DRC Dinner with Aubert de Villaine

I was lucky enough to be invited to a very small gathering of folks last evening at Gilt Restaurant in The New York Palace Hotel in NYC for a DRC dinner with Aubert de Villaine. Some of Aubert’s prescient comments on the wines and a smattering of my thoughts are below. All the wines were from DRC cellars.

  1. First Course – Scottish langoustine, Iberico ham, saffron, cauliflower crème
    Montrachet 1987 – Aubert said that 1987 was a good example of a botrytis vintage. He described the wine as very persistent, opulent and rich though without the true aging potential of, say, 1985. The wine was about 24 years old, which he described as at perfect and peak maturity for his Montrachets. The wine was nice gold and impeccably clean looking. On the nose peach and marzipan. Nice acidity, terrific balance. Beautiful structure. My rating: 95 points.

  2. Second Course – John Dory, black trumpet mushroom, sweet potato, persimmon and fois gras consommé
    Richebourg 1993 – Aubert notes that 93 was like 96 in that it was vintage saved by the north wind. It wasn’t as strong as the 96 wind and not as spectacular a reversal of fortune. He thinks the vintage is somewhat irregular, but left good concentrated wines. He also believed that the wine is beginning to show some signs of age. Though disjointed initially, he thought it rounded out nicely by the end of dinner. A reticent wine in his view. I thought this was a lovely wine, though it did have some barnyard that took a good long while to blow off, and then not completely. The sweet fruit and spicy notes had some trouble shining through. My rating: 93 points.

La Tache 1996 – Aubert noted that 1996 was the year of the north wind. Before that, the vintage was very difficult. He stated that it rained from July to the end of August, at which point a drying north wind came through and cleared enough of the rot and botrytis that had started. He contrasted the 1996 vintage a bit with the 1997 vintage, where there was a dominating southerly wind. He described the wine as brooding, with very nice structure and good balance, with nice acidity. He said that for a long time, it was very tight, but that it is now just beginning to open. He took this time to mention to me personally that he does not describe wines like the American critics, with blueberry this and asian spice that. He said he prefers noting structural properties and to describe the personality of a wine. He said, “if I say to you that the wine is good, you know what I mean. If I say it is very good, you know that it is slightly more special.” I get the sense that if he had to choose a critical style in describing wine, it would be closest to Clive Coates with his good, very good, fine, very fine, very fine indeed, excellent and grand vin descriptors. I thought the wine was classic La Tache with a real rose petal jam-like nose, with secondary aromas of spice. Nice sweet fruit, earth and leather on the mid palate. Very long on the back end, and the wine seems to be opening nicely. My rating: 97 points.

  1. Third Course – Aged wild duck, smoked cabbage, turnip, mustard and walnut
    Corton 2009 – For the 2009s, Aubert had done many press tastings and so was slightly tired of speaking about this vintage, except to note that he thought that it might be great, but wasn’t sure just yet. He likened it to 1959. Aspects of the 1999s are also present, he posited, although I get the sense that he prefers the 1999s slightly. For the Corton, he noted that this wine was picked first of all his wines and is still quite tight, though he was very pleased with this new offering. For me, the wine was very dark ruby. It was very tannic, almost brooding. Very powerful with robust flavors and great density of body. This wine is still tightly wound and will need age to open up, but the material underneath is very nice. My rating: 94 points.

Romanee St. Vivant 2009 – Aubert didn’t say anything particular about this wine, other than to say that if he was tasting this wine blind he thinks he could pick it out as RSV. Although Aubert is as genteel and classy and soft-spoken as ever, he made this statement in a very funny, mercurial sort of way, as if the challenge would be appealing to him. Much like Leroy’s RSV, this wine was the most elegant of the bunch. I thought it had a really pretty nose, with dominating red fruit profiles, e.g., sweet cherry. The terroir shone through on this wine particularly, in my view. Grace and purity of fruit and mineral throughout. Wow, better and better. My rating: 97 points.

  1. Fourth Course – Saddle of wild venison, red kuri squash, chicory, coffee, huckleberry
    Romanee Conti 1997 – Aubert didn’t say much about the RC as it spoke for itself. As with RC, even in an off vintage for reds such as 1997, there is that extra complexity. Aubert mentioned that the complexity in RC comes often from the stems, which he believes some mistake for a flaw. In his view the stemmy note turns into a complex earthy note after fifteen years or so. He thinks this wine will go another 30 or 40 years. I found the wine to be elegant…so intensely floral on the nose. Medium bodied but so intensely flavored…the color and body of the wine disassociated from the delivery of flavor. I’m not sure it will improve from here, as I think it is on a long flat plateau. But the wine is in a beautiful place right now. Great structure and balance…not as long as some of the other wines we’ve had, but very very pretty. My rating: 95 points.

