Thanks to Charlie for organizing. Might be the finest wine dinner I’ve attended. Amazing quality for both the food and the wine.
1995 Jacques Selosse Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut Grand Cru- France, Champagne
This was my first time drinking Selosse. Terrible stuff. No, I’m kidding. Took some time to wake up, and with the air an amazing bouquet of pear, apple, truffle and earth billowed from the glass. The depth was remarkable on the palate…it was one of those times when you drink a wine and realize the stuff you’ve drank before is wholly inadequate.
A whole different ball game. (97 pts.)
1999 Coche-Dury Puligny-Montrachet Enseignères- France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet
Very fleshy and round at first. I realized soon that this profound wine just needed air and a chance to warm up a bit. With some patience this was brilliant. Haunting aromas of flint, marzipan, sweet lemon and crushed rocks. Minerality and acidity were flawlessly balanced. Hard to find a fault with this wine. (96 pts.)
2007 Louis Carillon Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet- France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru
One of those wines that you know you’re tasting too early. The acidity was profound, the balance was near perfect, but the fruit was a bit shy. Makes sense to me. This needs time and will become and epic wine. No question. May close in on 100pt territory with time. (95 pts.)
1989 Château Montrose- France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe
This is still a youngish Montrose. The earthy, farm-land armosas are there (thankfully), with great acidity. The palate was shy at times, but had some really nice truffle notes with violets and earth. Great bottle, which for me, eclipsed the 1990 from 3 years ago. This should only improve with time. (95 pts.)
Wow Matt, what wines! Sounds like a stunner of a night and some great wines, the Carillon and Selosse teases my palate in particular. And know the feeling with the Selosse, a deadly blow to the wallet and with manic attempts to recreate those small moments! What kind of food did you guys have with it?
Thanks a lot for sharing!
I have yet to try a vintage Selosse. Even the Initial NV gives me the feeling that a lot of what I’ve been drinking is inadequate. I do like to drink Champagne regularly, though, so price is an issue. I’ll probably spring for a bottle of one of the vintage wines at some point, but I worry about wanting the experience more than once and the subsequent wallet pain that Christofer mentions. Anyway, what a lineup! It must have been a special evening.
We ate at a Korean sushi spot that was perfectly paired with these wines. All the fish was fresh…still moving on the plate (literally) fresh. We had octopus, halibut, spot prawns, steamed eggs, and a great fish soup. Fair amount of other dishes were on the table that I’m having trouble remembering too.
Matt…impressive lineup and great notes. My experience with Coche is fairly limited (unfortunately), but every bottle I’ve had has punched well above its weight and I see that was the case with your PM Enseigneres. Such a great producer. Thanks for posting.
Craig, whether Coche is good value or not is completely subjective, but there is no doubt the wines perform well above their level. Not only that, prices we see here in North America are grossly inflated from ex-cellar prices. It is not Coche charging 5-10x the typical price for AOC level wines.
I believe the 1995 Selosse was the last vintage wine imported before they stopped importing to the States. Sounds like it’s drinking young. Now, the Rare Wine Co. imports, but I don’t know if they have any Vintage wines yet.
Good job on the notes Matt, you had these up within 30 minutes of dropping you off at the hotel haha.
I agree with your notes on the Coche, the balance on the wine was impeccable and really shined with some air that helped dissipate that so2.
I thought the Selosse was nice, but wasnt’ as broad as I was hoping. Was definitely younger than expected being a 95 as I thought it’d be rounder and a bit more fruit forward. Also needed a decant!
The Carillon was like a bull trapped in a cage. It was just darting everywhere. So much power and richness. I think I thought there was far more fruit in it than any of the other wines in the night. It was huge doses of acidity and just a big wine. THe problem was it wasn’t balanced due to its youth. It’ll get there tho!
The monstrose was still deadly young on the palate. I didn’t think it was giving much up, but the nose was beautiful.
Just to add on to what Matt said. The restaurant is this little hole in the wall. No corkage. From what I’ve been told, it’s typically after an afternoon of golf, korean men would come here and eat and drink. Until today, they never employed anyone that speaks english, so normally I just point a lot at what people are eating.
They have tanks of Korean Halibut, Spot Prawns, Octopus and abalone. You just order how much you want, they take it out of the tank and slice and dice it for you. (all images pulled from yelp!)
The halibut comes sliced in thin sheets. You wrap it with lettuce of shiso leaf and dip it into bean paste
Spot prawns are cleaned up and heads fried
Uni bowl, they halve an uni, clean it up and stuff it full of rice, seaweed and fish eggs. So freaking good
On top of that they give you grilled fish, steamed egg, a few salads and the final dish is the best of the night, a spicy fish stew, filled with tofu, daikon, fish eggs and halibut cheek. As there are so many pieces of the halibut they dont’ use after dicing it up, they just put it into a pot of deliciousness.
These are some nice notes, and I’m inclined to agree with most of them. Here are my thoughts:
The Selosse was great, but like every other bottle last night, it kept improving with air. I love the style.
The Coche was fantastic, and kept getting better and better as the night wore on. Together with the Carillon, this was a wonderful introduction to white Burgundy for me.
The Carillon had a lot going for it last night, and the aromatics were fascinating. I like Charlie’s description of the wine as a bull trapped in a cage. I suspect that with time, it will achieve more balance and become exceptional.
The Montrose was definitely drinking young, with mouth-drying tannins. The bouquet was beautiful, classic Bordeaux. I double-decanted this for about four and a half hours before pouring into the decanter to serve, and the wine was still opening up two hours later. The last sip was the best.
On the whole, it was a fantastic lineup. Thanks for organizing, Charlie.
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