The Orlando Berserker crew - a whopping total of three of us - got together with my normal wine group, mostly my cycling buddies, for another exceptional night. You guys know my little buddy MarcF lives here, but Charlie Carnes you may not know, lives right outside of Orlando, in the sleepy, agrarian and mining community called Winter Haven. Charlie “Con” Carnes is the true country squire around here, I just talk that game.
As usual, I try to set a theme, but rarely does it work out perfectly. My group is far too varied in wine tastes and some are not wine geeks, but the group as a whole gels so well. It’s really more of a gathering of my best friends, all of whom happen to love good cuisine, fine wine, etc., but the breadth of the conversations and laughs take precedence.
My attempt was a geeky French wine theme with some AFWE things. I’ve noticed some of my buddies’ palates have really moved more toward this direction - amazing considering where some were 10 years ago - plus I had Marc and Charlie coming over, both of whom have tremendous palates, and then another cycling buddy of mine who is French and a pastry chef. So the theme made sense.
I brought in two chefs, also cyclists, for a multi-course small plates menu. And my Frenchman, brought in his signature dessert, a Mille Feulli, plus his commercial line of gourmet chocolates. Laurent is the head pastry chef for Disney, turns out he won the World Pastry Championship twice, who woulda thunk that competition even existed. My connection to him is from cycling, the dude is a beast of a racer. Gotta love his accent, after many bottles of wine, we are all on the floor busted up over the Mille Feulli sounding like French MILFie (sorry for the crassness, you had to be there).
So the line-up, wine and men (sans me, I took the pic and the mug is not as pretty as it once was):
Off to the races!
The chefs had a charcuterie tray and artisan bread for starters. We warmed up with a NV Champagne Savart Champagne Bulle de Rosé that Tooch gave me last year. Had not tried it before, but it was perfect for the start, steely, crisp, fresh cut strawberries, fine acid but the sweetness of the red fruits kept things in check. Excellent with the cheese.
The next course came quick, a huge bowl of steamed mussels in a tomato sauce. I thought an oyster course was coming up, so had some white Bordeaux and a riesling on deck next, so not sure of exactly what to pair with this seafood in red sauce, I stopped geeking about it and popped Charlie’s 2015 Julian Haart Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling Kabinett. I’ve seen Charlie rave about the Haart Kabinetts for quite some time, but this was my first. If this isn’t one of the QPRs of the year, I’m not sure what is. Perhaps given the vintage, not as dry as I expected, but the sweetness of the wine was cut and lifted in a refined way by the acids. Balanced a nice range of white and yellow fruits with some honey and a little whiff of petrol. Love the pairing with the slight spice of the tomato sauce. Charlie was wolfing down the mussels. Our two teenage boys snuck in as well, damn these big kids can eat.
We sat down for the next course, oysters with a strawberries puree and cilantro.
These were the wines I had contemplated for the mussels, but oh well, we just rolled with it. I wanted the boys to try by comparison a very mature Breton with a younger Rougeard. The 1992 Catherine et Pierre Breton Bourgueil Les Perrières was excellent, mature, stately. Petrichor came to mind. Warm, earthy, musky, with a range of dried red fruits. At apogee, I have some 1993 as well, I suggest drinking these. And a little decant is surprisingly necessary. The 2011 Clos Rougeard (Foucault) Saumur-Champigny showed well, not great for a Rougeard, but damn nice for the vintage. As my friend Ivan pointed out, the two wines were far more similar than they were different, and I think he was right. Both rather textbook Loire Cab Franc, the Rougeard appearing more advanced than its age, so perhaps drinking closer in proximity to the Breton. I think the Breton had greater breadth, while the Rougeard, especially within the fruit profile, had greater depth. The Rougeard showed the tobacco leaf and ash that I tend to love in Loire CF. I’d put both wines in the 91-92 point range, with a preference to the Breton. By the way, the Frenchman was the only one who could pronounce, “Bourgueil”. I have clearly mispronounced it for 25 years and likely will continue.
As the evening had cooled down considerably and was breezy, we decided to go hang out down by the lake - which has dropped about 5 feet in the past few weeks of heat - enjoying a 2014 Goodfellow Pinot Noir Whistling Ridge Vineyard. I’ll let Charlie give the details on this wine, as I think it’s another one of his simple-pleasure faves, but for me, it was a lovely transitional wine for the next courses and more serious wines. Have never seen a Pinot of his lightness, and it drank that way: Light, fresh, nice depth of red fruits and cola, perfumy nose.
This Pinot might have been the better choice for the mussels and/or the oysters. Very food friendly!
We popped back inside for the opening of the French syrahs, starting with a 1998 Domaine Jamet Cotie Rotie to pair with the chef’s rendition of New England clam chowder (yea, keep in mind that the chef is Cuban!):
Perhaps an “off the wall” pairing, but it worked. The torching of the potato soufflé and the salinity of the cured meat topping did work with this absolutely, stunningly classic Cote Rotie. Always feel cheeky calling my own wine the WOTN, so I won’t, but this wine could not be any more dead-center in my wheelhouse. So aromatic, smoky, wet/rusty iron, pepper spice, reds. And the palate, just wow, layered and textured. Dried meats, herbs, salinity. Blood orange citrus, yay. Pretty wide open. I could keep my rather large nose in the glass all night. A 95+ pointer in my book. Stunning.
We followed that course with beef carpaccio and candied papayas:
I’ve never had the Pignan. This 1997 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Pignan Reserve was ridiculously aromatic, like running through a Provencal field on a warm early summer day. A broad range of Provencal spices, herbs, lavender, jasmin and dried red fruits. Light on the body, but lovely nonetheless. A decent wine accentuated by its nose, which I’d score several points higher on its own over the wine as a whole. Really enjoyed this little treat. The 1997 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie La Mouline was a bit of a beast, a bruiser. Quite brooding. Took some time to show much on the nose, and I kept circling back to it, wishing we had decanted it. This wine may need more time and certainly time to unfurl, but once it did and hit its stride, this is an excellent wine. Now we are heading into the dark range of fruits but not on the too sweet side. Good acid, salinity, pepper spice, black olives, smoke and meatiness to this wine, accentuated by some creaminess and overt oak texture that did not distract in any way. A total treat. Killer course overall.
We slowed down a bit for the next two courses, lots of wine still floating around in numerous glasses, everyone going back and forth between the wines, but really more ribbing and jiving going on. The next two courses had meat components, one grilled ribeye and the other yummy pan seared pork belly (the latter I should have paired with the French syrah).
Wasn’t really a fan of the sauciness of the ribeye course - too much going on - but the pork belly was insanely good. Paired these courses with a 2009 Ridge Montebello and a 2000 Chateau Giscours. The Ridge is what you expect, perfectly balanced and restrained mountain fruit, underscored by firm acid and tannins, and the toast and vanilla of American oak. The Montebello seems to handle the American oak perhaps better than all other Ridge bottlings, and even in this very youthful wine, the oak was not obstructive. It is present, but not unkind. I love the intensity and depth that Ridge gets out of the range of red fruits in its Cabs, melding so well with the darker range of fruits. Somehow I missed the Giscours until the end of the night, so will let MarcF speak to that, this Chateau seems to be one of his faves. I’m glad my buddy Kurt, as usual, brought a Montebello, but ideally, this wine will blossom with 10 more years.
[Intermission! I’ve been writing this up over a nice leisurely breakfast and several cups of very dark Cuban coffee. The house is gracefully empty, dark, cold and very quiet. I’m off to go cycling with one of my buddies from last night to sweat out all this poison. Then I’ll get back to the dessert courses and ending, which really was the kicker to the whole, very long evening]
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