A friend of mine Jean Philippe Durand, who is a doctor specialised in cancer, is a marvellous cook. Without any exaggeration, I consider that he could compete with 2 or 3 stars chefs. He came to visit my wife and me in our house in the South. The first day, we went to a restaurant held by Yvan Roux, a pure genius for fish cooking where we had some days before a marvellous dinner with Michel Troisgros.
During the lunch by Yvan Roux, we talked with him about the dinner which should take place at home under the responsibility of Jean Philippe Durand for the cooking and of me for the wines. Yvan offered that we come back the next day to take some products from his stock.
The next day at noon, having in hand a cup of Laurent-Perrier Grand-Siècle, we looked at Yvan cutting a lamb into pieces to extract the lamb’s sweetbread. But the butcher who had given the lamb had taken away the lungs and the throat and had probably kept for him this jewel. So, instead of that, Yvan gave us huge pieces of tuna, in the best part, and 24 scallops.
We came back home, and at one moment it is time for Jean Philippe to make the show. He invades the kitchen and every possible tool or machine is used to prepare the numerous courses of the dinner. The remains of a bottle of Laurent Perrier GS are used for the cook and are used to prepare our palates for the dinner to come. I open all the champagnes before the dinner to let them breathe and some drops of Dom Pérignon 1998 are used also to clear our palates and tune them as it is done for music instruments.
The “amuse bouche” is small candied endives with mashed young onions and some cuts of Serrano ham. The champagne Salon 1990 announces by its smell that it is sublime. What strikes with this champagne is its nobleness. I try to imagine how I would characterise it, but every description of details would move away from the essential, which is an unbelievable complexity. If one evokes white flowers or pears, it is true, but puts a mask on what strikes me : the complete impression to be out of this world.
The onions annoy me and I make a try of a leave of endive alone. It has been cooked with a soup of fennel, balm and cardamom. It is largely more convincing as the bitterness of the endive makes the Salon vibrate.
The course which is planned for the Salon 1990 consist in big undercooked steaks of tuna, branches of rhubarb and a coulis made of pear, rhubarb and lemon. Generally, I prefer to drink a wine paired with the meat alone with no accompaniment. Even if the tuna meat is fantastic and works with the Salon, it is the meat plus the coulis which makes an incredible combination. The champagne explodes with this match. It is completely different from what it was with the endive, which shows how flexible champagne can be.
The second course is composed with scallops fried with courgettes, and with a sauce made with apples and citrus thyme. And it is at this moment that we can understand the genius of Jean Philippe. He knows the wines and when he does not know, he looks for notes on the web to try to catch the essential aromas of the wine. The champagne Salon 1988 which comes now is largely more mature than the one that we had some days ago. At one moment we hesitate about a possible cork taste, but after checking it is clear that there is none. It is only an over maturity. It shows a minimum of 20 years more than the Salon 1990. The champagne is delicious even if puzzling, and as by a miracle, but it was intended, the match with the apple and thyme makes a spectacular combination. And in this case, as on the previous course, it is the accessory (the sauce) which is crucial to make the champagne shine.
In this Salon 1988 we recognise toasts, spicy bread, brown fruits, showing evolution, and it is not the Salon 1988 that we cherish in our memories.
We had rapidly tasted some drops of the champagne Krug Clos du Mesnil 1982 with Jean Philippe and we concluded that the next dish should be very neutral to let the champagne shine without restriction. The sweetbread of veal bought at the last minute, with a sauce of liquorice and a risotto with chanterelles is prepared with a very discrete façon, to enlarge the imperial taste of this respectable champagne. We can see the difference between Salon and Clos du Mesnil. Salon is more typed, foolish and expansive. The Krug is serene, calm, with a skeleton of an incredible complexity. It is like a diamond exposed on a jewel case. It is with the liquorice that the match is the greatest, as the delicate taste of honey and sugar of the Krug captures this root, the sweetbread accompanying elegantly the impression. I consider this champagne as an absolute summit.
It is the first time that I eat a rabbit’s back cooked so softly. It is presented with peaches slices with lavender. What is impressing is that it is the lavender which makes the link with the champagne Dom Pérignon 1998 which does not suffer to appear after three big stars. It plays in a different category, but does it with a very great charm. Peach and lavender were exactly what made the Dom shine. It is really convincing.
The foie gras fried put on a slice of celery is to die for. It does not need any wine as the pleasure is incredible, my friend being able to cook with a precision of one millisecond !
But the champagne Contraste of Jacques Selosse disgorged in February 2005 deserves our interest. It is a very strange champagne as I have no possible comparison. It is so wild. It is smoky, mineral, with impressions of tobacco, and a characteristic bitterness. We finished it on the rabbit the next day, and it is on the liver that the match was the greatest.
Some slices of mangoes and some white figs of the garden where fried with a sauce of pink grapefruit. We are once again struck, as we had tried another bottle the day before, by the perfection of Château Filhot 1990, powerful, conquering, solid, which found in this course a greater combination than when we tried it on lobster.
To rank the wines of this dinner would be difficult, but two of them are really above the others : Krug CdM 1982 and Salon 1990. The talent of my friend was spectacular as the successive combinations with pear, apple, liquorice, lavender constitute moments of pure gastronomy.
It was 2 am when we cleaned the table and the kitchen. The smiles that we had on our faces showed that we had lived a memorable dinner.