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Salon 69, Pavie 01, Vega Sicilia 89, Penfolds 89 in a wonderful lunch

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François Audouze

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Salon 69, Pavie 01, Vega Sicilia 89, Penfolds 89 in a wonderful lunch

by François Audouze » Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:23 pm

It was the birthday of my last daughter, and I took symbols from my other children in order to not be stuck by usual conventions.
The champagne was for the birth year of my son and the wines were chosen in the direction of the taste of my elder daughter.
We began with a champagne Salon 1969 with scallops and a caviar of Aquitaine (as we had for the previous dinner). The Salon has a colour of a great youth being yellow green. The bubbles are very active and solid.
The wine is very dry, very strict, with a slight acidity. What strikes is the extreme length. And the adaptation with the sweet taste of the scallop and with the iodic taste of the caviar is spectacular. It is an immense champagne, full of emotion.
On a delicious pork with potatoes, three wines.
The Pavie 2001 begins to present itself as a wine that I do not like, too much in any aspect of its appearance. But then, I analyse. And it would be a mistake to say that this wine is a wine of nowhere. It is truly a Saint-Emilion. It is for me a little too much, but I can fully understand that people like this wine.
The Vega Sicilia Unico 1989 is completely within my search. The nose is elegant, the taste of wood (I would say redwood) is intense but acceptable. And the most important is the elegance of the combination of all its aspects. It is a wine to sip with pleasure.
The Penfolds Grange Bin 95 of 1989 is for me a strange wine. It begins as a juice of blackberries, but in fact, it is more a juice of raspberries mixed with nice flowers. I have really difficulties to enter in this world. At the end of the lunch, the wine expressed very nice qualities. But I must confess that I will have difficulties to welcome such a trend.
The three wines had on their label 13.5°. But the Pavie and the Penfolds were certainly above.
I wanted to make this comparison and I am happy.
The Vega Sicilia Unico belongs to my personal world where Beaucastel and the great Cotes Roties have their seat. The Pavie is a very possible wine, but I would be happy to try it with some more years. The Penfolds is today out of my world, but I can understand why people like it.
A great familial event, and a great comparison of wines, with the great testimony of a rare Salon.
Old wines are younger than what is generally considered
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Victor de la Serna

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Re: Salon 69, Pavie 01, Vega Sicilia 89, Penfolds 89 in a wonderful lunch

by Victor de la Serna » Sun Oct 22, 2006 1:17 pm

Vega Sicilia Único 1989, while a very nice wine, is not one of the 'great' Vega Sicilias. Lacks a bit of opulence. Their best wine since 1970 is certainly 1994 - but it's a little young still. Among the as-yet-not-released vintages, 1996 will be another one for the ages.

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