I hadn’t done Monday at Apiary in a while, a mistake that was corrected this week. Scott Bryan is still turning out terrific food, and it’s always fun seeing who you might run into. This time it was a notable New York collector and Burgundy enthusiast who was part of the “Over the Top” tasting a week earlier.
I brought a bottle of Donnhoff Niederhauser Hermannshohle Spatlese 1999, which opened slowly and had classic Donnhoff minerality, lime, and strawberry fruit. Another table had a magnum of LeBrun Servenay from Avize that they passed around the room, which hit an incredibly saline note reminiscent of a sea breeze, totally unlike any Champagne I’ve ever had.
Good news/bad news: Our bottle of Meursault Jadot 1996 wasn’t premoxed. It was, however, corked. A shame, as sound bottles outperform the village level on the label. Fortunately our other Jadot (actually, our other opened Jadot; the Clos de Beze 2000 we held over for another day), Beaune Clos des Couchereaux 1998, was very good, with earthy fruit and a lot of acidity, although it had a barnyardy element that held it back from being really excellent.
My favorite wine of the night was the Barolo Vigna Rionda Massolino 2000, which had a ton of tar on the nose, and a palate of licorice and spices. My bottle of Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon 1973 was really interesting; it showed a ton of bell pepper when it was first opened, along with hints of mint, but after an hour or so became a much more typical, black fruity old mountain Cabernet.
As always we did some trading; unfortunately, the first offering our table got was merely sent our way by my friend so we could confirm that a bottle of Grands Echezeaux Mommesin 1969 was corked. The same table more than made up for it with Vosne-Romanee Suchots 1985 from Grivot, which is probably starting a gentle decline, but showed really nice spicy Vosne fruit and has some really interesting secondary notes. They also supplied an excellent bottle of d’Yquem 1966, a vintage not often seen, which had moderate botrytis, flavors of tropical fruit and burnt sugar and well balanced acidity. Lovely way to finish a fun night.