November
Posted November 10th, 2006 by bperkinsIt’s time for selecting wines for the onslaught of holiday events, and I will recommend a few here as well as some more next month.
I grew up in a house where Chateauneuf-Du-Pape was the king of wine, and big events always included a bottle of the Popes wine. It is probably for this reason that when I think of the big Thanksgiving meal I think of Chateauneuf. I find turkey to be on the bland side, and the complex spices and flavors of Chateauneuf-Du-Pape are a great compliment to what is otherwise just a bird looking for mayonnaise. Not many wine experts make this pairing and perhaps I’m the only one who appreciates the combination, but it works for me and I invite you to try it. Located in the southern Rhone, northern Provence region of France, this small area produces some fabulous and elegant wines. One great wine from here is the 2003 Clos Saint Michel. This wine is elegant, complex and fills your pallet with beautiful Asian spices, slight hints of mushrooms and a soft finish of ripe berries. I took this to a dinner party last week and it received rave reviews from everyone there.
For those of you who depend on this column to recommend great Bordeaux, I have two favorites that I tasted again this month that are truly worth mentioning again and are ready to drink now. They are both from the 2001 vintage and are very different from each other, but nonetheless excellent. The first is the 2001 Lafon Rochet from St. Estephe. This fabulous wine has classic oak, wet hay and mushrooms on the front, and lingers with hints of cigar box and smoke on the finish. The wine changed as it opened up and was a blockbuster.
The second Bordeaux is a 2001 Chateau Gloria from St. Julien. This is a slightly softer wine with more fruit on the front end, but developed as it opened up to earth, smoke and barnyard. These are both wines that you sip slowly to experience all of the complexity of flavors they have to offer and wish you had more when they are finished.
As with any vintage, not all 2001’s are great. I don’t like to use this space to be negative about wines, but when I find a wine that I’ve paid a fair amount of money for and it’s not that great, then I will pass it on. A friend and I each bought a bottle of wine from the same chateau, in different vintages, to taste both the similarities and differences from the winemaker. We chose the 1998 and 2001 Chateau Clerc Milon (owned and operated by the Mouton Rothschild family) and compared them side by side. Both wines were disappointing at best. They were thin and lacked complexity, and while I’m a big fan of it’s sister wine – Chateau d’Armailhac- these wines were not worth the $45 price tag. There are so many other great Bordeaux at this price point that it is particularly disappointing when you taste one that compares more favorably to something under $20.
As always I try to find some very good wines in the under $20 range and this month I have two that are outstanding. The first is the 2000 Chateau Tanesse ($13) from Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux and the second is the 2000 Chateau La Croix Melin ($18) from St. Emilion. These are both lovely wines, with classic
One last note for those of you in the St. Louis area who are looking for a great selection of Bordeaux. I stopped by the Wine Chateau in Chesterfield a couple of weeks ago and was amazed at how much of the 2003 vintage they had in stock. This was the year of the severe heat in France and some producers made fantastic wines. The wines tend to be more “new world” in style, but have the complexity of Bordeaux as they open up and breathe. They can be enjoyed now or laid down to mature and my advice is to do some of each. Brian has done a great job of assembling some outstanding wines from this vintage at good prices and it will be worth your time to see what he has in stock.
October
Posted October 22nd, 2006 by bperkinsWas ’94 a bad year in Bordeaux? The critics seemed to say so, and it has gotten that reputation, but this month I’ve tasted several ‘94’s and they are quite good – especially given that their prices are considerably less than those of the more highly rated vintages.
The 1994 Chateau La Papeterie is a beautifully dense and elegant wine that is worth far more than its $17 price tag (at Total Wine in Delaware). This wine is complex and earthy and is one of those wines you want to sip slowly in order to enjoy every mouthful.
Another ’94 I recently tasted was the Chateau Angelus. At a dinner party with other very good wines, this was the “wine of the night.” It was dense and lingered on your pallet, and the nose was classic Bordeaux with plenty of barnyard, wet hay, smoke, and oak. This is a beautiful wine that is ready to drink now and although expensive (around $100 on line) it is a blockbuster.
The best wine I tasted this month was a George from St. Emillion. This small estate has made a great wine that has one of the most powerful, complex noses I’ve experienced in a long time. The wine exudes big berry on top with a unique layering of earth, leather and cedar that give way to violets and berry on the finish. This is artful wine making at it finest, and well worth the $40 price tag.
In my continuing quest to recommend inexpensive wines that are worth drinking on a daily basis, I discovered the 2000 Chateau Desire Perriere, from Cotes de Blaye. This is a sub-region of Bordeaux and some of these producers make excellent wines without the big Bordeaux prices. This particular wine has plenty of character and complexity all for $9/bottle. It has to be the best wine under $10 around.
Sticking with great wines under $20, the 2000 Chateau Marquis de Mons, from Margaux is a real find. This is a fantastic wine from the great 2000 vintage that drinks like classic Bordeaux with plenty of barnyard and layered complexity. This wine lingers on your pallet and will stack up to many wines priced much higher. I’m letting most of my 2000’s continue to age in my cellar, but this is one I’ll be buying and opening now.
