There was also an old Norwegian pinot noir (l’Esprit d’Edvard Munch) from 1995. Though interesting, this most certainly represented the ‘mixed’ part of the tasting… I believe it was the third most expensive wine when these were purchased in the late ‘90s(!)
I’ve posted on this dinner (not really a tasting) half a dozen times over 30 years. I’ve probably gotten a lot older than the wines:
Summer of 1982. Sally and I are in France. This is my first professional wholesale buying trip, and the first time Sally and I have been away alone together in the 5 years since our son Matt was born.
Our last night in France. It had been blazingly hot in Bordeaux and incredibly was not much cooler in Paris. We’ve booked our only Michelin starred dinner of the trip, at Vivarois, *** (three stars!).
Late July, 8:00 PM, outside temperature over 90F, restaurant almost empty as we enter. One table of about 10 Japanese, one other couple and us. I’m dying in coat and tie. The Japanese, all ditto, aren’t too perky either nor the other couple. Waiter brings menus and we order: Curried oysters for Sally (house specialty), bloc of foie gras for me (can’t resist no supplemental charge). Another couple breezes in. I get the impression of a well-travelled American man, in white jacket, with younger French date. The restaurant door has been left open and a sad floor fan is not moving much of the hot air. Man sits, then stands and takes off his jacket. Me, the man in the other couple, and 10 Japanese simultaneously do likewise, looking gratefully at our liberator.
Sommelier, looks and walks just like Charlie Chaplin, deadpan. I order a bottle of 1976 Late Harvest Gewurz. No change in his expression, except that we could feel his whole mood change; now he’s alive and interested, and his warmth quotient has gone up 1000%. I’ve ordered the only thing on the extensive list that goes with both apps - LH for the foie gras, Gewurz for the curry. Next, translated from his bad English, my non-existent French and Sally’s occasional help:
“Monsieur likes wine?”
“Oh, yes!”
“I have some good half bottles in the cellar that are not on the list. Would you like me to serve you some?”
“Yes, but I should know the costs.”
Instead of the dreaded, expected, “don’t worry about the cost”, the sommelier looked me straight in the eye and said:
“Monsieur, I will not hurt you.”
I trusted him.
“Bring 'em on!”
The food was wonderful, but completely lost. I cannot remember a single dish other than the appetizers that provoked the wonder. I will never forget the wines, all in 1/2 bottle:
1976 Batard Montrachet, Leflaive
1971 Chablis Grand Cru ‘Les Clos’, Long-Depaquit
1969 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru ‘Grande Rue’ Lamarche
1964 Chateau Cheval Blanc
1961 Hermitage ‘La Chapelle’, Jaboulet-Aine
The bill came. It had three lines.
2 covers
1 Gewurz LH
1 ‘vins divers’
The ‘vins divers’ came to $50 American. As I left, I tried to thank the sommelier. He said “It is I who owe you the thanks because you like good wine. Few of my customers, even French, care about it.”
Dan Kravitz
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You win! Awesome story.
It’s more than 10 years ago but I still remember it well . I got a call from a good friend in Beaune . He told me that Bernard Noblet ( wine maker at DRC ) was invited by a famous Hong Kong wine collector to a comprehensive comparative tasting between the wines from DRC and the ones from Henri Jayer . Since Bernard did not speak any English , I was supposed to be the translator ….
It was fantastic . We had Echezeaux and Richebourg’s from lot’s of vintages . The wines were very different , as Jayer always destemmed and DRC not . I prefered the Jayer wines in so called bad or average vintages such as 1980 and the DRC wines in more ripe years such as 1985 and 1990 .
We were sitting at a long table , Noblet and me at one side and a lot of Hong Kong Chinese tasters at the other side . Their wifes were not allowed to sit at the table but were standing behind their respective husbands and were allowed a sip once in a while .
At night , we were invited to a magnificent dinner but I only remember that I was sitting next to a charming Guy Roulot and that an imperiale of Palmer 1983 was badly corked .
