WTN: Eight is Enough (maybe)

After Triangle Uncorked last Saturday I had dinner at Enoteca Vin in Raleigh. With rabbit/shitake risotto and boar meat gnocchi I had the special sampling of eight 2-oz. pours of red Burgundies. (I poured out maybe 4 oz. of the wine because I was driving back to Fayetteville.)
2004 Louis Jadot Savigny Les Beaunes "Dominode" was a mahogany color. Varietally correct but slightly herbal.

2002 Fourrier Chambolle-Musigny V.V. (old vines)
More ethereal with an elegant nose and flavor. Light red cherries on the palate.

2002 Digioia-Royer Chambolle Musigny V.V.
Tastes somehow richer and more grounded than the Fourrier of the same vintage. Lush and velvety with a long finish. My favorite of the tasting.

1998 J.F. Mugnier Chambolle Musigny
Appeared to have more oak influence than the Digoia-Royer . Perhaps more body than the D-R but not more flavor. Still, very nice.

1995 Denis Bachelet Gevrey-Chambertin V.V.
Looking darker than the Chambolle-Musigny wines. Peculiar nose. Slightly sour on the palate and yet intriguing with a cherry liqueur note.

1998 Dominique Laurent Vosne "Chaumes" 1er Cru
Sous de bois (under forest vegetation) nose. Very viscous, leggy. Tastes sweet of ripe grapes and grapeskin flavor. Might be less food-friendly than most of the others.

1996 D. Laurent Gevrey "Corbeaux" 1er Cru
I liked this better than the "Chaumes." Less sweet tasting but bearing a family resemblance to the final wine from the same domaine.

1994 D. Laurent Nuits-St Georges "Argillieres" 1er Cru
Mild flavor with a long finish. Fuller bodied than the previous? My notes were becoming increasingly sketchy and uninformative.

You mentioned that you were tasting (and taking notes) these eight 2-oz samples with a meal. I'm teaching myself how to taste wine, and would like to set up a tasting like that myself, one that like yours compares a large number of the same variety from the same region. I have a question on how the food went with your tasting. Did you taste the wine in between bites, or save it for the end? I ask because I often distrust my notes when tasting a wine (much less with the flavors of my meal in my mouth, just because I worry that will confound my attempts to objectively describe the wine. (Not a problem with an ordinary meal, only if the point of the wine is to judge it.) Do you know what I'm asking? Would love your thoughts.
Ron M

If this is anything other than a formal wine judging, I think food enhances the experience. Wine is meant to accompany meals and a wine in isolation is misleading. It may be impressive but not complementary to most dishes as it overpowers them. (Similarly, some dishes with gamy or very spicy components, will overpower most wines. It takes experience, or a good guide such as Andrea Immer Robinson's "Great Tastes Made Simple" to learn which foods and wines match best.)

I have been to wine tastings at a restaurant in Raleigh where we taste two or three wines without food (or with bread only), saving a bit in each glass. Then the staff brings out the appetizer or entree and we taste the wines again with the food to see which matches best.

In this particular case I chose dishes (rabbit/mushroom risotto and boar meat gnocchi) that I thought would complement Burgundy reds. The restaurant had held a wild game dinner two days earlier that I missed due to bad weather and had some of the game meat still available. i did eat bites of the food in between sips of the wine. They were going to present the wine in flights of two at a time, but I requested that all three Chambolle-Musigny be presented at the same time for comparison purposes.