TNs: Birthday bash

[Michael Malinoski]

It was my birthday, and I wanted to celebrate in style. So, nine of us planned a really fun menu, with everybody taking turns contributing their cooking skills in the kitchen, and everybody bringing beautiful wines to help make it a truly special evening. Needless to say, it was a night to remember!

Arrival:

2006 Pierre Gimonnet Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Fleuron. This magnum was disgorged April 11, 2013. On the nose, it displays powerful but controlled aromas of toasted bread, seashell, chalk, ginger, mineral and abundant yellow fruits that are gorgeously toned, with fine edgings but a rounded generous core that’s just outstanding. In the mouth, it’s smoky and mineral-tinged all the way through, with great cut and taut, directed flavors of tree fruits, stone and chalk. It has excellent length despite its youthful vigor and moderately tight mid-palate. It’s a treat to drink now, and will just get better with additional time in the cellar. What a great way to start the evening!

Flight 1: Assortment of cheeses, pâtés, ibérico ham and other charcuterie from Formaggio Kitchen

1998 Pol Roger Champagne Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill. This is just so inviting on the nose, right from the very first whiff of the creamy, plush and expansive aromas of clotted cream, yeasty bread dough, yellow apple, ginger, hazelnut and gentle spices. That friendly, enticing, wide-brimmed and beautifully layered personality continues onto the palate from a textural perspective, but otherwise it’s much more lifted, bright and aggressively zippy in tone—delivering sharp flavors of green apple, pear, almond and lime zest that sit beautifully atop that enveloping texture. It’s a very appealing package on the whole and disappeared quickly.

1997 Salon Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut. There’s an absolutely ebullient bouquet here, loaded with precise, pin-point aromas of lemon rind, toasted bread, apple, chalk and powdered mineral. It’s elegant and airy in the extreme, but absolutely fine-honed and youthful, with even more to give down the road. In the mouth, the fruit and acidity are perfectly poised, with great elegance and beautiful definition to the apple, crushed shell, mineral and citrus flavors. It shows great drive through the middle but ends with a lovely gossamer-like feel. It’s a pure delight to drink, but still such a youngster. Hold if you can.

1990 Bollinger Champagne La Grande Année. Here one finds complex, layered and mature aromas of dark yeast, caramel, honeycomb, ginger root, earth, toast points and mocha that are gorgeous and fully evocative of the Bollinger style to my mind. In the mouth, it’s rich, full-bodied, long and toothy-textured all the way. There’s a mellow energy and subtle acidic undertow to the pithy flavors of dark yeast, browned apple, pear, caramel, honey, brown sugar, lime and spice. It’s a departure from the previous three Champagnes, to be sure, but absolutely compelling and rewarding in equal measures.

Flight 2: Ahi tuna poke and guacamole tower

1998 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage Blanc. This wine has a very fine pale color, with an alluringly feminine and lilting bouquet redolent of fresh-cut flowers, apple, cotton candy, paraffin wax, cedar and chopped pistachio nut. It’s lovely, soft and powdered, with a downy elegance that’s hard not to love. On the palate, it features an amazingly sleek-textured mouthfeel, with a slippery and slinky flow to the flavors of candied lemon and gentle tropical fruits accented by fine spice notes. It’s a beautiful wine that flows effortlessly across the palate and delivers an airy set of spice-tinged flavors that linger long into the night as the wine just gets better and better with each sip. It’s maybe not quite as singular as a bottle from 5 years earlier was, but it’s taken on a certain sense of feminine grace at this point that has enormous appeal.

2005 E. Guigal Hermitage Blanc Ex-Voto. Although much younger, this wine is considerably darker in color. It features an absolutely wild and crazy nose, with effusive and captivating aromas of lilac soap, peach flesh, lime zest, exotic tropical fruits, blue slate and fresh-ground nutmeg. In the mouth, it’s incredibly oily and viscous in texture, with full-bodied and weighty flavors of baked apricots, lemon candies, peaches and allspice that combine to give the wine a powerful, exotic, off the reservation kind of personality that’s unique but fun as hell. I can see traditionalists perhaps struggling a bit with this sort of profile, but it brings a party atmosphere to the occasion that feels just right with this dish and on this night!

Flight 3: Pan-seared lump crab cakes with mustard sauce and cucumber salad

1989 Trimbach Riesling Cuvée Frédéric Emile. Served from a magnum, this wine is absolutely singing right now. It all starts with the stunning bouquet featuring chiseled but enveloping aromas of petrol, slate stones, white peaches, lime pith, pears and fine minerals. It has great refinement and class, and it just draws you back time and time again. In the mouth, it is oily-textured but sleek-flowing—loaded with white peach, lime, green herb, petroleum and mineral flavors supported by perfect acidity levels. This is simply a wonderful CFE.

2000 Trimbach Riesling Cuvée Frédéric Emile Vendange Tardive. This wine is considerably darker in color and features an excellent bouquet revolving around burnished aromas of baked apricots, blood oranges, limes and herbs. In the mouth, it’s lengthy and rich, with lovely apricot and peach sweetness balanced against dancing acidity and light-footed minerality. This rounded out a really enjoyable flight that lasted on through a very nice green salad course.

