A business dinner in Salt Lake City (albeit with wine geeks and ITBs), so we go to Spencer's.
This serves as a reminder not to surrender readily to stereotypes or make hasty assumptions. Because Spencer's, a downtown Hilton hotel steak house restaurant, is superb. One of the best steaks I've had in the US.
And also because, while Utah/SLC is not exactly considered the bastion of great wine selections because of the repressive and downright weird Mormon-inspired wine laws, you never know where you'll find the little gems and jewels.
They don't make it easy to get great wines in Utah. There, wine stewards and sommeliers have to work hard to get and keep the good stuff. One such hard worker is Louis, a young but earnest and talented sommelier at Spencer's who takes his vocation very seriously and spends a lot of time building the best wine list he can.
As often happens, the list is passed to me. I start wading through the obligatory steak house Cabernets and Zinfandels, while realizing that the usual suspects are there but there are some really nice selections studded throughout. Then, much to my delight, I discover Louis has an innate understanding of how nice good Pinot Noir can be with good steak.
Shazaam! A moderately priced (all things considered) Matrot Volnay-Santenots 2004!!! Put the list away, look no further, this is it. Louis beams in adoring approval. My knowledgeable and attractive table mate (the female one) touches my arm and breathes a quiet "Thank you."
The wine, when it arrives, is all we expected it to be. As Burgundian as can be, with a clear, precise acidity, purity of cherry/berry fruit, silky texture and earthy nuanes lurking the the prodigious depths. Young, yes, but nonetheless remarkable.
Hedonism these days seems to be preempted by the gobbistas. Not sure quite how that happened (well, no, maybe I am sure, but let that pass), but THIS is truly a hedonistic wine, despite having no gobs or blobs to speak of. This wine appeals to all the senses, because it has definition...what some people call 'cut'... and precision and clarity of expression, with an intense laserlike purity of varietal character.
This is one of those wines you usually find when you're close to the end of your maximum frustration level with Burgundy, tired of pursuing the phantasm you glimpsed so many wines ago and haven't experienced in the longest time, and you're tired of the chase and the expense....
Now I only wish I had a case of it, so I could pace the development of this wine. Because I know when I go back to SLC, it won't be ther anymore. It was merely a phantasm.