I decided to cook one last meal before heading for Spain, and was sorely in the mood for Burgundy. So alongside the tuna tartar, the 28-day dry-aged Prime Boneless Sirloin, the olive oil-roasted potatoes with herbs and garlic and onions, and the mixed salad of wilted spinach and fresh arugula, I popped the cork on a 1999 Drouhin Gevrey Chamberting Griotte-Chambertin.
At first, this smelled like a light and quite lovely young Burg, very light on its feet, with bright cherries the dominant note, and a hint of earthiness underneath the fruity exterior. The palate, however, was tight but not in an unpleasant way. Decanted into a bottle-shaped decanter, it sat on the counter while I cooked for 1 1/2-2 hours. I poured it with the starter course, and by now it had opened and was unfurling, gaining weight, adding color, and living up to its village’s reputation for spicy, relatively powerful wines. Yet it also offered that beautiful weightless weight that I associate with well-made Burgs, coating the palate with a slightly sappy note that ended with a haunting memory and some slightly drying tannins.
Good with the tuna, it shone with the steak, and just kept getting better, until, alas, there was no more.
Yummy.
Cheers! ![[gen_fro.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/acc371fe8341f433d5c0ed34025c962acc33ad59.gif "fro"){kind=small}