BWE Dubai 2/18/2012

[DavidG]

Veteran BWEs Michael P, TIm McC and David G met at the home of one of Michael P's friends - Emanuele and Ag - in the Dubai Marina last night (still this afternoon for you folks back in the US) for what may well be the first Middle Eastern BWE event. I was in Abu Dhabi for a medical conference - only an hour away, and Tim was scheduled to be in town on business, so Michael P arranged with some friends and I dragged along some medical buddies who were interested in wine for a BWE get together. It was my good friend Michael B's (yes another MIchael) birthday so this served as a bit of a birthday celebration. Our generous hosts put on a sumptuous meal of prosciutto, tomatoes with mozarrela, home-made pasta, and grilled steaks. Unfortunately, the tiramisu cake I brought melted in the car on the way over, but we made do with oranges for dessert. Great fun was had rekindling old friendships, making new ones, and discussing everything from politics to cars to whatever out on the balcony of Emanuele and Ags beautiful home overlooking the city and the Gulf of Arabia. Here are my impressions of the wines:

Champagne Starters:
1996 Bollinger Grande Annee: light yellow, fresh nose, lots of bubbles, bread and yeast, fresh fruit, medium body still young but excellent.
1996 Krug: light-medium yellow, more intense nose than the Bolly, much more bread and yeast, more earth and fuller body on the palate with a longer finish. Also young but giving great pleasure now. Outstanding.

First Red Flight
2009 Le Pin: no, not that Le Pin. This was labeled just plain Bordeaux. I think it may have been sold by the cousin of the guy who tried to sell me a $50 Rolex in the gold souk earlier in the afternoon. It tasted like cab and merlot, sort of ripe and sweet and diffuse, decent but nothing special and not particularly identifiable as Bordeaux, except for the label. If you believed it. Good.
2007 Patache d'Aux: this was definitely Bordeaux. A Cru Bourgeois Superieur. Not particularly big or complex but nice structure and balance and some good fruit. Very good.

Second Red Flight
1962 Pontet Canet: medium dark red with bricking at rim. Sweet tea/wet leaves on the nose - perfumed and elegant beautiful aged Bordeaux nose. Light-medium body, nice sweet aged Bordeaux flavors, good balance, medium finish. Really captivating nose. Excellent to outstanding.
1966 Beychevelle: medium dark red, bricking at rim. Off-putting volatile dry cleaning solvent on the nose, but this blew off over 30 minutes to reveal another nicely complex nose, more youthful than the '62, with a little more weight on the palate and a longer finish. Balance was tilted less to the acid side than the '62. I initially wrote this one off but glad I came back to it as it caught the '62 Pontet Canet in some respects. But I'll still pick the Pontet Canet as the better of the two wines in this flight. Excellent to outstanding.

Third Red Flight
1953 Cos d'Estournel: this was served as a stand-alone in honor of my friend Michael B's birthday. A birth year vintage wine most generously supplied by MIchaelP, mid-low shoulder but still red at the core with bricking at the rim, mushroom and earthy notes mixed with cassis on the nose. Very smooth on the palate, perhaps a bit tired/past it but not seriously oxidized, it still had fruit to give and for lovers of old complex Bdx this was still excellent.

Fourth Red Flight
Blind A: red core, lightening at rim but no bricking. Aged Cab (Bordeaux?) nose but not yet completely given over to the sweet tea and wet leaves stage. Medium body, nice complexity on the palate, medium finish. Excellent. I guess a really nice left bank Bordeaux from the 1980s. It is 1982 Branaire Ducru a BWE Legend!
Blind B:dark red core, minimal lightening at the rim. Definite Cab nose but more New-Worldy. Seems like it's got some aged complexity but more in a California-y way. Maybe a 1970s California Cab. And going back to the nose a little later: Mint, and lots of it! Really nice wine, great body and balance and finish. Outstanding. I guess seventy-something Heitz Martha's Vineyard but try to minimize my expected embarrassment by noting that I am almost always wrong about this stuff. I'm as surprised as the rest of the group when Tim pulls off the foil to reveal a 1975 Heitz Martha's Vineyard. My first wine hole-in-one! Is it illegal to call a Cali Cab your WOTN at a BWE event? If so, I'll go for the '62 Pontet Canet.

Fifth Red Flight
1983 Gruaud Larose: dark red core, bricking at rim. Nice earthy nose without any bretty merde, medium body, has developed nice complexity, medium long finish. Excellent but not in the same league with the wines in Flight 2 or 4. This bottle has a little history: it was the last of a batch of wines I inherited from my father in 1991. I kept holding it and holding it until I realized if I held it too long it would lose its magic without anyone enjoying it. Not a proper legacy, so I brought it to a BWE event where it was administered appropriate last rites. It kept getting better the more I thought about this, so my rating is far from objective.
1989 Leoville Barton: darker red with only a little lightening at the rim. Biggest, youngest of the Bdx with likely room for improvement but very nice now. Very good to excellent with an upside.

Dessert wines
1977 Dows Vintage Port: dark red, nicely mature, great fruit concentration, drinking extremely well but with many more years to go, excellent to outstanding.

Unfortunately the hour was late and we had to give our driver a break and head back to Abu Dhabi before we got to open the 1953 Gilette Creme de Tete, but we gave it to Michael B as a birthday present. We all said goodbyes, wishing we could linger longer, with promises to do it again sometime. And for MichaelP and Tim, that will be in a short few weeks at BWE '12 in DC!

[JimHow]

Wow, great report! BWE history made!

[William P]

Nicely done gents!

[Houndsong]

That's the spirit. Sorry about the tiramisu, but it made me laugh.

