TN: 61/82 Bordeaux (5 pairs, plus other stuff)

[jrufusj]

61/82 BORDEAUX DINNER - Luxor in Marunouchi (1/20/2006)

Cathryn and I, part of a group gathered by a friend both generous and inspired, had the pleasure of drinking through a little Champagne, a little white wine, a little dessert wine, and ten stellar Bordeaux from two great vintages.

The '82s were opened at 6PM and the '61s a little before 7PM. The St. Julien flight was served around 8:30 or a little later, with the other two red flights following at 45 minute to 1 hour intervals. There were only seven of us, so there was plenty of wine to go back to late in the evening. One of the pleasures was to be able to watch these wines evolve over the course of the evening, though some of them probably could have used another six or eight hours to be at their best. It is also enlightening to drink these wines with a bit of context provided by their older/younger siblings and their first and second cousins of the same age.

Champagne to Start

With conversation and an amuse plate including house-made pancetta, olives, grissini wrapped in mortadella, and a seafood salad in endive with oscietra.

• 1990 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon Oenothèque - France, Champagne
  Bright gold with a very fine bead trickling to the top of the glass in beautiful ribbons. Clean autolysed yeast, toast, crisp apple and very little pinot sweetness on initial nose. The texture on the palate is much more winey and much less pointal DP mousse than the regular ’90. Extremely clean wine, good acid. Time brings out honey on the nose, along with musky lemon and sweet white flowers. Time also turns the texture much more creamy, with muscley, straightforward mouthwatering fruit. A strong peach element grows on the finish. Strong, balanced, complex, still fresh, but somehow more advanced and less of a wine in totality than its regularly disgorged and released sibling.
  

The Obligatory One (Make That Two!) White Wine(s)

With steamed king crab dressed with red pepper coulis. When it became clear that the Valentini would perform according to type and that the crab would have long since decomposed or been eaten before it was ready, the restaurant brought out an alternate.

• 1995 Azienda Agricola Valentini Trebbiano d'Abruzzo - Italy, Abruzzi, Trebbiano d'Abruzzo
  Pretty gold with greenish flashes and a bit of visible spritz. Extremely reduced, showing a deep chemical element and a dominant Lemon Pledge © note. Put aside for hours, a substitute white is poured. After several hours, it is just beginning to come out of its reductive state to offer winey funk on the nose with an unidentifiable leesy/mushroomy nose that is nonetheless appealing (to me). Others say sour milk or sweatsocks, but I like it and am intrigued. Even with over three hours in the glass, it never completely comes around, but it does show major flinty mineral and flowers on top of bass tone fruit and cheese/lees notes. On the palate, good acid balanced with great depth and richness and a bit of salty freshness that grows as the evening goes on. Again, never completely comes around but is still on the growth curve when it sings with the cheese. Not very popular around the table, it definitely needs splash decanting and four hours to get a fair showing.
  
• 2004 St. Michael-Eppan Sauvignon Blanc Sanct Valentin - Italy, Alto Adige
  Light and young looking. Aggressive grass/herb, a bit of cat pee, tart green berries. Absolutely typical Loire sauv blanc nose but just a little bigger and riper, especially when touches of light peach and lychee come out then fade away then come back again, tipping the likely guesses toward Italy. (I missed by guessing a little too far south -- Friuli sauv blanc.) Palate has just enough acid to counter the fruit that is much riper and more tropical than on the nose. There is very ripe grapefruit and sweet peach on the finish. Thoroughly enjoyable, but better on the nose than the palate. If it were a notch or two more restrained on the palate, it would be a real winner.
  

St. Juliens

With porcini mushroom tagliatelle.

• 1961 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
  Color more youthful than expected. Core almost the same as the ’82, but rim has more orange/pink. Initial nose shows an almost Graves-like character of blood/iron and earth but is otherwise closed. Very quickly opens into a complex of forest floor, more earth, tobacco, and an elegant sweet lilting center of cassis and blackberry. On the palate, acid manages to make sweet fruit center light and deft without being dilute – beautiful St. Julien delicacy. Beautifully elegant and still picking up richness after an hour as a richer, more plummy extract note comes out on the nose.
  
