TNs: 2007 DRC Lineup and 1996 Salon

WINE TALK
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E and I had an excellent night with the Stewarts and @Nick_Christie. Food was phenomenal, all the wines showed well, and the company was the best.

Course 1:

Butter braised leeks, Sourdough bread, lovely selection of cheeses, candied walnuts, and mousse de foie gras

1996 Salon Le Mesnil Blanc de Blanc

A lot of 96 Salon has been advanced but this bottle was perfect. Perfect level of maturity. Lemon curd, lightly toasted brioche and stardust on the nose. The palate was crisp with a beautiful balanced acidic core, lovely stone fruits, and super elegant texture. Finish was super long.

Course 2:

Pan seared veal with cream sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and green beans.

2007 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Romanee Saint Vivant

Immediately aromatically expressive with red currants and Chinese five spice. Palate had more pure fruits and crisp acidity, finish was long. This seemed to decline after about 3 hours in the glass.

2007 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Richebourg

Very reticient initially, with some VA and a bit of bitterness on the finish. After 3 or so hours in the glass this blossomed into a beautiful wine with baking spices and dark plums. The palate had crisp acidity and more dark fruits which became integrated with time in the glass. The finish was very long.

Course 3:

Oven roasted Hudson Valley duck breast
Oven roasted potatoes

2007 Domaine de la Romanee Conti La Tache

Aromatic showstopper with all spice, damp earth, and mushrooms. Palate had more beautiful fruit and stately acidity and finish was endless. Immense power and depth. This was just in the zone and everything you want in a burgundy. WOTN.

2007 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Romanee Conti

Red currants, clove and cinnamon on the nose, which was expressive but not aromatically explosive like the LT. Best palate/midpalate of the evening with a cornucopia of fruit, acidity and elegance, but significantly lighter bodied than the LT. Finish was punchy and long. Likely the most complete wine of the night and demanded attention. Ultimately I preferred the aromatic fireworks and power of the LT, but I could understand why one would opt for the complete package of the RC. Is it worth 3-4x the price of the LT? Almost certainly not, but a fantastic wine nonetheless.

Course 4:

Burgundian spice cake with Normandy butter.

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Nice.

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Michael,

Thanks for the notes, can you expand a bit more on the Salon. I opened one a week ago (1996) and my guests were enthralled with it but I thought it was a bit over. No mousse at all and a bit darker than your glass. Yes, it was Salon and was an amazing “white burg” but for me, I thought the lack of efflorescence and darker color meant it was an off bottle. Any thoughts? Did you bottle still have bubbles?

MTIA

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Why would one keep a wine in a glass for three hours?? apart from anything else it will be ridiculously warm after that period unless the room is freezing cold. One is simply denaturing it by oxidation, wine isn’t meant to taste as it tastes after three hours in the glass. I know it’s very common in wine circles but it’s just weird.

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A huge quantity of 96 Salon bottles are advanced/over the hill, I think it’s because of provenance. I am lucky enough to have some bottles that were stored well since release, including some from cold French cellars that I brought over and have stored at 45F, so I was confident they’d show well.

There was quite a bit of mousse, if not as much as a young champagne. This bottle was very fresh, but not so much so that it wasn’t ready to open, it was perfect and in the zone.

There is a new recent disgorgement of 96 Salon as I understand but this wasn’t that. I believe that wine is VERY fresh and probably too young to drink.

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The room wasn’t very warm, in the 60s, more or less the temperature we’d serve red wine, but we also wanted to follow their development over hours. The wine was never too warm at any point. It was around 50-60 outside and I imagine our hosts didn’t have the heat on.

We really wanted to follow the wines over a number of hours and it was really interesting; the RSV faded a bit, the Richebourg grew in power and got better, and the other two wines improved a bit, but didn’t change as much.

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I admire your dedication!

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I generally keep wine in glasses for hours if I like them; that’s one of the reasons we bring lots of stems, although this dinner we really intended to follow the wines for a long time.

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Each to their own. To me it’s a bit like enjoying a delicious sole meuniere over three hours but I know it’s not unusual.

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I prefer my DRC chugged. 0 contact with tastebuds, ideally.

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I have the same reaction when I see people use that line about wines ‘evolving in the glass’. I assume they just mean after the bottle is open. Because most of the time, people take small pours and then re-pour when ready for another taste. But I guess everyone has different arrangements


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That definitely sounds like an off bottle. We’ve had a couple like that, but the ones with good provenance have been about 95% on.

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Nope, in the glass. If I meant in the bottle I would have written in the bottle.

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These comments seem a bit funny. I assume for an event like this you split the bottle between participants at the beginning and everyone is sitting there with 4 glasses of DRC in front of them and empty bottles. They can then revisit at leisure and not worry about cross contamination in the glass or have to crush the La Tache just so they can retry the RC. :wink:
At least, that’s how I would do it.

I do this at home all the time. Usually with coravin, break out 4-5 glasses and follow those wines over prep/cooking/dinner and desert without opening anything else. Something I picked up in Covid times and never stopped.

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Well, we flighted the wines, so basically I poured about 3 oz of each wine into everyone’s glass, and there was probably about 10 oz left in each bottle, starting with the RSV/Riche with the veal course, and subsequently the LT/RC with the duck course. Then people topped off their glasses as they wanted. It worked out pretty well, we got plenty of chances to visit each wine over ~5 hours or so.

We chose a size of 5 participants so everyone would have about a full glass of each wine.

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We used to do that, but found that often there were some lightweights who would leave a bunch of wine in their glasses and other people wanted more and couldn’t have it. So now we do shorter pours at the beginning and leave about a third of the bottle for people to revisit as they desire.

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Yeah that’s basically our usual strategy unless theres more than 10 ppl.

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Got it. More of a hybrid of the 2 approaches


Should we expect any more notes from others at this tasting?
I like to live the DRC life vicariously through others :wink:

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I’m sure @Nick_Christie will share his thoughts at some point! E had similar notes to me; youll meet her in SA.

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The wines sound amazing and all
 but I’m looking for the tasting notes (and recipe) for this :eyes:

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