MR DP

WINE TALK
1

First, huge thanks to Tom for organising this wonderful dinner at Medlar and to everyone for their generosity, not least Rainer for insisting on us pouring his 76 despite not being able to attend himself.

My very brief thoughts on the wines which seem noticeably different to everyone else’s!

  • With lots of warm cheese gougeres straight from the oven…
  • 1985 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon - France, Champagne (11/21/2013)
    From magnum. Light gold colour. Pinprick bubbles. Noticeably less developed and sturdier than the regular bottles as one would expect. Gorgeous nose of cold, rolled steel (see the 96 oeno below!) truffles, oysters and hints of mushrooms. Fantastic match with the cheese gougeres. The 2nd pour was fresher and younger again. I left the rest until the end when it had developed a sweet, black treacle element. Superb showing. Wish I had more!

With crab ravioli with samphire, brown shrimps, fondue of leeks and bisque sauce…

  • 1980 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon - France, Champagne (11/21/2013)
    Noticeably darker colour than the 85 from mag served before. Initially, served very cold. With air it was clearly fully developed (noticeably more so than the 85) with a fair bit of aldehyde. With air, this turned to notes of burnt black treacle. Held up very well.
  • 1998 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon - France, Champagne (11/21/2013)
    Light yellow colour. Very fresh. Good balance for the future but quite dominated by the chardonnay elements for now. Wait another 10 years on this. A sleeper vintage as it is for the Krug.
  • 2002 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon - France, Champagne (11/21/2013)
    Even lighter yellow than the 98 as one would expect. However, already showing far more. Noticeably more PN in the blend than the 98. Amazing depth. Genuinely showing like a grand cru white burg! Fizzy Corton Charlemagne in fact! My first time with the 02. Delighted I bought lots.

With master stock poached quail with chargrilled broccoli, sweetcorn puree and roasted hazelnuts…

With loin and faggot of red deer, braised red cabbage, onion puree and root vegetable salad…

  • 1996 Château Mouton Rothschild - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac (11/21/2013)
    First pour was glorious and surprisingly approachable already. Lots of lead pencil on the nose and elegant red/black fruit. Repour was much less impressive, seemingly lacking body in the mid palate. Suspect it was just the wine starting to close up with air though.
  • 1966 Château Mouton Rothschild - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac (11/21/2013)
    Fully resolved but so fresh! Smooth red fruits with gorgeous mouth feel. This bottle was absolutely in a perfect place right now. You could easily see the 96 following this line.

With a range of outstanding cheeses…

  • 1964 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon - France, Champagne (11/21/2013)
    Just perfect. Great balance and persistence that separated it from all the other DPs served this evening. Fully justified its exalted reputation. The best champagne I’ve ever had although some of the clos mesnils/d’ambonnays I’ve tried may get there in another 30 years!
  • 1976 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon - France, Champagne (11/21/2013)
    Seemed like this had quite a high dosage. Repour better but still a little too sweet for my taste.
  • 1988 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon - France, Champagne (11/21/2013)
    Stupidly fresh and young! Grew a little with air to reveal some sea spray elements. You can see that this is where the 96 will be in another 10 years’ time. The 88 needs another decade and the 96 two.

Posted from CellarTracker

2

“cold rolled steel” is interesting–I know what you mean–Corton Charlemagne. What is faggot of deer?

Enjoyed the notes.

3

Alan,

Faggots are basically meatballs made from offcuts. So deer meatballs.

Dan

4

Fantastic notes and a “wow” list of wines, Dan. Thanks for posting this.

Glad “Mr. DP” was in Wine Talk and not Asylum or (shudder!) NSFW

5

AG raised his rating of 02 Dom from 95 to 98 and referred to it as a “legend in the making”.

6

I was waiting for someone to head down that particular hole.

I’ll get my coat [snort.gif]

7

Great notes especially the 96 Regular and the 95 and 96 Oeno. And also good to hear about the 02 - every time I have had it since it was released it was better than the previous tasting.

8

Popping a couple 96 DP Rose tonight. Will report back.

9

02 has disappointed me–must revisit.

10

I love this wine! It is still a baby, but man is it delicious.

Also love Dan’s note on '96 Oeno… cold rolled steel and Preusses comparison. Nice.

11

…and at Medlar, to boot. Nice!

12

Great stuff Dan.

13

FYI - this was the second in a series of champagne dinners Tom is organising. The first was of course Krug. We were debating which one should be next. Salon would be the obvious choice but sourcing reliable, mature bottles is such a joke. I suspect we’ll go with comtes. Will report back.

14

If you go with Comtes get a 1966 Dan, it was singing a couple of month’s back.

15

Thanks for the tip Jeremy!

16

96 Dom Rose last night was pretty good. Vinous and lacked overt fruit. Good body and depth. Excellent but not earth shattering.

17

As a postscript to this dinner, I just managed to pick up some mags of the 02 for a great price!

18

I agree that the 02 Dom is like a precise white Burgundy. I have been posting how great the 02 Dom is but most folks disagreed. I believe the 02 Dom now shows a bit more weight which was there to begin with but was masked by the acidity and minerality.

In regards to the 96, I prefer the regular bottling. I also think that it has improved a lot and now it is equal to the 96 Salon and Krug for me.

19

I also very much like the 02 Dom which I agree is very White Burgundy-like. Fantastic notes and thread BTW.