I was fortunate to have a few lovely dinners in Paris over the past weekend, and one in Spain, so I thought I’d share impressions on the more memorable wines. All the wines were from restaurants with pretty well documented histories of collecting for a long time, so I believe the provenances were excellent.
1992 lafon perriers v Montrachet
This was a fun comparison. The Perriers seemed horribly overmatched at the beginning of the night (these were the first two bottles opened), but it really hung in. At first it tasted so much flabbier than the montrachet, which was much more focussed and precise. But by the end of the night, the Perriers showed a constancy that was really impressive. It hadn’t budged after 3 hours, and at that point the two seemed much closer in stature.
90 lafon montrachet. This was the last bottle of the night, and it showed the vintage characteristics i expected. Riper than the 92, but still tasted like montrachet. Very tasty indeed.
90 jayer echezeaux. What a treat to taste this wine. The nose had a decidedly jammy hint, which I can understand from a 90 and feared would translate into a stewed palate. But the palate had a much cleaner fruit profile than the nose would have suggested. Ripe, for sure, but not out of control. Still had enough balance and finesse to be excellent. Just delicious.
88 meo brulees. Not as good as the above, but still v good in my view. I was surprised some others that we bumped into and shared a glass with mentioned it received very poor marks at their table. Not sure if I missed something or if it was just difference in taste. I found it to be a medium bodied but well structured wine. I’ve had it a few times over the years and always enjoyed it.
Some Bordeaux from other nights (not all the same evening):
1949 la mission.
This was a show stopper for me. Never in my life have I tasted a wine i felt was so perfectly at its apex. I’m not saying it was a perfect wine, but just that it was at its absolute peak of maturity. Fully mature, but with virtually full power still in tact. And a damn fine wine to catch at such a stage. Single tastiest bottle of Bordeaux I’ve ever consumed in my life, I believe.
1961 la mission
This was opened another night, so I didn’t get to make a direct side by side comparispn. I’d say overall the quality was similarly excellent, but between the size of 61 as a vintage and the decade less of age, this definitely showed younger and is still shy of its peak.
1961 Ausone
Rounder and softer than the 61 la mission. Compact, supple, well delineated. Very nice, and extremely drinkable, though for me it didn’t quite hit the heights of the two la missions.
1982 DRC GE. This was opened with a friend who has a very interesting but consistent and particular palate. He always likes these kinds of wines, and I am coming to see his point: lighter vintages, firm structure, and delicassy over power. Perfume rather than explosive fruit. Cranberries rather than cherries and blackberries. You could call it old school style, or maybe wines picked at slightly lower ripeness, but those descriptions lead down a road of politicized questions that aren’t really the point I’m trying to make here. The wines like this are just different from, say, 90s, or 99s, or 05s, and I am coming to like them more and more as I taste them. This was lovely.
One other fun note from a side trip to champagne. We tasted a bottle of the newest Krug GC release which is the first to include 08 wine in it. It was very tasty, but extremely young. A bottle in Marbella of the old 163 bottling a few nights later was much more open and quite yummy.
A crack at an 02 clos re mesnil, while good, may have been premature and inadvisable. Give it time. Tough to get too much out of it at this juncture.
Cheers
Patrick