A warm, sunny Saturday, all chores finished, wanting to go out, but not wanting to go too far, so we called up Lou and BL. Turns out they were in town (a major miracle with their travel plans) between one exotic travel plan and another, so we decided on a spur of the moment thing.
We had no particular high hopes. I mean, Saturday, Napa, harvest season, and all that. But Lou was sure he’d come up with something, and he almost always does. Lou is connected, as they say.
Still and all, we were a bit surprised to discover our spur of the moment Saturday night was at Bistro Don Giovanni. So Lou is well connected. It became even more apparent when we got there a few minutes early (we just haven’t learned the art of being fashionably late) and had to sit and wait for all of five minutes or so, and every single person from the restaurant passing by had to stop and speak to Lou and apologize for making him wait.
It was a lovely night for Don Gio: just warm enough to make you feel comfortable in the shade, with just enough light breeze to keep you from being uncomfortable while sitting in the declining sun. The Bistro is a supremely happy place; it just sends out those kinds of vibe, with bustling of contented people back and forth, good food, good wine, and a busy but hospitable staff.
We were shortly ushered in to our table, and the wine guy immediately came over and asked, “So, what will be opening tonight, Lou?” Lou casually pulls out a bottle. I can’t quite make out what it is. He says, “its 25 years old, so it could be good….or it could be vinegar. Let’s see.”
As the delighted wine man cradles the bottle and starts the screw---then backs off and pulls out an Ah-so and fiddles away with careful precision for a couple of minutes, emerging with a somewhat worse for the wear cork looking a bit ragged and disintegrating on one end, I get only glimpses of the label---but that’s enough, along with the previously chipped off wax topping, to get me excited.
Yessssss. It’s the 1983 Francois Raveneau Chablis Blanchots. The steward pours. Reverential silence ensues. Lou says, “There’s no cork taint. And it’s definitely not dead.” We all relax a bit in our chairs, and wait for the pour.
Surprisingly good color, no cloudiness, and not the umber of extreme oxidation. The nose is intensely concentrated, focused, stunning in its freshness, with just the slightest hint of nutmeg and honey. The taste is glorious, effusive, both expansive in the mouth and rocky/stony/mineral at one and the same time. But the finish: oh, the finish; a sustained precision of intense, concentrated, citrus/apple freshness with whispers of that nutmeg and honey and wizened winter apple, for those who ever tasted stored winter apples and savored their combination of crisp freshness and winey, concentrated, tart, almost-but-not-quite spice.
We all noted, with wonder, that the wine did not fade one tiny bit, but seemed to gather itself and grow even more intense and focused as it shimmered in the glass. My wife had a glorious beet salad and pronounced the combination splendid. I had a gazpacho with an icy glacee of basil pesto on top; the Chablis leaped to the challenge and responded by showing intense spicy notes not apparent before, then dominating at the finish with that burst of acidic citrus.
Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like hierarchies and rankings. But this wine deserves to be in a special place above others. It was a privilege to have tasted it. Amazing too, that 1983 was a so-so year for Chablis. For Chablis; apparently not for Raveneau.
We all decided to go with pasta as a main course dish, with Lou and Roxi opting for the Silk Handkerchiefs, with the eponymous silky sheaths of green pasta enclosing even silkier dollops of intense pesto filling; BL and I went for the fettuccine with a ragu of porcini and meat and tomato. Both were rich and filling, and needed a wine of substance to balance that richness.
From Lou’s magic bag came another bottle. And like magic, the wine guy reappeared at our side. “Ah, La Casa, “ he murmured, smiling. Indeed the La Casa Brunello di Montalcino 1990 from Tenuta Caparzo.
There are certain Italian wines of great pedigree that do not initially seem to be aggressive or in any way ‘blockbusters’. They tend to be quiet, confident, understated…at first. Then a broodiness comes out, a depth of undercurrent that gives you a whiff of what will eventually emerge, if you give it time and patience. Then you realize what seemed simple at first, when placed with rich foods, reveals ever-increasing complexities of aroma and flavor. (Brunello can do this; so can Barolo.)
The wine does not vie with the food; there is no contest, no conflict. The wine simply cradles the food, and balances it out, and by balancing it, rounds out the flavors and makes them even more intense. It’s an amazing feat that only truly fine wines can pull off, when neither yields to the other, but both are enhanced and improved. The wine made the food better; the food brought out elements of the wine that had been lurking before, and made the wine better.
We round-robined on desserts, which were great. But truth told, after the two sumptuous wines and the more than satisfactory dishes, it was almost anticlimactic, and we could not even consider another bottle or glass of anything. No thanks, no gilding necessary.
As we were preparing to leave, I glanced up and took in the warm terracotta colored walls, the colorful art, and the glimpse out the window showing a stand of Italian cypress trees swaying in the merest hint of a breeze against the blue-black sky, and thought for a moment I was back in Italy.
And, in a very real way to me, I was.