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How about the best tasting I never attended?
My parents moved out to Acampo, California. It’s in the Lodi Appellation. They bought a home with a vineyard and an old redwood barn on it. I’m not sure if they fell in love with the land more than the old barn, but they liked it there a lot. The vineyard crop was sold out in bulk, I think, but don’t quote me on it. It basically paid for the property taxes on the place.
Out front of their house were some head trained Zinfandel vines. My friends and parents and I picked some of those. We made a nice simple dry rosé, unfiltered and unfined. We ended up meeting Darrell Corti over that wine, and learned a ton from Darrell. But we also made a red Zinfandel, too. We put some fun labels on some bottles. The labels had my daughter’s name on them – she was an infant.
My mother ended up turning that barn into a pretty serious winery. She makes really nice Rhone-style white wines, and some rosés there. The place has quite a following. A few barns and a lot more wine later, the place is a bit of destination in the area. More than that, it’s let me watch my mother achieve something I am both proud of and impressed by. Just a really wild crazy ride.
So the tasting. My daughter, now a teenager off in college, sends me a note the other night. She’s visiting my parents. She and my parents found that old red Zin with her name on it. They opened a bottle and tasted it together. My daughter sent me a text message describing it: “It’s so good. Dark plum, tobacco, cocoa, leather, black pepper, no funk. Body is thin. Finish is short. Slightly hot. It tastes like what you buy.”
This is a 17 year old Zinfandel, if I have my dates right, and one that we had no business making at the time. Just like a kid, just like a family: you feel like you have no business making something special happen, and really, you didn’t. It just kind of happened. Nature took over. And you were there. Or not exactly there. Best tasting of my life for sure.
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I never replied to this one but for me it was 2000 in San Francisco, a comprehensive tasting of Massandra wines going back a century. Was simply incredible. Second and third place go to a 2000 tasting of Musar back to the ‘70s with Serge (RIP) in Berkeley. And my introduction to big tastings - spring 1992 at Greens in San Francisco, a comprehensive tasting of 1990 vintage Burgundies on release. It was overwhelmingly good. A few local producers were pouring too including a guy named Sean Thackrey, also RIP. A formative experience as a very young wine geek at that point.
Your mom does make beautiful wines so I’m not surprised even that one was nice.
I have to list two tastings, at least.
Huge tasting - 1983. Preview tasting for Heublein wine auction was held in DC. Still in my 20s, I took off the afternoon from work and went with a good friend. We had all types of rarities. Yquem from 1971 and one from the late 1920s. 1969 Petrus, 1934 Chambertin from Bouchard, 1940 La Tache, 1945 COMTE DE VOGUE MUSIGNY. Tokaji Essencia from the 1950s. BV Private Reserve 1968-78 (Heublein owned BV) and a whole lot more. Wow. What a great education on how great wine could be.
When John Gilman started A View From the Cellar, he arranged two nights of tastings of the wines of Jacky Truchot for an article he was doing for Issue 3. I attended both nights and contributed some wines for the tastings, as did others. We had about 10 wines each from 4 different vineyards. First night, MSD Clos Sorbes and Clos de la Roche. Second night, GC Combottes and Charmes Chambertin. What a weekend.
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Those Heublein tastings were something else. All sorts of old clarets, Bouchard wines from the 19th century, TBAs. People were so lined up for the clarets I circled back on the Bouchard.
I was just reminded of an event created by Dave Paige and John Ritchie. This must have been held around 2007 somewhere around Newberg Oregon. They started with threeMontrachets, then a few this and that, then a 93 Domaine Drouhin wine in a big bottle they had purchased at a charity auction from Veronique Drouhin, who attended, along w Dominique Lafon, Jim Clendenen, Eric Asimov, and a few other Burgundians. Then a 61 Romanee St Vivant made by the Drouhins. Then we slipped into the Doris Duke collection going back to the early 1920s.
Then they started opening up Ports and Sauternes…the next day i had notes on about fifty wines, 15 of which were legible.
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