Hooked up with Craig Haserot from Sojourn Cellars and his wife Ellen. Craig invited myself and a co-worker, along with his buds David Sugarman and Jeff Fillippi. Craig and I banter all the time about “undervalued” Burgundy, and Malconsorts when it’s on, it’s tough to beat for the money (and being next to La Tache, it ain’t that tough!)
We checked out Apiary, which luckily does corkage free Mondays. I was drawn in by my friend Brett Feore, who reached out to me a couple of weeks ago and mentioned he was there. The chef is Scott Bryan, formerly of Veritas, and I was shocked when I saw the menu. SUPER reasonable, and ultra tasty. I got a 3" bone-in Berkshire pork chop for $25. Hard to shake a stick at that in NYC. We kind of did family style with the food, ordering loads of stuff to share with the table. Awesome idea, as we had killer risotto, sweetbreads, skate and a few other nibbles.
On to the wines…
Open up with 89 Jadot Meursault Perrieres. Coming off an awkward experience with the 04 Jadot Batard, I didn’t really know what to expect. At first is was closed, but started putting out great vanilla and smoke notes, along with pear, quince, fig and baked apple. Really tasty, awesome texture with good underlying acid. Shockingly, no rush to drink this. 93+
Next was an odd bottle of 96 Billaud Simon Chablis Les Clos. Didn’t know what to make of this. Some really smokey, oaky notes on the nose with a really heavy handed texture (a la Cali Chard). This was not my cup of tea at all. The wine lacked good focus and verve. It wasn’t oxy, but had a lot of the character that goes along with it (basically, minus the sherry). Too odd to rate.
On to the super star of the evening, 88 Domaine Leflaive Batard. Sweet freaking jesus this is good stuff. Focused, bright, perfectly balanced, and had just the right amount of oily texture. Fresh picked apple, pear, mineral, lemon, white tea, saline and kerosene were all melded together really nicely. Best Chardonay I have ever had. 99 points.
A rather reserved bottle of 02 Baumard Clos Papillon was up next. It’s closed, but fresh and crisp and would have been really nice with some fatty oysters. Sadly, those weren’t on the menu. Too young to properly rate.
47 Barolo? Borgogno is generally not a fave of mine, but this was a great bottle. The consensus was this was topped off (the cork didn’t look 62 years old either), as the fruit was some what fresh, and had some really nice stink to go with it. Had some barnyard, trash, old grass and rose notes, odd combo indeed. The palate had fair texture, with really nice acidity. Was awesome with the risotto. 91 points
On to the VRs…88 Lamarche. Nice start, and really restored my confidence in 88 Reds. (I have had a bad run lately) Cranberry, cherry, raspberry and a hint of red plum mix well with brown spices and a hint of saddle leather. Great start. 92 Points
96 Cathiard was the preferred of the two 96s, and the Dominique Laurent was simply too light. Neither wine knocked me out, but showed good vineyard character, and very charming read fruits. Given the vintages, vineyard and producers, I expected more. I would have rated them 90 and 87 respectively. In a twist of fate, wine of the flight was the 03 Cathiard This had a ton going on: Darker, richer fruits, great texture and mouth feel, along with surprising amounts of secondary character and very good length on the finish. Not sure how long this will last, but feel free to dabble. It’s in a good spot. 92 points.
The 95 Hudelot Noellat was an oddity. Their wines are super elegant, and this really showed that. It did improve as the night went on, but didn’t have the texture of many of the other wines. Having said that, it was like a better version of the 96 DL. 90 Points
The show stopper in the Malconsorts flight was the 95 Thomas Moillard. WOW! Inky, fat, and rich, but with acid to rope it all together. 30+ second finish. The pork chop had a spicy component to it, and this was able to take it down a notch. Not a producer I have been exposed to before, but it’s got my attention now. 94+ points.
Awesome company too, was really a great group for this line up. Lots of killer insight and discussion.
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Unfortunately the '06 wasn’t nearly as good as the '05… I haven’t even seen any secondary market prices on the '05 to evaluate their stupidity. I only got to try it by lucking into it on a restaurant wine list.![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}