Dinner TNs: A quartet from Bordeaux & the northern Rhone +

WINE TALK
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Had dinner last night with a group of budding wine enthusiasts at Gilmore’s, a local French Bistro/BYOB.

We started with the 2007 Christian Moreau Chablis and the 2008 Pepiere Muscadet. Both wines showed nicely, although at least IMO 2008 is one of those years where the Clos de Briords really outshines the regular bottling, well worth the extra few dollars. But the Moreau was very impressive in how quickly it has assimilated the edgy/spiky acidity it was marked with when it first got released, and more and more I think this vintage will turn out to be a spectacular one for those who love classic Chablis.

We then moved on to the main event, a quartet of French reds as follows:

1990 Grand Mayne
1989 La Dominique
1991 Chapoutier Hermitage La Sizeranne
1999 Jean-Luc Columbo Cornas Les Mesjeans

I think my favorite wine of this group was the Grand Mayne, which seems to be at it’s apex right now in terms of drinking window and maturity/complexity - really deelish. The Cornas was also very nice, and given that the previous two bottles of this wine I had opened were both marred by cork taint, I was relieved just to be able to drink the wine as it was intended to taste. The La Dominique was also drinking very nicely, although given the way this wine has shown over the years, I would say that it has started to fall off a bit, at least in 750 format, and should probably be consumed over the next five or so years if you have it. I will get another chance on SAturday to revisit this wine and check for any bottle variation.

All in, not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night in the Philly burbs.

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Bob, I shudder to think what influence you might have on those unsuspecting “budding” enthusiasts. Today Pepiere…tomorrow…The Dead? BTW I agree with you about the Briords, for the 07 vintage too. I also remember an 89 Dominque your shared last year that showed beautifully.

Cheers.

RT

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It’s actually been fun, Rich - these are four former work colleagues of mine that I’ve kept in touch with, and while they don’t have a lot of high end experience (one of the questions last night was “What is Muscadet?”), they are an enthusiastic bunch and are eager to learn. I actually cut & pasted TNs from EBob & IWC to give them some info on the wines, and I have to say that they all performed up to my expectations and were a nice match for Gilmore’s cuisine. And it’s nice to do a “low key” wine dinner every once in a while - these guys all belong to a book club, so the primary topic of conversation is rarely about the wine, which I find to be a nice change from our normal formats.