• 1982 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
  Dense and still pretty darn dark – nearly solid to rim. Nose shows very forward immediate balsamic depth and sweetness with a kicker of black pepper. This then settled into cedar, super-ripe plum, deep currant and very fragrant, light-grained wood. One person suggested sandalwood. On the palate, much more elegant, particularly on the top of the palate. Brought to mind the Hugh Johnson phrase that it “goes down like water”. Lovely, classic and expanding finish. Remained very dense and sweet but picked up a level of classic elegance that was nowhere to be seen when first poured. What movement and complexity!
  
• 1961 Château Gruaud Larose - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
  Lightest color of the four by a hair, but not deteriorating at all. Also fairly lean and elegant, but more generous than the Ducru to start and without the iron backbone. Copybook St. Julien, with cassis, licorice, cedar, gently veiled tannins. Picks up weight with time, especially on the nose, adding a lovely sweetness and bit of minty spice. Palate has a classic mineral/loam/earth element and sweetish cassis/berry fruit. In the end, beautiful and elegant, but without as much weight, concentration, and texture behind it as the Ducru. Not dilute but not as big or distinctive a wine. Its virtue is its typicity (and that’s okay with me).
  
• 1982 Château Gruaud Larose - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
  Color similar to the Ducru ’82, but just a little thinner at the rim. Nose immediately shows the Cordier funky horse. This abates and then comes back from time to time. It is persistent but not initially obtrusive. In its lighter moments, it still leaves a strong layer of leaves and mushrooms over fruit and tar. In time, I’m believing that the fruit is, in fact, a bit obscured (at least on the nose). This is still tight and tannic, the toughest of the four St. Juliens, with a palate emphasizing dust and iron, black cherry and coffee. An impressive wine that was perhaps a little flawed on the nose and a fair bit tougher and more rustic than the others.
  

Paulliacs

With a deliciously tender slice of filet that I cannot for the life of me remember how it was prepared. I think I was transported by the Latour to another place.

• 1961 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  Lighter colored in all respects than the other wines of this flight and the previous. Nose starts lean and cedary, but almost immediately opens into Hakone blueberry and honey jam. This is followed by a flash of iodine and macerated raspberries, along with the more typical and classic CS notes. On the palate, it shows an intriguing note of washed rind cheese, along with dominant ripe plum and dark berry fruit plus earth. Mid-palate really has a lovely meaty depth and the finish shows a little kick of iron. Overall, there is a great remaining richness. If the ’61 Ducru was elegant with a sneaky concentration/depth/richness, then this was concentrated/deep/rich with a sneaky elegance and suavity.
  
• 1982 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  Lighter than the young Latour – similar to the ’61 Latour in color, though a little more solid. A greenish stem note begins the nose – not green like CF ivy leaves or bell pepper, but sappy young green – not an unpleasant flaw but not exactly typical. This does fade away and leaves solid cedar and cassis notes with strong and distinct highlights of duck blood and sweet wild berry syrup, plus a little low volume truffly earth. There is green on the palate as well, but again not hard or tart or offensively herbaceous. The green shows more as cheek coating tannins that manage to be a bit wild and rough but lovely and lush in texture at the same time. Until a late night revisit and a rereading of my notes, my summary was “in good shape, almost true to type, but somehow a little odd and not my favorite wine, even as a Loire CF fan”. There was never any question that this is a stunning and complex wine, just one of how much I personally liked it. After a late night last taste combined with a romantic rereading of my notes, the odd edges are really growing on me. Would love to taste again in a smaller cohort where I can really spend an evening with it.
  
• 1961 Château Latour - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  Strong deep color, almost solid throughout – a harbinger of youthfulness to come on nose and palate. Beautiful but tightly wound initial nose of pure cassis, graphite, and faint vanillin. As it opens up, it blossoms into ripe fruit, coffee, and Moroccan spice. The palate also has a prominent streak of graphite throughout, with sweet velvety cassis and berry in front and lovely hints of cinnamon on the finish. Beyond the lushness of the initial entry, this shows like a laser beam – a thin defined line – on the mid-palate and finish until it has passed over an hour in the glass. Only then does it begin to show its real strength and weight as it expands to fill the mid-palate with roasted coffee, ripe fruit and chocolate, all of a body and richness that is impressive but never clumsy. The finish is misnamed as it just won’t finish, evolving from the cinnamon into tobacco with both supported by more sweet fruit. I’m three years younger than the wine, but it almost certainly has more years left than I do.
  