  2. Fifth Course – Coffee dessert (coffee ice cream and whiskey toffee pudding)
    Fine de Bourgogne 1979 – Aubert noted that 1979 was a vintage where there was bad hail in June before flowering. Perhaps the worst ever. From just south of Nuits St. Georges to Morey St. Denis 100% was lost. In Vosne, yields were 8-9 ha only. Over the summer, he was shocked that the vines recovered. Yields were small without too much botrytis. They picked at the end of October and made wine. But they couldn’t call it La Tache or Romanee Conti because of quality concerns, so they said let’s distill it and make a Fine (or brandy). It has aged in barrel for 17 years and was bottled in 1996. This was unlike any brandy I’ve had. The pedigree of the base material clearly showing through…in a word, brilliant.

All in all an amazing dinner.

Prove it. [stirthepothal.gif]



Seriously though…it sounds like an awesome dinner.

Interesting writeup. Thank you. Do you mind sharing who organized this event? Was it the US importer?

Yes, Wilson Daniels organized it.

Wow, great stuff. I would love to attend one of these some day…

Good, clean living, Barry. The Leroy RSV that you brought to one of our smaller dinners still haunts me.

Fantastic write-up, the La Tache sounds like a dream wine!

If I am not out of line, I would be very interested in learning what the price is for attending such an event?

Barry,

You’re a lucky man.
Thanks for sharing your very interesting notes.

For a wine lover, that is an absolutely tremendous experience.

Best regards,
Alex R.

If you have to ask . . .

Very nice write-up, Barry.

I was interested to see that he served the Fine de Bourgogne at the end. I love this bottle

Thanks guys. Not sure that the host would want the details of cost posted publicly and it would be bad form of me to do so, but suffice it to say the cost of the dinner and tastings of all the wines was dramatically less than any single one of those bottles would cost at retail. Three bottles of each were available for the group and extra pours of all wines were plentiful…I think I had two pours of RC at dinner and one afterward. At least two pours of Montrachet, Tache, etc. Very generous of DRC and Wilson Daniels. And, having said that, there was still wine left over for the somm and staff. Class act all the way.

That is interesting about the Fine. I have seen DRC’s Fine and Marc for sale for years but never knew the reason it was made in the first place was because they had a vintage so disastrous they couldn’t think of anything to do except distill. Yikes. That’s surprising because I have had some very nice '79s from other producers and always regarded it as a bargain vintage worth checking out if the storage is good.

A privilege to spend any time with Aubert, lucky man !

I know the wines overshadowed the food, but how was the food and the service? Did the courses go well with the wine choices?

Barry,
Nicely done! M. Villaine is truly a gentleman

This is the first time I met him. He’s everything you all have noted…humble, impeccable, common, classy, avuncular, etc. Great person, all in all.

Some tidbits and sound bites from the man:

  1. He has very little wine in his own house, neither did his father or grandfather. Just enough. There’s more at the Domaine, he said, but he doesn’t hold back as much as others and so one would be surprised at how little he has even at the Domaine.
  2. One of his favorite vintages is 1953 for the reds, and 1997 and 2000 for his Montrachet.
  3. He really prefers to keep descriptors of his wines to a minimum and would almost prefer to communicate about the wines in very simple, esoteric/personality-driven terms.
  4. He is doing away with 3L formats going forward.

Food was very good, service excellent. Room was amazing!

Great report, Barry. I’m confused about 1979. Are you saying DRC distilled the entire vintage, and bottled no wine that year? I’ve seen TNs if I recall correctly on 1979 La Tache, Romanee Conti, etc.

Hey Lewis. I really don’t know. Only passing on what Aubert said, which was that they couldn’t call the wine RC or LT and so decided to distill. And the declassification may not have been for issues of quality but typicity. Picking in late October would have resulted in a unique and atypical wine. Who knows, they may have still made some wine that year. He didn’t say.

Aubert notes that 93 was like 96 in that it was vintage saved by the north wind. It wasn’t as strong as the 96 wind and not as spectacular a reversal of fortune. He thinks the vintage is somewhat irregular, but left good concentrated wines. He also believed that the wine is beginning to show some signs of age.

I found the description of 1993 most interesting. The '93 vintage is deified on these boards sometimes. It is , IMO, highly irregular, particular as one gets farther away from the trophier appellations. '93, as a vintage, always raises the question of what criteria one is using in evaluating a vintage.

I’ve met Mssr. Villaine but I would absolutely love to have a dinner like this w/him; I’d even provide the wines. Wow, it would be great to have him on berserker.
alan

Lewis…I believe RC was released in vintage 1979.

After World War II, RC was made from vintage 1952 until now…except vintage 1968.