Lou and BettyLu Kessler were back in town for their yearly fix of Broadway, fine restaurants and jeebis with the locals. I had hoped to cook for them at my place, but a broken oven nixed that. A walking wounded Joe Dougherty stepped in and offered to host a relatively impromptu Wednesday night dinner. Quite a mensch as he’s been suffering a cold for awhile, seemed in considerable pain from back spasms and also had to run off for a conference call for about an hour just as guests arrived. With a destination set, the Kesslers, Chris Coad & Lisa Allen and Sasha Katsman made it down to chic Tribeca for a fine fete at Chateauneuf-du-Joe.
I ended up cooking the appetizer I wanted to make at my place, an heirloom squash risotto with seared scallops on top and sage, but I forgot to add bacon at the beginning which really would’ve made the dish pop. Needless to say, Coad tortured me mercilessly throughout the night about that. Joe made an amazing Mexican chili sauce to go along with the seared duck breasts served as the entrée. I shouldn’t just call it a sauce as it was astoundingly good. Sort of like a mole, but without the chocolate and made with a blend of dried chili’s he picked up while shopping in Oaxaca. Whatever you want to call it, it provided for one of the best food and wine matches I’ve had in the past couple of years.
Always great to see Lou and BettyLu.
Cheers,
Brad
1971 Paul Ayl- Riesling Auslese Gold Capsule, Ayler Kupp, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer
I’m not exactly sure why we’re starting with this as it’s plenty sweet. I guess there was some thought that maybe much of the sweetness would be gone by now. In any event, I’m not complaining as this is a lovely drink. I find it rather comforting and much like the holidays with its warmth and lightly gingery spiciness. There’s tropical fruit that has lost its vibrancy, but still suggests its exotic origins. It’s soft and elegant in the mouth with just enough acid to hold things together. Fading, but proud, it reminds me of the knight guarding the holy grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. B+.
1961 Huet- Vouvray Demi-Sec, Le Haut-Lieu
From a re-conditioned bottle, this is a terrific and more youthful showing of this wine than the last couple of bottles I’ve had, which were also re-conditioned. Previous bottles have shown more of an aged persimmon, bergamot character, while maintaining freshness, but this bottle is much more in the yellow fruit realm of quince and grapefruit rind and pith. Powerfully built and mostly dry, Sasha and Joe are talking about how you have to go through a wall to get through this wine. Mmmkay. Anyhoo, the freshness and vibrancy of this wine is riveting. A/A-.
1968 Martinez Lacuesta- Rioja “Campeador”
Has good color, but is pretty cloudy. A little volatile on the nose, though what old Rioja isn’t? It’s a bit fragile, but there’s pleasant cherry fruit, dusty earth and leather flavors and aromas. The fruit grew with air for awhile before fading after a couple of hours, but freshly poured it showed that wonderful sweetness fruit attains with old age. Pleasant, if past peak and a bit muddled. B.
1983 J.L. Chave- Hermitage
My goodness, this wine. This wine, this wine, this wine. As wine lovers, we are constantly and desperately trying to get to this moment. It’s not a perfect wine, but at this particular moment in space time, it was the perfect wine. This wine was silk in its integration and the way it caressed your mouth. It was a zero g wine in the way it floated weightlessly across the palate, its flavors just hanging there for you to savor for as long as you wanted. It was a Houdini wine in the way it managed to do all that with such a wealth of flavor and intensity. What an amazing mélange of sweet red cherries, bacon fat, dried flowers, spice, beef blood with maybe a hint of dried tobacco for good measure. All of that in absolutely perfect harmony both with itself as well as with the spiced duck breast with the Mexican chili sauce. I can’t say enough about this pairing. The sauce was not spicy. It had a brown, slightly smoky warmth and sweetness about it that just melded perfectly with the aged, integrated character of the wine. Really, everyone around the table was simply stunned by this pairing. Easily one of the top five food and wine moments of my life. Just wow. A+.
1989 Jaboulet- Hermitage “La Chapelle”
Nothing really had a chance following the Chave, but this was a pretty good showing for this wine. I still feel these wines are technically well made, but lack personality, but this bottle is showing better than a bottle I had 4-6 weeks ago. There’s more depth to the red fruit than the bottle at Leo’s, a little more bacon and altogether the wine seems a bit more robust and less feminine than that bottle and previous bottles. Low A-.
1999 Coudert- Fleurie Clos de Roilette, “Cuvée Tardive”
This was a fun break. Not lighthearted fun, but more like clever fun as while the wine showed scrumptious strawberry and red plum fruit, there’s some sophistication here with its lightly spicy, crunchy earth notes. I forget who, but someone mentioned that this wine drank better than most of the Burgs in his cellar. A-.
1945 Huet- Vouvray Moelleux 1ere Trie, Le Haut-Lieu
Many thanks to Joe for finally giving in to my many years of begging for him to open this wine at dinner instead of some off vintage Sec. What a beautiful wine. It’s not the jam-packed blockbuster the '47 is, but it has plenty of elegance, persistence and freshness. Fairly typical in it’s old Chenin profile of pineapple, apricot, earl gray tea, honey and mineral profile, but there’s also a somewhat atypical, though pleasing clove note. It’s definitely not young, but the freshness the wine exhibits prevents it from feeling old. In some ways this is like the girl next door. Sure, there may be more beautiful women around, but it’s the combination of natural beauty with a really enjoyable personality that wins in the end. I should also mention that this, too, is a re-conditioned bottle. A+.
Some pictures from the evening.
Joe makes an insanely good chili sauce.
Stir, Chris, stir. And would it kill you to smile?
