Lorena’s in Maplewood is a small but excellent French restaurant.
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Some friends took me out there, and I took a bottle of Charles Heidsieck Champagne and 2000 Cos d’Estournel.
I don’t know the degorgement on the CH but I do know I have had it for several years. It was showing various “brown” elements – toasted nuts, leather, pain grillé, a masculine Champagne that is very much in line with my palate, that is what I want. It was an amazing match with the appetizer, a Crabmeat and Mushroom Crêpe. I told my friends, “this chef KNOWS how to make a sauce” – the creamy sauce was enriched with crab and mushroom essence, somehow, I have a feeling this is a sauce that took 18 hours to produce. At any rate a great start.
For the main course, 2 of us had the beef short ribs with potato galette, but Keith and I had the venison tenderloin. This was quite rare, crusted with black papper and black outside but quite red inside. Once again, the spaetzle served with it had a delicious creamy sauce. The red cabbage was cooked sweet and sour, it reminded me of Southern watermelon pickle, it was a good foil to the other dishes but neither Keith nor I finished it.
I had opened the Cos 5 hours before, for slow oxygenation. Examining the bottle with a flashlight, I did not see a whole lot of “schmutz” so we recorked it and let the waiter decant. By the time we drank it, it was a beautiful textbook St. Estèphe, inky dark but with a perfumed bouquet, and rich on the palate. I am reconstructing it in my mind and in a way it seemed hard to tease out elements like cigar box or red currant that I would expect, I suppose this is what people mean by “monolithic.” A delicious and powerful wine but kind of hard to write TN about.
Very satisfying meal, and I was glad to have brought both of those wines.