as it opened up further. Full bodied, stewed plums but finishes a little port like, burnt, sharp. Day 2 and this has settled down for the better, much more integrated. Much more robust, tannic and classical in style. Very nice.