BWE London get together...
Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2022 10:49 pm
So I am in London with my just turned ten year old (his first trip outside of the US!). I took the opportunity to get together with Comte Flaneur, the kind of evening that BWE and no other internet board can facilitate so easily because of the relationships we build here. We met at Ian's favorite French restaurant, which has an owner who is a former sommelier and clearly a fellow wine fanatic based on the way his eyes lit up as we discussed each wine with him.
Ian blinded me on all of the wines we drank, something that is a big and somewhat embarrassing test but useful in the way it focuses your attention on what you are drinking. The first wine was white and amazingly crisp, structured and elegant. Just very "more-ish" and activated your salivary glands in a delightful way. I could tell right away it wasn't an American white, and guessed (correctly) it was a white Burgundy. It didn't have the depth or plush fruit I have been coming to expect from premier and grand cru white Burgundy in recent vintages. I guessed a village or satellite appellation just because of that, but really it was remarkably good in a structed way from the first sip. Especially on a hot day of the type we had in London today. Turned out it was the 2011 Pierre Yves Colin Morey Corton Charlemagne, the first of three super generous wines provided by Ian. I would never have guessed PYCM because the few PYCMs I have had have been very plush and fruity by comparison. Perhaps because I guessed a lower ranking wine Ian was somewhat apologetic the entire evening about not opening it earlier to let it express the extra layers of complexity, but he shouldn't have been -- I LOVED this wine. Just absolutely beautifully structured in the way we go to white Burgundy for.
The second wine was a red. It was so plush and sweet on the nose that I initially guessed a right bank Bordeaux. But the palate had more of a mineral Cabernet quality in a way that brought me around to a left bank Bordeaux. Once I had left bank Bordeaux I was a bit stuck and the only thing I could guess was that it was a younger wine, because of its rich/intense/sweet-ish characteristics. Ian prompted me by asking if it was St Julien/Margaux/St Estepehe/Pauillac, and I easily and CORRECTLY responded that it must be a Pauillac. It just had such a regal and complete quality that it intuitively felt Pauillac. That was correct and Ian then asked me which Pauillac was most likely to seem like a right bank Bordeaux and I again correctly answered Pichon Lalande. So if you are generous in assessing my answers then I get some credit here for correctly nailing that the wine was a Pichon Lalande blind! But I really got hung up on the age. The sheer intensity of this wine on the nose especially had me hung up on the idea that it was a 10-15 year old wine. But it turned out to be the 1986 Pichon Lalande! An absolute tribute to the ageability of Bordeaux and also the high quality of aged wine that can be achieved when classed growths move no further than across the English Channel for their entire life, because I definitely was convinced that this wine was at least two decades younger than what it actually was. I will say that over the course of the evening this wine faded somewhat in a way that did give some evidence of its age. I should say I have had this same 1986 PLL in the US and it was nothing like this, very good but a much more aged wine.
Finally, Ian opened up a third bottle. At this point I was pretty tipsy and my son noted, accurately, that "you have that drunken glint in your eye". This wine was more intensely cabernet than the first and one could tell immediately that it could be nothing but a left bank Bordeaux. Ian responded that it was 'sort of' but 'not quite' left bank and I immediately guessed Pessac Leognan on that basis alone. This was correct, but TBH without that hint I couldn't have gotten it. It was so minerally and austere at first that I couldn't tell if it was a high end wine that was young and underdeveloped or a lower quality wine that was older and just not very good. But it had a sneaky developing intensity to it that made me think it must be a higher growth wine. Since I thought it was younger that steered me away from LMHB/DDC/Pape Clement etc. because these wines have become higher alcohol and more international styled in recent years. I wondered about Haut Bailly and Smith Haut Lafite because I am less familiar with them. As the wine lingered open and more glasses were poured it was growing and growing in intensity, vividness, and Cabernet character to the point that I was almost forced to guess 2010 or 2014 Haut Brion as, despite the fact that I had almost no experience HB, this was the highest end classic Pessac I could think of that would have such intensity. But it turned out to be 1996 La Mission Haut Brion. For a second time this evening I had been fooled by the extraordinary storage quality Ian could achieve in England for his aged Bordeaux, because this had a force and vividness that I associate with a younger wine. This was also before LMHB's shift to greater use of late-picked Merlot with associated 15%+ alcohol -- 1996 was of course a super-classic Cabernet vintage with 13% alcohol. I can only hope my own bottles of 2014 LMHB will someday achieve this quality!