• 1982 Château Latour - France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
  Deep and young colored. The nose is incredibly tight and needs vigorous aeration, to move beyond the slightly aromatic cigarbox and pencil stage, but it then manages to show more cedar, super-ripe cassis, peat and compost, and tobacco. Similarly young on the palate, it is very tannic in the front of the mouth but shows a nice, dense, full fruit in the mid-palate and an amazingly concentrated finish. As it opens up some, a rich sweetness begins to mask the substantial tannin up front and the mid-palate starts to show licorice and candied cranberry while a hint of nutty, bacony cheese quiche shows up on the finish. The fruit sweetness is balanced by a nice degree of acid, especially for the vintage. Still a baby, this displays a terrific balance of fruit, tannin, and acid that promises so much more to come. This still has a lot more hill to climb but is a pleasure to drink now.
  

Graves (as it was known then)

With large piece of dry aged venison stewed in red wine and garnished with black truffle.

• 1961 Château Haut-Brion - France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan
  Much lighter than any of the Medocs but not in any unhealthy way. On the nose, dusty, clay-like earth and huge cedar and tobacco combined with the essence of small ripe tightly concentrated berries. Time brings out this wonderfully sweet note of grilled and candied nuts. The two strongest impressions from the palate are of iron-bathed plums and of the most elegant acid keeping this concentrated wine lively and light. There is also meat extract making a marriage-worthy gamy combination with the venison. On the long finish, earth and fruit are joined by this lingering note of slightly bloody organ meat. I’m always amazed at how something can be so large and yet dance so deftly at the same time. Every ounce a proud representative of Graves, this still has something of what I most love from Hermitage. If I could only drink one wine from the night again, it would be this. Maybe not better than the others, but perfectly matched to my palate and what I like to eat with such wines.
  
• 1982 Château Haut-Brion - France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan
  Like the ’61, this is lighter than its peers with some rust orange at the edge. Among the expected earth and dust and baked plum and cassis fruit, the nose shows a distinctive green element – of green tea or coffee beans or tobacco. In other words, not leaves or stems, but something we are more accustomed to seeing in a softened, fermented state rather than a raw state. On the palate, this shows a lot of dusty, iron-tinged tannin balanced by a tremendous mid-palate glycerin sweetness. It is not hot at all, but shows more alcohol body than any other wine. Slurping vigorously brings out lightly stewed red fruit and some earthy spice. At this point, this is good and interesting, but disappointing. Revisited much later, the green element seems more exotic and less jarring. The palate has picked up a great black fruit depth that makes a major difference. The last sip of this was the best by far; this one needs a lot of air to show well.
  

Dessert Wine and Revisiting the Rest

With a small assortment of cheeses.

• 1996 Castello della Sala (Antinori) Muffato della Sala Umbria IGT - Italy, Umbria, Umbria IGT
  Good viscosity and an enticing golden richness. The nose seems to show a healthy bit of botrytis along with lemon and apricot sweetness, with some spiciness growing in the glass. With orange blossom honey on the palate, it is relatively simple but nicely concentrated and gives an odd but pleasing impression of salty cleanliness. This finishes rather intensely with persistent fruit and a hint of the lemon cream I often get from Sauternes, but also with a bit of the nutty character present in many a vin santo. Wish I knew what the blend was! Just looked it up and it is part Sauvignon Blanc and part Grechetto and Drupeggio as used in Orvieto. Makes sense to me. This is made by Antinori’s Umbrian outpost. Wonder if there is a smaller producer version, as this is pretty tasty innovation.
  

What a great evening. New people to meet, amazing wines, delicious food, and truly graceful and gracious wine service from Luxor. I will certainly go back again and would definitely consider it for a future wine dinner.

With the exception of the Valentini that was late to the party and will always offend some and the younger Gruaud that may have been a little flawed, all wines showed very well. The '82s had been in one good cellar since release, but none of us are old enough to have had the '61s from release. Nonetheless, they were in fantastic condition.

I've always said that I don't entirely get Bordeaux (as I'm sure my notes show). I certainly like it, but just don't feel like I entirely get it. After this night (and a recent '82 Lafleur), I'm damn sure encouraged to try a little harder! I'm also reminded that Gravner, Valentini, and the like need to be part of my preaching kit when I go about proselytizing my friends as to the virtues of distinctive wine.

Posted from CellarTracker

Edited January 23, 2006 by jrufusj (log)