I also want to pass on one wine that I would not recommend. It is disappointing to open a wine that you have great expectations for and have anticipated being fantastic, only to discover that it is thin and dull. A very good friend gave me a bottle of 1995 Chateau Talbot several years ago, and paid good money for what he (and I) believed would be a fantastic bottle of wine. One of the owners of a wine store I visit has pushed Talbot on me for years. I’ve never been a huge fan, but I have respected this guy’s opinion and have bought some on his recommendations in the past. Unfortunately this ’95 is a huge disappointment. It is almost thin and overly simple. Perhaps this is because it is still not ready and needs more time in the bottle. I think most of the ’95 Bordeaux are not ready to drink yet, but in my opinion this wine doesn’t show any promise of growing into something worth the price tag.
September
Posted September 22nd, 2006 by bperkinsOn the occasion of our last dinner in Canada with some great friends I decided it was the appropriate time to open one of the oldest and most prestigious bottles of wine in my collection. I had purchased a 1975 Mouton Rothschild several years ago from a wine store in St. Louis that was liquidating an old collector’s cellar for him. I can’t tell you the price of the wine because my wife reads this, but suffice to say I only bought one bottle. This was the night to open this wine.
A great wine deserves great food and the proper handling of the wine. It should be properly uncorked, decanted and accompanied by the appropriate stemware. The Old Mill in Ancaster has been serving great food for several years and they have recently added a professional sommelier to their staff making this a complete first class establishment. He recognized immediately the special nature of the wine and was prepared to handle it with the respect it deserved.
The cork was difficult, breaking in two as it was opened. Our sommelier was a professional and knew how to handle this type of potential disaster, and wrestled the cork without any tragic consequences. Next he decanted the wine using a candle just under the neck of the bottle to look for sediment, and to know when to stop pouring. He brought out new Riedel stemware and at the appropriate time poured the wine for us to taste. Older wines will open up quickly and should not breathe too long, as they can sometimes lose their taste within less than an hour.
After thirty years in the bottle the wine was amazing and near perfect. I have learned that the hallmark of great Bordeaux is the balance and complexity the wine maker achieves with the wine. The Mouton had all the classic qualities of a great Bordeaux – oak, cherry cassis, florals, hay, cigar box – layered in perfect balance so that no one element was dominant. The wine became silky smooth as it opened up and lingered on the pallet. It was truly a remarkable wine that gives credence to why Mouton is a first growth. You can still find this wine on auction and it is worth every penny.
At the same dinner we opened a 1989 Chateau Palmer and a 1989 Chateau Pichon-Longueville. Nineteen eighty-nine was a fantastic year in Bordeaux and these two wines were quintessential examples of what great winemakers do in great vintages.
The Palmer is a benchmark of the vintage. The wine was stunning immediately out of the bottle, and became layered, complex and balanced as it had time to breathe. It was elegant, big, dense and classic in every sense of the word. It became more interesting as it opened up and the long finish lingered on our pallets for quite some time. Palmer is one of the finest Chateau in Bordeaux and they make wonderful wines in every vintage. In great vintages they make fantastic wines and the ’89 is simply amazing. It is the kind of wine you don’t want to finish, and you savor every drop in your glass.
We did not do justice to the Pichon – tasting it after the Mouton – and I should have done a better job of placing the wines in the right order because this is a fabulous wine that is complex and dense. While the Palmer was very approachable now, the Pichon could easily use another five to ten years in the bottle. We let this wine breath for at least an hour, and it was still a little tight. The great Bordeaux wines take a long time to reach their peak and when they do they become the standard by which all other wine is judged. This wine will reach that standard with more time in the bottle.
As part of our going-away ritual I also opened up a bottle of 1979 Chateau Haut Sarpe. I bought this wine in St. Emilion – splitting the cost with a friend – in 1999. After twenty-five years in the bottle I was a little nervous about the condition of the wine. We were not disappointed as the wine was simply amazing. It was not as complex or smooth as the Mouton, and not as dense as the Palmer or Pichon, but it was fantastic nonetheless. It had all the classic Bordeaux traits of barnyard, hay, oak, mushrooms and cedar and spread across your pallet, lingering on and on. We didn’t want to finish this bottle as it was another example of what happens to great Bordeaux when they are given enough time to really age. This is another wine you can still find by searching for it on the internet. The site I use is www.wine-searcher.com .
Again reaching into my cellar in preparation for our move I opened an American wine from a producer I’ve recommended here before. Chateau St. Michelle, Canoe Ridge in the Columbia Valley of Washington State makes a huge fruit bomb that is fantastic in good years. We had the 1998 Canoe Ridge single vineyard Cabernet and absolutely loved it. You want to sip this for every drop and I can’t imagine a better bargain at $28. This competes with much more expensive California cabernets without missing a beat.
The last wine to recommend this month is an unbeatable 2003 Mouton Cadet Bordeaux for $7. The ’03 vintage is proving to be a strong vintage, which means that even the less expensive wines will be quite drinkable, but it’s been a long time since I’ve tasted a wine that is this good at this price. Don’t get me wrong. This is not a great wine by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a great choice for a table wine to have as your everyday “avoid-the-heart-attack-by-drinking-a-glass-of-wine-a-day” wine. I found this at Total Wine in Delaware, and it is a great bargain.