There was no specific theme for the last wine lunch of the year and we saw a great range of wines’
NV Sebastian Mouzon L'ineffable Special Club Brut Champagne – fine mousse, a bit of roast nuts in the nose and a clean finish. Very decent.
Jean Vesselle Champagne Brut Œil de Perdrix – a blanc de noir from my s=cellar that I have always found dependable – more flavor interest and pale pink colour with slight yeastiness in the nose – very good.
1990 Parusso Barolo Mariondino – from my cellar. I had opened a bottle of the same vintage regular wine earlier in the week and found it to be fading so thought I’d try the single vineyard wine. Pale edges, clean nose of spice and oak, decent length and flavor tru to form. Holding well at this age (I have a cool cellar at 13 C.) but the last bottle will be moved into the ‘drink’ bin later this year.
1989 Château Canon-la-Gaffelière – my other wine. It was in very good shape and was a typical right bank survivor with pale edges, soft tannins and some very attractive spice – smelled as if someone was grating some nutmeg as well as some mint. Excellent length, very smooth and for some of us (myself included) the best wine of the day. They fumbled about a bit on figuring out what it might be and I threw out a clue by offering that it was one of the big ‘guns’ but that failed t lead them to canon.
1974 Christian Brothers Cabernet – surprise of the tasting when this was revealed! Still fairly dark with lightening edges and a very smooth presentation. The nose was faint sweet fruit and on palate it showed at least decent fruit. A pleasant surprise. From a great vintage
2001 Delas Hermitage Les Besardes – dark wine with some spice in the nose plus hints of tar and with a bit of airing some black olive as well. Decent but not very expressive – perhaps on the way down? Note to self – open a bottle of my 2005 soon!
2007 Ch. L’Eglise-Clinet – very dark right out to the edges and showing as ripe although not what I would call over ripe. I think this wine will continue to improve with age.
2010 Henri Gouges Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Clos des Porrets St. Georges – the opposite to the previous wine in terms of colour – pale with lots of red fruit in the nose, as well as an earthiness. And with a bit of time some floral hints. This was excellent now but is still in early life and a bit austere – give it a few years or decant and let stand if you want to drink it now.
2010 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon – very, very dark and not giving much detail yet.
2009 Ridge Monte Bello – still quite dark with a nose of blackberry and black currant, concentrated and with excellent length but hard to plumb the depths on this one. 72% cab sauv 22% merlot,6% petit verdot
2005 Selbach Oster Zeltinger Himmelreich Riesling Auslese – 9.5% alcohol, middling sweet and impeccably balanced and showing a tropical fruit nose. Smooth sweet and perhaps a tad low in acidity, but good).
2001 CH. Coutet - this Barsac was in fine shape- quite sweet but also well balanced with sufficient acidity. Fruit levels were excellent with apricot and a hint of banana and perhaps a whiff of pineapple - a real fruit salad of a wine.
P.S. Jenise did some lovely racks of lamb for lunch, which went superbly with the red wines.
It's unusual that the room thinks more or less one way and I think something else entirely--it was like we weren't even drinking the same wine.