TN: 05 Rauzan Gassies, 96 Lafon Rochet et al.

[AKR]

WilliamP and I, and our respective better halves, got together for dinner on a drizzly damp Saturday night. As is our wont, Bordeaux was on deck, although other regions made an appearance.

We started with an excellent round of home baked bread that Bill had made which went well with a block of triple cream St. Andre and a Norwegian goat cheese called getost. I was surprised to find the latter at my local market -- normally we can only get that at specialty shops like Corti Bros.

While we noshed on that, the first course of mushroom & goat cheese tartlettes puffed away in the hot oven, which we paired with a rouge 05 Dom. Leroy [Bourgogne]. I almost never see this around, but picked this up at HDH some years ago. It's been a long time since I had one, I think my honeymoon was the last time, seriously. It's 13% abv and very pleasing. If you have ever the seen the Netflix documentary about Mme. Lu Lu Bize you'd think she was bat sh1t crazy. (But since she's wealthy, we just call her eccentric, and her wine making methods biodynamique) Even if she may not meet UC Davis standards, the wine is pretty good - lots of sandalwood on the nose, very silky, but it doesn't have as much glycerin/sweetness as I seem to think it would have had.

As that concluded, Linda helped us finish the beef "bourgogne" which was actually made with the better part of a bottle of Cotes de Castillon. We used Sheila Lukins (Silver Palate) recipe which is more of a semi professional / caterer type of recipe (e.g. everything is prepared separately and then combined in the end, for taste/texture) which - despite the effort - it was awesome, well worth a weekend afternoon. We've made it a number of times, but having an extra hand around to help makes it even better. Steamed haricots verts with french fried onions rounded everything out along with plain egg noodles. With that, we had a brace of teen age and older Bordeaux. We'd put an 05 Rauzan Gassies [Margaux] in a decanter for a few hours ahead of time and the BWE OG fave 96 Lafon Rochet [St Estephe] was deemed ready to dance without any warm up numbers of decanting.

The St Estephe showed classic earth and clay on the nose, seguing into mulberry on the palate. It remains a strong wine, that even at age 23, stands up to the rich beef very well. Still good acid and a light dryness here. The Margaux was darker, and still tannic, despite the years + hours of aeration. It's a manly Margaux -- showing plums, oregano, rhubarb on the nose. Fine concentration and it feels riper than the 1996. We reminisced about the wonderful 2000 as well. This estate is inconsistent, and isn't seen at retail in our area much...but one byproduct of that is that if its around stateside it is likely a good vintage, one worth laying down. The 2005 confirms that all those years were worth it. On day 2, I get a touch of surmaturite as well.

We relaxed in the living room laughing about the craziness of our respective pet entourage. (The BWE pet empire in SMF area seems to be expanding, but I'll let others expand on that) Then the girls assembled dessert - a complex gingerbread trifle with cognac ginger custard with cranberries + persimmons. It's a blend of textures, flavors, and acid/sweetness from a Martha Stewart recipe; I don't think we've made it in more than a decade. To go with that - a chilled 05 Donnhof Niederhauser Hermannshohle Riesling Auslese [Nahe] showing classic zippy acidity, petrol on the nose, and minerally/stony notes. It went pretty well with the dessert, I think, even if they don't sound like they should.

It was great having a low key dinner party with friends. After all the chaos of Thanksgiving (I played host for 17!) plus a kids cookie party for a dozen screaming girls a few days afterwards, this was the right way to wind down a soggy weekend.

I realize we didn't take any pictures; that's how I know we must have been enjoying ourselves; no one needs to Instagram!

[brodway]

Love Donhoff Riesling...haven't had a bad one....going to pull one soon in fond memory of Pappa Doc.

[DavidG]

Love your descriptions of the food and setting along with the wines, Arv. Even without the photos it makes me feel like I was there, and makes me want to try some of those dishes. Or ask Peggy to. Trying to execute complex recipes brings back bad memories of organic chemistry lab.

[William P]

Always a fun night with Arv and Jenn. Food was special, the wines even better. All the wines were superb.


Bill

[jal]

Nice,
I haven't made anything from The Silver Palate in years. It used to be my #1 goto cookbook. Makes me want to go back to it. My book was so stained from splattering sauces by the end, I couldn't give it away. Nowadays I buy cookbooks on a Kindle.
Lalou Bize Leroy in the Netflix documentary looked totally bat sh!t crazy, LOL, but I love her wines, except the prices are in the stratosphere.
1996 Lafon Rochet is a BWE legend. Sad to see it disappear into the sunset.