Anyway, it was a great evening, and many thanks to Ian who not only brought sensational wines but went out of his way to involve my extroverted ten year old son in the conversation, during an evening that might otherwise have been somewhat alienating to a child who could not drink alcohol. Fantastic and highly enjoyable night, thank you Ian!
Ian blinded me on all of the wines we drank, something that is a big and somewhat embarrassing test but useful in the way it focuses your attention on what you are drinking. The first wine was white and amazingly crisp, structured and elegant. Just very "more-ish" and activated your salivary glands in a delightful way. I could tell right away it wasn't an American white, and guessed (correctly) it was a white Burgundy. It didn't have the depth or plush fruit I have been coming to expect from premier and grand cru white Burgundy in recent vintages. I guessed a village or satellite appellation just because of that, but really it was remarkably good in a structed way from the first sip. Especially on a hot day of the type we had in London today. Turned out it was the 2011 Pierre Yves Colin Morey Corton Charlemagne, the first of three super generous wines provided by Ian. I would never have guessed PYCM because the few PYCMs I have had have been very plush and fruity by comparison. Perhaps because I guessed a lower ranking wine Ian was somewhat apologetic the entire evening about not opening it earlier to let it express the extra layers of complexity, but he shouldn't have been -- I LOVED this wine. Just absolutely beautifully structured in the way we go to white Burgundy for.
The second wine was a red. It was so plush and sweet on the nose that I initially guessed a right bank Bordeaux. But the palate had more of a mineral Cabernet quality in a way that brought me around to a left bank Bordeaux. Once I had left bank Bordeaux I was a bit stuck and the only thing I could guess was that it was a younger wine, because of its rich/intense/sweet-ish characteristics. Ian prompted me by asking if it was St Julien/Margaux/St Estepehe/Pauillac, and I easily and CORRECTLY responded that it must be a Pauillac. It just had such a regal and complete quality that it intuitively felt Pauillac. That was correct and Ian then asked me which Pauillac was most likely to seem like a right bank Bordeaux and I again correctly answered Pichon Lalande. So if you are generous in assessing my answers then I get some credit here for correctly nailing that the wine was a Pichon Lalande blind! But I really got hung up on the age. The sheer intensity of this wine on the nose especially had me hung up on the idea that it was a 10-15 year old wine. But it turned out to be the 1986 Pichon Lalande! An absolute tribute to the ageability of Bordeaux and also the high quality of aged wine that can be achieved when classed growths move no further than across the English Channel for their entire life, because I definitely was convinced that this wine was at least two decades younger than what it actually was. I will say that over the course of the evening this wine faded somewhat in a way that did give some evidence of its age. I should say I have had this same 1986 PLL in the US and it was nothing like this, very good but a much more aged wine.
Finally, Ian opened up a third bottle. At this point I was pretty tipsy and my son noted, accurately, that "you have that drunken glint in your eye". This wine was more intensely cabernet than the first and one could tell immediately that it could be nothing but a left bank Bordeaux. Ian responded that it was 'sort of' but 'not quite' left bank and I immediately guessed Pessac Leognan on that basis alone. This was correct, but TBH without that hint I couldn't have gotten it. It was so minerally and austere at first that I couldn't tell if it was a high end wine that was young and underdeveloped or a lower quality wine that was older and just not very good. But it had a sneaky developing intensity to it that made me think it must be a higher growth wine. Since I thought it was younger that steered me away from LMHB/DDC/Pape Clement etc. because these wines have become higher alcohol and more international styled in recent years. I wondered about Haut Bailly and Smith Haut Lafite because I am less familiar with them. As the wine lingered open and more glasses were poured it was growing and growing in intensity, vividness, and Cabernet character to the point that I was almost forced to guess 2010 or 2014 Haut Brion as, despite the fact that I had almost no experience HB, this was the highest end classic Pessac I could think of that would have such intensity. But it turned out to be 1996 La Mission Haut Brion. For a second time this evening I had been fooled by the extraordinary storage quality Ian could achieve in England for his aged Bordeaux, because this had a force and vividness that I associate with a younger wine. This was also before LMHB's shift to greater use of late-picked Merlot with associated 15%+ alcohol -- 1996 was of course a super-classic Cabernet vintage with 13% alcohol. I can only hope my own bottles of 2014 LMHB will someday achieve this quality!
Anyway, it was a great evening, and many thanks to Ian who not only brought sensational wines but went out of his way to involve my extroverted ten year old son in the conversation, during an evening that might otherwise have been somewhat alienating to a child who could not drink alcohol. Fantastic and highly enjoyable night, thank you Ian!