Todd French and Tony Velebil were in town this weekend so we decided to have them over and drink some stuff.
(Here are my lame impressions. I had to post them or face the possibility of being banned. Hopefully others will provide a little more meat.)
'95 Bolly Grande Anne was sublime
'96 Chave was good
'97 Chave was better
'98 Chave was best, distinctively different than the 96 & 97, (it had a toasted graham cracker note which I really liked.)
'85 View Telegraph was the '88. I liked it but for me it was outclassed by the Chave’s, (I know different grapes yadda yadda…)
'02 Ponsot - was rather closed. Will be stellar in 10 years. Completely different profile than any of the other wines, (duh - it’s Burgundy)
'98 Cheval Blanc - I really liked this but it’s much too young. Still showing a little vanilla cupcake and some oak. I think it will integrate and evolve into a stellar wine.
'96 Cos was good for me but not great. I’m a huge fan of '96 Cos in general. I preferred the '90 Pichon - which was stellar.
'90 Pape Clement - I’ve had this many many times & this was definitely representative. A very nice bottle of wine - I love Graves.
'91 Caymus Really nice core of fruit & drinking perfectly right now.
'02 Dugat Py Charmes. I thought this was a brilliant wine. I’m a huge fan of Dugat Py so it wasn’t surprising. 10 years and it will blow your mind.
'70 Martini Still had tons of fruit and some structure. Very nice but by this time, well… we’d all had a lot of wine.
'2000 Beaucastel way too young. 10-15 years and it will hopefully not be like the '85.
'85 Beaucastel Madeira anyone? (Flawed bottle)
'02 Fevre Bougros - I liked it, everyone else hated it. I’m right.
'91 Dominus nice wine but not as structured as I remember and not quite as funky. Still, I’d be happy to open one exactly like this on any given night.
Fact is, we had a LOT of really nice wines. Flaws aside everything for me was either good to great to stellar.
That was a LOT of fun! Ed & Joan did a killer job hosting. French is a riot in person. TonyV, man he doesn’t pull any punches for sure. Saxon is always a riot. And a pleasure to see the Gordons. Who did I forget? Sorry that Noble got a stomach bug and had to miss out.
A few of us also hit up Salumi earlier in the day for some killer Porchetta, hot soppresata, Agrumi (with citrus and coriander), yum.
Todd lugged the mag of Grande Annee up from Dana Point and it was drinking about perfectly. Super creamy texture with just the right amount of age and a nice acidic kick on the back end to give it a super long finish. If pressed, I’d probably pick it as my WOTN among several rock stars.
Ed - great meeting you and thanks to you and your wife for the terrific hospitality and putting up with all of us and all the cooking!!!
Eric - thanks again for the behind the look at the “new and improved” CellarTracker. Folks, it’s gonna be awesome.
And Steve Saxon who put up with us on Saturday after he took Todd and me out on a 12.6 mile Kayak adventure. Oh man did my shoulders hurt later that evening…today feel’s pretty good!
That was so much fun. The Seattle wine crew is really a terrific group of folks. And Salumi was very, very good.
Agree with your notes except I liked the Fevre too. I thought the Ponsot was really good, just very young and tight but there’s a good core of fruit underneath the acid/minerals.
I liked the COs but thought the Pichon was very, very nice.
The Chave flight was terrific and your ordering is probably where my tastes lined up. Although I probably liked the 96 and 97 about the same. The 96 had a silky elegance, clean. The 97 had a wilder/earthier nose than the 96 but not quite the same for me on the palate…but it is splitting hairs. The 98 was really nice…
Now I need to detox the liver - after the Superbowl of course
Hmm Tony, I thought you were the one dissing the Fevre hard, but clearly I was mistaken. Someone was absolutely railing on it, French?
Of the Chave I thought the 97 was most enjoyable now, really great nose right in the zone. I think the 1998 is easily the best of those longer term.
I loved the 1998 Cheval, such amazing minerality and grace underneath the still young veneer of oak. This is a seriously classy wine that is sleeping right now.
The Ponsot (or was it Dujac?!?) was crazy good, so sad to see that bottle empty so quickly. I have very little red burg in the cellar, but man is the stuff eerily seductive.
I was loving the Bordeaux with the lamb. Pure happy zone. And the 2001 Pegau is probably the best vintage since 1990. That bottle was an afterthought I grabbed on the way out the door–drank half the bottle a day earlier and just stuck a cork in it overnight. Very clean, very Pegau, very balanced. Still not as good as a the 2000 for current consumption but with ages ahead of it.
I was glad that French lugged the mag of Bolly–I KNEW that people would love that, and it was the perfect way to start. So much win in that bottle!
now listen there, Mr. Ed…and I’m not just horsing around…
we had a lot of discussion that nite about whether the ’91 Dominus was a flawed
bottle…to me it was nothing like any ’91 Dom I’ve ever tasted before…
this is a copy of a note posted on another thread after a Superbowl party held yesterday:
1991 Dominus Estate Napanook Vineyard - USA, California, Napa Valley (2/8/2010)
WOTN-next to a 90 PB and a 89 Palmer as well as 92 and 94 Dominus.
Bordeaux nose-tobacco,cedar, leather, rich dark fruit,mushrooms. Really really deep nose.
Lot’s of energy left in this bottle-nice acidity,raspberry marmalade,worn leather,dry dirt,tobacco,dark cassis.
Explosive finish that delivers with beautiful balance. (96 pts.)
It took hours to open up - in the early stages, it was full of green bell pepper, and turned a lot of people off. By the end of the evening, it was a COMPLETELY different wine - the transformation was incredible, actually.
if you were stuck in a bottle for 20 years… you might need a little time to strech and adjust before you were in full form… sounds a bit reductive… not a quality I have experienced with the PB
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