My mother’s birth year! She’s excited to try it as are the rest of us. Plan is to open this during a luncheon and serve with food. If anyone has experience with (much) older Sauternes I’d appreciate your thoughts on pairing. I’m open to where and when in the meal to serve it, but definitely want it served with food rather than alone! And yes, I’ll post a note…
This particular version of foie was the best I had while in Budapest last year, and I had many renditions I remember this going very well with whatever Tokaji they poured with that course.
Seared foie over baked apples and buttery fondant potatoes
Dave and Elliot,
This seems traditional and the richness pairs really well with younger Sauternes. Does it work well with 50-100 year old bottles too? I have no idea.
I’ll defer to Monsieur Audouze on that one. Maybe make several dishes that may or may not pair well with it but will be good food regardless. Maybe serve it with a well thought out cheese plate. Something with hard cheeses that are salty and savory and let the sauternes act as the dried fruit and nuts that you would serve alongside the cheeses normally.
I would suggest an alternative but no less classic pairing: lobster. IMO a better match for an older, more delicate wine when prepared simply (e.g. poached with a little beurre blanc)
Elliot’s thought re: cheese (and specifically hard cheese) sounds good too
This…living in Maine I tend to eat a lot of Lobster. It’s cheaper than chicken here in the off season. I’d assume that if you got some lobsters, steamed them, and then made a super fine potato creme to put in the base of a bowl, put the lobster meat on top, and then poured the melted butter over the top you’d find that to be a near perfect pairing. The sweetness of the meat with the rich butter should match everything just about perfectly. Soft-shell lobsters are going to be sweeter than hard-shell lobsters. I usually assume 1.5 Soft-shell lobsters/guest when I’m having people over.
We paired the 1921 Coutet with caramelized walnuts. I thought it was a decent but not superb pairing. The wine is going to be a difficult pairing, but something light and unobtrusive is likely going to be best. I like the ideas of milder hard cheeses or a light lobster with cream.
a. A mild blue cheese
b. A fruit-based dessert, with something like apricots or apples, in a pastry. Not too sweet.
Was also just skimming Francois’s website, in 2004 he had a pairing of a 27 Sauternes with a dessert of grapefruit in tea sauce. At the time he described the pairing as “one of the most brilliant that I have ever encountered in the forty dinners that I have organized”. Food for thought.
We had a 27 La Tour Blanche maybe 10-15 years ago. It’s the oldest sweet wine I’d ever had. However it wasn’t all that sweet at that point. So if you are going to great efforts to pair it with something - and if whats in the bottle ends up being thin and wan - maybe have something else as a backup to pair with dish too. (that foie gras looks amazing, but I think our state has banned the sale of high fat foie gras)
Tim - I thought you were at the event when the 27 LTB was popped?
No I wasn’t there, although I contributed a bottle of 24 LTB to an event, is that what you mean? Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually make it to the event due to unexpected work commitments.
I opened a '29 Climens for a friend on his 80th birthday and it’s the best Sauternes/Barsac I’ve ever had (and have had quite a few of the famous ones, though none older). It was in brilliant shape, but I have no experience of 1927.
Don’t expect much sweetness, but there should be a lot of richness. Of the above ideas I like the cheeses (though I would favor creamy cheeses) and the lobster (which would be a great match, based on my experience matching somewhat old Sauternes to lobster), and am fascinated by the '27 Sauternes with grapefruit and tea sauce.
Hi all, thanks for all the stories and suggestions! After reading some of your feedback last night, lobster with a light sauce or butter became my focus. Ultimately it comes down to preconceived tastes as well as what the guest list may find acceptable. In this case a few of the principles object to fois gras, so Elliot’s Budapest dish shall be recreated at a later time! I’ll post the results here sometime in the next month or so.
A couple of thoughts. Older yquem doesnt play. Old yquem is orders of magnitude sweeter and livelier than just about any other sauternes. Id pair with something mild, lobster with little else sounds like a good idea. If the wine is livelier than expected, the lobster will still work. If its a lot less sweet than you imagine (and it probably will be) lobster would still work. I would avoid sweetness altogether or anythyng too pungent.
Clearly I am in the minority here but I would simply enjoy the wine alone. This type of very old wine is hard to pair especially when you factor in the unknown condition of any wine that old. Something like this is the highlight (I assume so at least) and if is shows reasonably well will stand on its own and elicit pleasure as such.