August Wine Geek's Night at Nostrani

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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Tonight will be the August Wine Geeks of Santa Fe Night at Nostrani Ristorante.

the menu, with our wine selections, follows:


Marc Hebrart NV Brut Rosé

Amusée (we won’t know what it is until it’s served)

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Wilted Escarole, Crisp onions, and Mustard Vinaigrette

Morbier and Risotto Fritter with Roasted Beet Sauce


2004 Domaine Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet Les Vergers

White Fish Stew with Tomato and Fennel


2002 la Pousse d’Or Corton Bressandes
1989 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle

Slow Roasted Short Rib of Beef with Red Wine Reduction


2001 Chateau Coutet Barsac

Fig Tart with Yogurt Cream and Chestnut Honey



If the Rosé runs out early, we’ll try the Pousse d’Or with the fritter.

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The rosé Champagne was great - dry, crisp, with bright, rich strawberry-cherry fruit. It was exquisite with the amusée of a petit-choucroute - rich, thin slices of ham, with a little sauerkraut on a thin slice of foie gras pâte. The Champagne was also nice with the salad of pieces of yellow and orange tomatoes with wilted escarole and crispy fried onions in a tasty mustard dressing.

We had the Pousse d’Or Corton-Bressandes opened to try with the fritter. it was initially quite hard, taking some time to open up to bright fruit and still a little hardness. The ‘fritter’ was two nice fried squash blossoms in a light batter filled with the rice / Morbier mixture on a rich roasted beet - chicken stock - balsamic sauce. The Ramonet was best with the ‘fritter’ with its rich nose and flavors of complex minerallly pear and citrus, with good acidity; and an incredibly long, complex finish. It was also very good with the fish stew - pieces of sole, halibut, and shrimp in a light heritage tomato sauce with pieces of fennel root.

The Pousse d’Or was still a bit closed and hard for the rich short ribs - a slab of slow-roasted boneless meat, very flavorful in a rich, concentrated sauce. so we had the La Chapelle opened and poured. it was even better than last week’s, rich complex berry fruit and a long finish, perfect with the short ribs.

Then, though we hardly had room for it, dessert was brought out, a lovely fig tart with yoghurt and honey. With the delightful dessert we had the 375ml bottle of Chateau Coutet Barsac. They made a good combination to complete the meal. Some four hours after we started we made our way home.

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I’m surprised you enjoyed the 89 La Chapelle being quite young. They are never hard though, IME,but I rarely see them getting any aged characteristics either. The 1983 is slowly getting there, the 1982 still pretty primary and the 1959 just never really has done it for me. If the '59 isn’t showing age, do La Chapelle’s ever really age?

Love aged Hermitage, but the La Chapelle just doesn’t seem to do it for me…

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I’m surprised to see you refer to the 1982 as primary. To me, it’s showing lots of tertiary development and smells beautiful from the moment you pull the cork.

-Al

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Different bottles? Different bottling lots? Different storage? No clue the primary driver between our different impressions.

I’d love to find a time to compare my bottles to someone else’s. My cellar isnt really all that cold, 54F. So I should be seeing “normal development”.

Maybe a 100% La Chapelle offline dinner. A group of 10-12 people and 10-16 bottles of La Chapelle of various ages, some duplicates to see if there is a lot of bottle to bottle variation.