Dinner with Danielle and Danny

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stefan
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Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by stefan »

Danielle and Danny were able to arrange a stop in College Station on their Texas Tour to BWE-Dallas. stefanJr and his students Jeff & Jessie flew into Austin a day before a Chemistry conference they were attending in order to join the party. Although we had not seen Danielle and Danny since BWE-Chicago, it will come as no surprise to BWEers that we clicked as though that event was just last week. Newcomers J&J worked right in to BWE spirit.

Lucie prepared a sumptuous feast for the occasion, consisting of

Salmon on toast
Chicken liver paté

Terrine de Campagne

Pork tenderloin with a mushroom sauce
Roasted potatoes
Green beans

Cheese

Apple Tart

Much of this was done in advance, but the items that required last minute cooking were more of a problem than she expected. She intended to do that cooking in our outdoor kitchen, but the Canadian weather Danielle and Danny brought with them forced Lucie to adjust. Normally that would be no problem, but the week before Lucie had taken a hammer to our cooktop in order to convince me to buy her an induction one for her upcoming birthday. Fortunately, two burners in the old cooktop still work, although one needs to wear gloves while using them to avoid the slivers of glass. Despite the handicap, Lucie set a culinary standard that the Dallas restaurants will have a hard time matching on Friday & Saturday.

Here are the wines we drank:

99 Pol Roger Blanc de Blanc
02 Pol Roger
99 Winston Churchill

01 Hudelot Noellat Clos Vougeot
01 Leroy Clos Vougeot
98 Jadot Clos Vougeot

95 Comte de Vogue Bonnes Mares
96 Rousseau Ruchottes Chambertin

06 St. Innocent Anden Special Selection

03 Rieussec

The P-R BdB has a mature taste while retaining the freshness of a young Champagne. I opened the 02 by mistake, thinking it was the Winston I had put into the wine fridge in the morning. No one minded. Everyone else loved the 99 Winston because of its depth, but it is too young for my taste. I preferred the 99 BdB to the Winston for drinking now and will hold my remaining Winston for a few years.

There was another hitch with the second flight of wines. My bloodhound nosed son had failed to detect TCA on the Hudelot Noellat when he sniffed the bottle at 5 PM, so I quickly decanted the backup 98 Jadot while we started on the Leroy Danielle and Danny had brought. Danny was worried about this wine because it did not give much when he opened it in their hotel room. However, the Vougeot was lovely for people who appreciate a pure expression of the pinot noir grape. Lighter than the Jadot and the wines in the later flight, its length and elegance surpassed the other wines. It was the wine of the flight and probably the choice of most people, including myself, for the WOTN.

To me the most disappointing wine was the the Vogue Bonnes Mares. While the structure of the wine was excellent, the brett bothered me. Wines from Chambolle-Musigny should be elegant rather than dirty IMO. The Rousseau, on the other hand, was excellent and true. I with I had more. Completely different from the Leroy, it is in the same equivalence class.

Everyone opted for cheese and more wine, so I decanted the SI Anden SS and served it blind. Danny and stefanJr immediately identified it as a west coast pinot noir. stefanJr said that he had drunk this wine recently--it is an 06 SI Seven Springs Special Selection, but he was off by about .1 of a mile IIRC the Oregon geography (stefanJr says that actually Anden is really part of Seven Springs).

The Rieussec was IMO just right with Lucie's wonderful tart. Boisterous in its infancy, as a pre teen it is more settled. If any were left I would pour it over pancakes for breakfast.

It was great to see Danielle and Danny and we look forward to meeting them again tomorrow at Howard and Lisa's. Thanks for working us into your tour, D&D.
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Chasse-Spleen
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by Chasse-Spleen »

Call the exorcist! Mon Dieu!
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AlexR
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by AlexR »

Stefan,

Wonderful post.
Glad to see the BWE community meeting up and enjoying life.
Alex R.
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jmccready
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by jmccready »

I second Alex-what a great lineup uf wines.P.R. and great Burgundies,etc.Great! JM
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William P
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by William P »

Sounds wonderful Bill. Enjoy the convention. Sorry Linda and I are unable to attend. Hope to see you in SF or Berkeley sometimes this year.

Bill
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Jay Winton
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by Jay Winton »

outstanding! Great warmup for the convention.
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stefan
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by stefan »

Thanks, all.

We will pick up Ken shortly, then off to Big D for BWE-Dallas!
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dstgolf
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by dstgolf »

A few brief words to squeeze in during this whirlwind tour of Texas. Austin was surprisingly very youthful and we felt old in this town. Nice restaurants and music scene. Highly recommend a visit if in the area.

San Antonio a little to Disney for my taste but still happy to have seen Riverwalk and the Alamo. Great evening at Biga on the Banks with one of our best meals in a long time until we showed up at Jan and Bills.

College Station from what we saw was a youthful University town with more going on than expected. George Bush library and A & M U were highlights for us up until dinner.

Now dinner was amazing as you've read above and I don't know how to thank Jan and Bill for another amazing BWE experience. Fabulous food,incredible wine but better friendship and conversation. The wines were great but the evening went by so fast we couldn't believe it was almost midnight when we called a cab to take us back to our hotel.

A night we will always cherish with Jan and Bill outdoing themselves in the kitchen!

Wine of the night was the Leroy. Burgundy in its purist form with an elegant soft nose, balance extraordinare and length to remember. If I could get Burgundy like this at a reasonable price I might be a convert!!

Thanks for making it happen but remember without BWE this would never have been possible.
Danny
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Nicklasss
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by Nicklasss »

Nice dîner, full of pinot noir (probably only the blanc de blancs and Sauternes did not had any pinot in them!). I had a few Leroy wines, offered by other BWEers and liked them the 2 or 3 times i had them.

I'm sad the 2001 Hudelot-Noellat was corked, as I had it with my brother and thought it was an amazing Clos de Vougeot. But the Romanée St-Vivant from same producer and same vintage was even better, let say magic.

Nic
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Nicklasss
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Re: Dinner with Danielle and Danny

Post by Nicklasss »

This is what I wrote about the 2001 Hudelot-Noellat Clos de Vougeot:

2001 Clos de Vougeot from Hudelot-Noellat : One of my favorite producer. And it hit my soft spot again. Color similar to the Aloxe, but with a touch of brown/orange on the rim. Nose was something complex, elegance and nice. A mixture of old strawberries, roses, cranberries, red currants, light vanilla and wet leaves. Medium to intense nose. Entertaining nose. In mouth, has more ''character'' than on the nose. A clear, ripe cranberries, rasberries flavors, with some medium earthy bitterness, with minerals and old dry rose petals. A seductive mouth, but the bitterness gives it something ''masculine''. A really nice Bourgogne, and clearly the best wine I opened on these last holiday. TN : 94. I think I opened it at a good moment (9 years old) but can probably improve for the same time.

Nic
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