All Cylinders

A low key evening before the Christmas festivities and my annual homage to Napoleon (probably won’t invade Russia myself, maybe just Afghanistan). The red Burgundies were paired with Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon, prepared by chef and co-taster Julie.

First up was a 2007 Weingut Keller Riesling Von der Fels Trocken, a limpid gold in color, with brooding aromas of wet slate and bitter citrus suggesting rainy, autumnal landscapes touched by more distant floral notes wafting in from sunnier climes. On entry this really covers the palate horizontally, with the slate and bitter citrus aromas becoming more visceral as they are released inside the mouth. The building acidity here energizes the mid-palate as faint tropical fruit notes are brought into focus on the finish. Holy Moly, better back the truck up for this one. A beauty…

Then two red Burgundies, a 1999 Leroy Volnay, with seductive rose petal aromas on the nose, and a silky mouthfeel with a red fruit profile showing raspberries and a finish dominated by the floral inner mouth perfume. And a bottle of the 2006 F. Mugnier Nuits St. George Clos de la Maréchale, another beauty with cool but intense aromas of dark fruit that hint at the depth of the material that is here. In the mouth this straddles the line between black and red fruit with fantastic purity, with a sensation of power conveyed without a trace of heaviness. The impressive structure of the wine emerges with time in the glass, as if crystallizing slowly from solution. Mugnier has clearly taken this vineyard to a new level…

Another Chambertin at Christmas

Following a new family tradition (well, only two years running now), we sampled another of Napoleon's favorite wines, a Chambertin, although perhaps the fact that Napoleon was reported to often (or always?) cut his wine with water could lessen the value of his opinion. Last year it was a beautiful 2000 Parizat-Charlopin Chambertin, a relatively easy going example from a less than stellar vintage. This year it was the 2000 Potel Chambertin, which showed a bit more austerity, but also greater detail on the palate. This medium bodied wine still delivered that Chambertin signature nose of underbrush and wild raspberries, with a touch of the sauvage combined with the bold flavors that was perhaps the attraction for the Emperor. This wine is far from mature, but drank quite well with two hours of air, and (so far) was a considerable step up from the other 2000 Potel I have tried recently (the Charmes-Chambertin, with a volatile nose and a slightly hard edge on the finish, and the Clos Vougeot, another slightly hard wine at this stage, but with good potential given some additional years in the bottle).

This was preceded by a NV De Meric Grande Reserve Brut Champagne, 80% Pinot Noir from Ay--slightly tart but intensely flavored, with a fine brioche nose. Very lively wine with plenty of character.

2001 Caillou Quartz and 1990 Figeac

Time to crack one of the 2001 CdP to see how they are doing, and maybe try a mystery Bordeaux brought by Lou.

We started with a 2007 Terredora DiPaolo Greco di Tufo, a pleasant summer drink that was showing a bit more rusticity than I recalled from an earlier taste. This one struck me as a bit unintegrated with its somewhat angular profile, hanging somewhere between full ripe fruit and a harder acidic character. This could drink better with time, but we came away undecided as to where this was at or where it was going.

Next up was one of my modest stash of 2001 CdP. I had had the 2001 Clos du Caillou Quartz Chateauneuf du Pape a few back at one of Steve Rigisich's Bay Area Wine Experiment (BAWE) events where it showed quite well, big, powerful, structure, and all potential. Perhaps surprisingly, this bottle seemed not to have evolved a great deal, barely budging past that same structured, primary character it showed about 4 years ago. We have an interesting time analyzing the effect of temperature here along the lines of what Paul Savage and others have discussed--initially the wine was a touch warm, which made it seem a little looser and less impressive in its structure, but we cooled it down a few degrees and the wine's structure, mineral undertones, and volume emerged much more clearly. Still, this wine seems to need at least 5 years to show much more, unless you are in to primary CdP (I am not so much anymore myself). Right now, not a 95-96 point wine IMO...

Next up was a mystery Bordeaux. The initial aromatic attack was striking, with an almost aggressive leafy green character on the nose. The palate even from the beginning was much smoother, with an abundance of ripe fruit that suggested that this was not from one of those rainier "classic" vintages of Bordeaux, despite the green aroma notes. With time in the glass (almost an hour), the nose toned down and took on a more floral character, with a stronger suggestion of aged tobacco, but with a signature quite different from the floral character of a Pichon Lalande, for example. The green leaf tobacco nose had me thinking Cabernet Franc, so I guessed 1990 Figeac, even though a bottle that Lou had brought to a Bordeaux offline some years back showed a very different (less leafy) character). Bingo, I got that one right at least...

1961 and 1967 Conterno

A group of six got together at Perbacco in San Francisco to sample some bottles of the 1961 and 1967 Conterno Barolo. We had sourced all wines from Rare Wines in Sonoma, and the '67 in particular may have had the same provenance as those offered by Zachys at about the same time (a cellar in Piemonte). All of the bottles were opened about 2 hours before dinner, with no decanting until immediately before being served, and transported with great care to the restaurant.

The 1961 Conterno Barolo showed quite well considering its advanced age (older than some of the participants in the tasting), with a high-toned, airy nose of slight faded musty dark fruit, saddle leather, and more distant notes of underbrush and soil. In the mouth this medium-bodied wine is more about nuance than power, with almost delicate notes of faded cherry and licorice nicely delineated on the palate. I might have used the descriptor "Burgundian" if this term was not so overused these days, but it does conjure up some of the complex, nuanced character of the wine. This wine held up nicely over the course of the dinner, not a stunner but certainly a fascinating example of a 47 year old Barolo.

Much more deeply pitched than the 1961 was our first bottle of the 1967 Conterno Barolo, which initially showed a slightly volatile nose of shoe polish and dark cherries. On the palate this wine showed a completely different level of concentration from the 1961, with bolder notes of licorice, meat, and dark fruit that extended over the entire mid-palate. Gradually the volatile notes subsided and the wine came beautifully in to overall balance, showing a strong, expressive character that became more energized with time, a remarkable elixir that lingered on the palate, as if vibrating at a resonance just below our collective ability to detect it. This bottle was in fine shape, even if perhaps slightly on the nether side of a very long and gradual slope of maturity.

The second bottle of 1967 Conterno Barolo did not show so well. The first tastes of the wine showed that it was at least broadly in the style of the first 1967, at least in terms of its level of concentration, but the wine was tired from the outset and continued to lose energy with time in the glass. A caramel note emerged quickly on the nose and the palate became more anonymous and subdued, with none of the bold sweeping palate character of the first. This bottle was clearly well over the hill, probably as a result of a cork that did not perform as well as the cork in the first bottle (assuming both bottles came from the same cellar and thus had the same provenance).

A great evening where the food and wine service at Perbacco really heightened our ability to evaluate and enjoy these wines. Not your everyday treat, that's for sure...