Champagne & Burgundy (mostly) at Westward

WINE TALK
,
1

M&PD TASTING: WESTWARD - Seattle, WA, USA (3/3/2024)

Mark hosted us at Westward in the little "not quite enclosed space" just off the entrance. Big table, amazing ice bucket, plenty of glassware, insanely delicious food. Total homerun setup.

Bubbles

Dill dip and fresh potato chips

Oysters (wolf beach & olympic wild), verjus mignonette, lemon

Sockeye salmon ceviche tostada, chimichurri crema, red onions, aji peppers

  • 1995 Dom Pérignon Champagne Oenothèque - France, Champagne
    What a nice way to start a tasting! Quite mature (as compared to past tastes of the 1996 Oeno), this 1995 complex, lovely and a bit oxidative.
  • 2008 Dom Pérignon Champagne Brut Chef de Cave Legacy Edition - France, Champagne
    Special gold label. Explosive energy, density, this reminds me of the 1996 Dom from it's youth, more of a White Burg that has some bubbles. I kept coming back. This is a WOW wine!
  • 2012 Dom Pérignon Champagne - France, Champagne
    Young, nice, nervy and nervous. Sharp, gaining intensity, frothy and fine bead, that classic Dom piercing lemon/lime citrus precision.

Whites

Chicory panzanella, tomatillo vinaigrette, spiced pepitas, golden raisins

  • 1999 Domaine / Maison Vincent Girardin Chevalier-Montrachet - France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru
    A bit of gold color. This opens up with a big nose of hazelnuts, really quite exotic, touch of oak. The palate is waxy and rich at first, just delicious. It didn't seem very Chevalier-Montrachet when first opened. However when I circled back a few hours later it had focused down into a much more minerally, precise, saline and savory wine. Really Chevy at the end of the night.
  • 2015 Renaud Bruyère & Adeline Houillon Arbois Pupillin Chardonnay Vieilles Vignes - France, Jura, Arbois Pupillin
    This opens up, fairly bracing (some speculation that there was some small percentage of Savagnin in there?), a bit reductive, quite a razor blade of precision. It did develop a little natural wine funk over time as it aired. Quite interesting. Perhaps the one "lost" wine on this night of so many special wines, it deserved more introspection and focus than I was able to give it. More intellectual than purely pleasurable.

Red Burg

Seared black cod steak, cioppino butter, confit fennel

Crispy yukon potatoes

Loire

Confit duck leg, roasted garlic aioli, hazelnut crust

  • 2014 Clos Rougeard (Foucault) Saumur-Champigny Le Bourg - France, Loire Valley, Anjou-Saumur, Saumur-Champigny
    Double-decanted a few hours earlier, this was sharply reductive. A few hours served it quite well, unreal funk, shockingly good, bell pepper, tobacco, spicy, vibrant, really a revelation. So much leaf and stem, a baby Bordeaux with incredible fruit. Utter wow.

Sweet

Corn and almond olive oil cake, whipped cream, blackberry compote

These just keep getting better.

Posted from CellarTracker

5 Likes
2

Interesting descriptor… a new one to me?? Plasticky? Soap sudsy?

And it’s been a few years since I had 01 Rousseau Chambertin, but I do recall it having exquisite balance.

Menu looks the goods!

3

More like vinyl. Not quite petrol but in the family.

1 Like
4

Here for the first three notes! Re: the ‘12 Dom, when you say “gaining intensity,” do you mean vis a vis previous bottles or over the time consumed? :cheers:

5

When I first read it I thought “a close cousin of tennis ball”.

6

Over the time consumed. There was a lot of the 2008 and 2012 still in the bottle (on ice) at the end of dinner, so it was easy to check back in.

1 Like
7

Pickleball?

8

great notes. 2008 DP continues to show its greatness. Rare for a wine to have such hype and exceed it so regularly.

9

A little research . . .

Indole has been implicated in the phenomenon known as untypical (UTA) or atypical (ATA) ageing. Indole, methyl indole and aminoacetophenone, which are related to the metabolism of the amino acid tryptophan, are believed to contribute to this fault. Indole has been described as having a ‘chemical’, ‘plastic’, ‘mothballs’, ‘styrene’ and ‘rubber/plastic’ aroma. Under certain growing conditions, the grape might accumulate excessive concentrations of these compounds in the bound, glycosidic form. These bound components might later be hydrolysed, or broken, releasing the free odour-active volatiles, resulting in the fault (Zoecklein 1995). Background level in wines appear to be less than 10 µg/L. An informal sensory threshold study at the AWRI was conducted using six tasters who were sensitive to indole and an aroma threshold of 23 µg/L was obtained. Faulty wines have been observed with a concentration of indole between 30 and 350 µg/L.

This is from the Australian Wine Research Institute.

Personally, I find this shower curtain smell most often in aged white wines, often with some RS. I think of it as a fault but I suppose others may not.

10

Ignorance is bliss. I had no idea 2008 was supposed to be good. This one was an absolute stunner however,

11

I have always associated UTA in Riesling to having a mezcal or tequila note. I suppose I could see that in the zone of rubber/plastic. Once it has been pointed out, you start seeing it all over the place.

fred

1 Like
12

This all sounds awesome, Eric, thanks for posting. I must admit though, it was the “cioppino butter” that has me lusting. I must try to create this! :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like