Although I've never had it, I have a special fondness for the '66 Beychevelle. You might say I had an unrequited crush on it in my vinous pubescence.

[JCNorthway]

Wow, pretty nice line-up. And it sounds like most met or exceeded expectations. Nice when that happens.

[DavidG]

Hound, it sounds like there's a story behind your interest in '66 Beychevelle...

[stefan]

Appropriate wines for such a historic event. Congratulations!

[tim]

The first BWE Middle East event was quite an occasion! Thanks again to Michael P for organizing, and his friends for hosting, and of course David G for initiating the whole event (and doing the 90 minute drive back and forth from Abu Dhabi to Dubai).

With older wines, there is always a chance that there may be an off wine in the bunch, but for the most part I think all of these were showing at their best. In terms of WOTN, I'm also somewhat torn between the 62 Pontet Canet and the 75 Heitz Martha's. I wasn't as fond of the nose on the Pontet, but it had really amazing complexity that evolved on the palate, which for me is what I love about older wines. The Heitz was a different beast altogether, and really showed just how well California Cabs can age. I also think that the 89 Leoville Barton has a lot more potential, and that it is actually a bit too young to open now. The 77 Dow's was just perfection.

Overall, great evening, with a really fantastic group of people. The two highlights of the evening were David G. nailing the Heitz (first time I've ever witnessed someone guessing the wine on a totally blind tasting) and when, in a group of six of us, the three men tuned into the conversation that the three ladies were having, only to discover it was about cosmetics, at which time we immediately steered the conversation to trucks

[SF Ed]

That sounds great! Glad to hear the BWE spirit alive all the way in Dubai.

SF Ed

[JimHow]

The sun never sets on BWE.

[Ramon_NYC]

Awesome lineup.

I've had the 1975 Heitz Martha last year amidst mostly Burgundies during a dinner, and it pretty much stole quite a bit of thunder from the other wines.
I also have a soft spot for 1966 Bordeaux having had mostly success stories with the few that I've had the chance to drink from the vintage.

Thanks for the notes and for describing what sounds like a great setting.

Ramon

[AlexR]

Amazing that you could all converge in the desert sands for such a feast.

Alex R.

[Blanquito]

Tre cool, thanks for the notes.

[Nicklasss]

I'm very proud of BWEers when I read a post like that!

Great dinner guys and I expect MichaelP stayed a little bit more quiet after that dinner, that the ones I had with him in the USA (exemple, drinking 1975 Chateau de Malle, directly from the bottle, in downtown NYC). Laws are probably different in the Emirates...

Nic

[DavidG]

Some observations about the UAE. It was, at least to me, surprisingly tolerant. Much more so than Saudi Arabia. You can bring in up to 4L of alcoholic beverages. Many restaurants offer wine, liquor, beer and spirits. Residents do need a license to buy alcohol in many of the stores in the UAE, but apparently they are not difficult to obtain and there are also some stores where a license is not required. The majority of people were in Western dress, and not just at the meeting venue, even in the city. Even a significant minority of the women were in Western dress. I never felt out of place or any overt sense of suppression or even a hint of hostility. People were friendly. Most of the locals are not UAE nationals but have settled there to work, and all of those I met were easy to approach. Most know English, and many/most of the signs are in English. OTOH, when I tried to open a video link of Train making a video at Shafer Vineyards, I got an error message saying it was not about to be shown in my area.

We had some concerns about whether our invited Israeli speakers would be able to get into the UAE for the conference, as there are no diplomatic relations between the countries and no ability to issue official visas. We received assurances from the meeting organizers and the UAE government that there would be no problems with entry before we agreed to organize our sessions. We invited several Israelis in part because they are internationally recognized experts and also in part to try to foster both scientific and cultural exchange and build bridges where so many have been torn down. Only a few Israelis were willing to come without even a hard copy entry permit, only a promise that their names would be on a list at the airport. Those that were brave enough to make the journey received an official private welcome, a security detail, a guided day trip, and were generally made to feel very welcomed. So some bridges were built.

[Jay Winton]

Outstanding! Also, good work on the diplomatic front. God know the Middle East needs all the diplomacy it can muster.

[Tom In DC]

Well, Saudi Arabia is in its own world vis a vis tolerance -- I didn't take Listerine in my kit on my way into the country because of the alcohol content!

The UAE must be more tolerant, or they would have never let any BWE'ers in!

[Winona Chief]

Sounds like a good experience all around. Wow, what a nice bunch of wines. I have enjoyed many bottles of 1983 Gruaud Larose in recent years. I think it is a very fine, mature wine. Most recently, a bottle, opened the last weekend in January up in Boston was probably the best bottle yet - truly outstanding. At an event in June 2009, my bottle of 1983 Gruaud was preferred by many compared to the 1982 Gruaud (I think because the '83 was more open).

Chris Bublitz

[JimHow]

If world governments shared the spirit of BWE, the world would be a better place in which to live.

Sincerely,
JimHow
Benevolent Dictator

[sdr]

Thanks for your observations, David; very interesting.

[dstgolf]

Outstanding David! Great to see BWE spreading their friendship around the world. Never been to the Middle East but it is on my bucket list.We were supposed to cruise through Suez canal stopping in Israel,Jordan and Egypt following Turkey,Greek Isles and Cyprus in the Fall. With all the turmoil in Egypt we changed our plans feeling we'll tick off others on the list while things settle in Egypt and ended up in Southeast Asia this winter and Napa in the Fall.

Wines sounded great and couldn't agree more with the assessment of the 83 Gruaud. I think it has always been far better than the more highly touted 82.Never had a bad experience with it.

Great stuff from the base of le Massif le Petite Riviere St Francois. Yes Nic almost in your backyard again with the whole family finishing up College reading week!

Danny