Once in a while everything just lines up. The wine gods smile on you and all the bottles hit, the food works, and a dinner turns into a real party. Those are the nights that make wine collecting so much fun and make the wine community so great. For all its faults, at its best, I think the wine world is the most generous, convivial group around.
Last night a raucous crew hit the Polo Bar here in NYC on a mission to pop some serious corks and have some fun.
1985 Clos des goisses (I believe regular disgorgement): Really good. In a very solid place maturity wise. I would drink up, but I don’t mean that negatively. Rock solid and delicious.
1961 Dom Perignon Mag: The consensus among the real pros here was that this was a somewhat late disgorgement but not super late. Prior to all the wedding bottles. What a treat to drink this wine. Such amazing generosity from the contributor. This thing was so sturdy that we kept coming back to it throughout the night and it never budged an inch. It evolved, but it did not degrade. Smoking good.
04 DRC Monty vs 04 Coche CC: An awesome comparison because these wines are at such a different end of a spectrum, and yet they were both delicious. The montrachet was fatter and more opulent, while the CC had much more minerality. Pick your poison. I favor wines more in the monty style, but I think the consensus was leaning the other way.
91 Leroy Richebourg: This provoked a lot of debate about Leroy vs DRC. In the instances I’ve had them side by side, I find people are usually seduced by the Leroys. They’re generally sexier than their DRC counterparts. And while there was no DRC 91 here to compare, that didn’t stop another diner from immediately volunteering that this would kill a 91 DRC riche if it were on the table. We’ll never know, but I think that’s probably right. This was hopelessly good. Angeringly good. Made worse once you compute that your home is worth 10.4 bottles. How can these wines be so good that they tempt you into throwing that much money at them? Somehow, they are. F*!%.
99 DRC Riche: Well,we didn’t have a perfect comparison. But we did have something. As the person next to me said: “DRC just dropped the hammer on us.” That really summed it up. A perfect example of why DRC is DRC. More correct than the Leroy, if that makes sense. Maybe not as spectacular, but more flawless. Men being men, and blood alcohol levels being what they were, various analogies that I won’t repeat here were offered.
93 vs 95 Rousseau Beze: The 93 edged out the 95, in my opinion, but both were very solid. What struck me about these wines was the density, especially compared to the Leroy. It’s such a different style, but so good in its way.
It was a long evening. It was over the top. And it was a great night. I left very thankful to the others for their generosity and their company.
Cheers
Patrick
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