Flight 4: Duck sous vide with Madeira wine reduction sauce served atop creamy risotto

1989 Henri Bonneau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Réserve des Célestins. This beautifully-perfumed wine is profoundly complex and endlessly layered on the nose, showing off fascinating aromas of dried leather, violets, dusty earth, toasted orange peel, mulling spices, persimmon, cedar wood, animal fur, spirit-soaked cherries and a faint edging of funk. It’s rich and dense on the palate, exhibiting excellent poise, with all of the fruit, earth, acidity and alcohol elements in perfect harmony to go along with lovely dark red fruit and all kinds of garrigue and baking spice notes. It finishes long and creamy, totally at ease and with surprisingly resolved tannins and yielding structure. It’s just a fantastic wine all around.

1989 Clos du Mont-Olivet Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Cuvée du Papet. The 1989 was the very first year for this cuvee, and it’s an absolute winner in my opinion. It’s generally darker-toned and more brightly-lifted on the nose than the Bonneau—featuring fantastic aromas of iron, iodine, charred leather, olive, garrigue, toasted bread, black pepper and black cherry fruit. In the mouth, it’s dark, fresh, savory and smoky—full of blackberry, black cherry, iron, charred wood, earth and chicory flavors that are old-fashioned and well-grounded. It doesn’t have the density or flair of its flight-mate, but it’s in an absolutely great spot right now, delivering loads of traditional-minded drinking enjoyment.

Flight 5: Crispy Smoked Pork Belly served with poireaux et pommes Dauphinoise and a fresh tomato salad

1982 Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle. I really love the bouquet this wine puts forth, showing all kinds of wild blueberry, bacon bit, lavender, tar, tomato vine, ash, funky sweat and effusively sexy spice aromas that are totally open for business from the very first sniff. It’s perfectly mature right now on the palate, showing fantastic power, length and balance the whole way through. It features lively but rich flavors of plums, blackberries, dark spices, smoke, charred earth and grilled herbs. Everything comes together just right for my tastes, and I would have to say this drinking delightfully at the moment.

1989 Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle. The nose of the 1989 by comparison is considerably more feral, vital and smoldering—delivering dark smoky scents of charred leather, soy, iodine, dried blood, animal fur, bacon fat, blackberries and blueberries that are muscled and direct, still showing a lot of youthful sinew. In the mouth, it’s firm, dense, dark and very serious in tone, with a big-boned structure and a much more masculine personality that comes through in the flavors of singed iron, seaweed sushi wrapper, bacon, blackberries and smoke. It has incredible inner strength, with a cool and taut feel all around, but it seems like it needs more time to let it all unfold a bit more.

Flight 6: Artisinal cheeses, nuts and dried fruits

1989 Chateau Rieussec Sauternes. This is dark orange in color, with beautiful aromas of toasted orange peel, nectarine, persimmon, cedar wood, brown sugar and lovely botrytis spice and cream notes. It’s utterly classic, in my opinion. In the mouth, it is perfectly sweet in tone, with rich and unctuous flavors of orange peel, dark peach, apricot and baking spices that drape over the palate and leave a dramatically exotic and very lengthy after-taste. A few days later, it’s a bit more on the controlled and elegant side of things, but on this night it delivered great sex appeal.

1996 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey Sauternes. This is just gorgeous on the nose, oozing up out of the glass with swirling aromas of apricots, quince paste, baked peaches, yellow raisins and botrytis spices with absolutely no notes out of harmony. It’s totally delicious to drink, too, with great viscosity and creaminess to the flavors of peaches, apricots, orange creamsicle, toasted brioche and allspice. The mouthfeel is just perfect, and the sweetness ratio is ideal for my tastes. This is awesomely good Sauternes.

Dessert: Chocolate trilogy cake

1993 Royal Tokaji Wine Co. Tokaji Aszú Essencia. This is darkly mysterious, layered and luscious on the nose, with an amazing bouquet redolent of black and yellow raisins, dried plums, sweet fig paste, vanilla extract and menthol leaf completely coating the inside of the nasal cavities. It’s creamy, luscious, rich and viscous on the palate, with unctuous flavors of figs, golden raisins, dates and vanilla paste that show great depth but are also brightly lifted by a wonderful steak of tangy, mouthwatering acidity that’s bright and generous. This has it all, and was just as good 1 week later as it was on this night. It should last for as long as you want it to.

1999 Tommaso Bussola Recioto della Valpolicella Classico TB. The final wine of the night features intensely inky aromas of blackberries, black currant jam and fig paste balanced off by earthier tones of beef broth and black smoke. It’s plush, warm and toasty on the palate, with a slightly lifted alcohol nick to the sweet flavors of brandied cherries, blueberry jam and fig paste. Its full-blown flavors really stand up to the dense chocolate cake wonderfully—putting a very fitting cap on a tremendously special evening.


-Michael

[RDD]

Sounds like a happy birthday to me!

[JimHow]

Whoah doggie!

[dstgolf]

That's a great celebratory line-up. Used to love la Chappelle through the 80s and 90s with 96 and 98 being very memorable. Have not had much exposure since 2000 and not sure how they are doing now but I haven't seen much hype on the wine recently and that may be a good or bad thing? Belated happy Birthday.

[DavidG]

Wow. Just wow.

Thanks for sharing. And happy (belated?) birthday!

[Michael Malinoski]

VERY belated, but I'm trying to catch up!! Thanks, everyone!

Michael

[Gerry M.]

Wow! What a distant memory!

Your notes are nice to read these many months later.

[Nicklasss]

Epic!

Nic

[stefan]

Wonderful wines, and the food sounds delicious.

One wine really caught my attention: 1996 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey Sauternes. I have had some marvelous 19996 Sauternes (e.g. Doisy-Vedrines, which you don't see much), but this vintage of Sauternes seems not to get is due. I am glad that you gave it good press in this outstanding collection of wines.