TN--magical bottle of burg for a birthday celebration

The birthday was my very good friend Heather’s. With friends Jay Shampur (both of them are in my current profile picture with me) and Michael Wright, we dined at tasting menu restaurant Edulis–my first time, and food was very good. We ordered a Bereche champagne off the menu which was quite saline, lemony and lively and went well with many dishes and a Cordoniu which started pretty squared off but which I sort of warmed up to a bit as the afternoon went on. I brought a handpicked bottle.

I had some fun and brought it in a current-release screwcapped bottle of Yellow Tail Big Bold Red. But the 2013 Emmanuel Rouget Vosne Villages was one of those special, special wines.

I gave it a full 8-hour decant the day before. And on the palate, it is still very, very young. But the nose…the bouquet smells like the Palace of Versailles. All luxury and sumptuousness and elegance all at the same time. Just kept folding and unfolding all sorts of different aromatics—and those ranged into the pencil lead, tobacco and roasted chestnut realm. Super-beguiling nose, this was almost like a Recioto in that it was a meditation wine for me, really. On the palate, I’ve never had the opportunity to decant one of his this much and what came out for me was the character of the stem inclusion—could really get it here (as sort of a herbs-and-roots thing, and just as much in feel) but it fit so well with what the wine will become. Another 25 years would probably be best, but even today this was amazing juice. 94+ and on the WOTY list.

Nice!

Cool note Mike. I’ve just started getting into Burgundy and this is the type of experience I hope to have!

Happy Birthday to Heather. The Vosne sounds wonderful.
Love those Rouget wines.

Fred has met her, Don. I hope to coax her down to Atlanta with Jay and me in October. You’ve had experiences, I’m sure, where you almost don’t (or don’t) write a note about a wine because it’s almost impossible to do so. This was close.

Please describe how the deception played out in the Yellowtail bottle. I like the idea.

Emptied the contents of the Yellow Tail, partially into a pot roast. Refilled with the Rouget. The thing about the Yellow Tail bottle is that it is screwcapped, so easy to “recork” and bring to the restaurant. There were initial horrified looks from my tablemates, with Heather “this isn’t the kind of birthday present I had in mind!”, but all immediately deduced (it being me) that not all was as it appeared. Funny, the server took a sniff and also immediately realized that we had burgundy in the glass rather than the Aussie product. I was especially pleased that it was the “Big Bold Red” bottling :slight_smile:

Would have been even better if Apothic had screwcaps to their bottles, as Heather had the temerity to serve that as a demonstration wine at an early wine seminar of hers which I attended :wink: