Our Monday night dinner group celebrated one of our member’s birthday while dining at our righteous venue of choice, Ca Dario Montecito.
Appropriately, we chose champagne as our theme and poured them blind. As usual, we shared our thoughts and impressions throughout the dinner and then towards the end, revealed the wines.
Each bottle was double brown bagged to hide the bottle shape and taped at the top of the neck to avoid foil recognition, then placed in plastic bags to allow for continued chilling on ice and then numbered by a member of the wait staff to keep it as blind as possible.
It’s rare that we ever have duplicates, but as it turned out, we had 2 of the same, but no problem, as they were stellar examples of the genuine article and a champagne I’ve loved so much; I stop counting after having drank from 100 over a year ago.
Some of us actually remarked we might have a dup and even the possibility to have all 4 being the same, but one quick pass through each confirmed that was not the case for at least 2 bottles that were distinctively different IMHO.
The color on all 4 was very similar light yellow which seemed to suggest we did not have anything with a lot of age or oxidative:
2006 TAITTINGER COMTES de CHAMPAGNE BLANC de BLANC- blind; the nose had some mild toasted brioche notes along with remembrances of lemon lime soda as well as some honeysuckle and golden delicious apple and the taste profile had more of the same; this wine just reeked of class and elegance possessing lots of grace, finesse and charm and yet had enough stuff to be taken seriously; along with bright acidity, it had a light creamy mousse and was in perfect balance; it was my fav of the 4 each time I went through the flight and as it turned out, it was the bottle I brought although I was not certain it was CdC as I was pretty sure the next one was.
2006 TAITTINGER COMTES de CHAMPAGNE BLANC de BLANC- blind; I found very similar notes here as I had just discovered in the bottle before it although this seemed to be just a bit bigger, bolder and richer; clearly, it had similar honeyed and lightly toasted brioche accented lemon, lime and golden delicious apple fruit with an addition of some fresh yellow peach; it had a creamy mousse and sported bright acidity while being in perfect balance and absolutely fabulous in every way; I’m thinking this is my bring and yielding to the more elegant and charming number one bottle as my fav thinking that was a 2004 DP.
2002 PIPER-HEIDSIECK CUVEE RARE BRUT- blind; 70% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir, dosed at about 10 gpl; vinified in stainless steel tanks with full malolactic; the nose, and eventually the taste, was telltale for me as it had that signature anise, licorice, black pepper and mint character that I have found so often in this wine regardless of vintage; a recent 1995 Charles Heidsieck Millesime surprisingly also displayed similar notes; after a few tastes, I concluded this was not the Charles Heidsieck version as that was bigger and richer and this bottle was very close to all previous Rare I’ve had.
2008 LAURENT-PERRIER BRUT MILLESIME- blind; 50% Chardonnay and 50% Pinot Noir; dosed at 8 gpl; my first pass on this was impressive as it was the biggest and boldest of the 4 and seemed to be more mature although the color denied such; the nose offered fresh orange blossoms and bright citrus notes and the taste profile expressed a lot of stone fruit as in peach and nectarine along with some mango, apple and lemon with accents of minerals and saline; it was creamy, rich and full bodied and finished with a concentrated hit of lemon oil; as keen as i might have been in picking out the Piper-Heidsicek, I completely missed the ID of this wine and just 2 weeks ago, I had called it within seconds after tasting it blind although this bottle seemed to be a distinct variation from all other ’08 L-Ps I’ve had; in fact, I thought this was 2002 Krug at first, but then the mineral, saline and stone fruit notes suggested otherwise.
I’m pretty sure our birthday boy enjoyed the evening and he brought the 2nd bottle of the ’06 CdC to celebrate and share. The 4 of us loved doing the champagnes blind so much, we discussed doing it more often as the wine theme for the entire night in lieu of having none or just one bottle as per the norm.
Cheers,
Blake
