08/08/08 Wines.

~ 8 August, 2008, Shang Palace ~

The Stockbroker organized a lucky o8/08/08 dinner for the group. The usual Bordeaux Challenge suspects were there (the Vigneron - the Frenchman formerly known as Edouard - and family finally back from Bordeaux) plus Felicia as her hubby is currently in Beijing covering the Olympic games.

As a welcome drink and with assorted appetizers of sliced jellyfish, clams, etc...

NV Pommery Brut Royal - My bottle. I've had this very nice, medium weight non-vintage bubbly a few times courtesy of Robert Burroughes and John Whitehouse and have always enjoyed it. I recently learned from Robert that Forth & Tay distributes it (at a case price of P2740 per bottle) and I quickly ordered a couple of bottles for Thursday's Chaine de Rotisseurs Kaiseki dinner at Tsumura and Friday's lauriat.

This straightforward non-vintage Pommery is lively, crisp, pure in fruit (clean green apple, merest hint of citrus), has solid mid-palate heft and roundness, discreet breadiness and playful toastiness - its finish is lightly creamy-toasty and generous with froth.

The sponsored NV Besserat de Bellefon Cuvée des Moines Brut (from Brumms, at P2500 retail per its website) which I compared it to, though decent enough, paled in comparison to the Pommery in that the former's citrus notes seemed overly-aggressive (to the point of being bothersomely souring) particularly towards the back of the mouth and in the finish. The Besserat also seemed comparatively overly lean and linear.

In any event, I always like to kick things off with nice champagne, vintage or non-vintage, as it sets a lively stage for the rest of the meal.

Given that both are locally available, reasonably priced non-vintage Champagnes, I would personally buy the Pommery everytime. Those, however, who prefer the lighter, more citrusy and linear style of bubbly should go for the Besserat.

To go with the skin-and-pancake course of Peking Duck:

2002 Domaine Ostertag Pinot Gris "Zellberg" - My bottle. I love Alsace pinot gris with Peking Duck, Bernie S. taught me this pairing (I also got my stock of this wine from him) and it was re-recommended to me by no less than Marc Beyer (of Domaine Léon Beyer) and Catherine Faller (of Domaine Weinbach).

This brilliant wine was simply singing out of the glass. The ladies praised it, Feli enthusiastically. The bottle was drained in a trice.

With a distinctive flowery, spicy/tangy, mineral-laced bouquet and flavors of ripe apricot, peach, underlying almond paste, a bit of oak/vanilla (well integrated and not over-done) and an almost imperceptible hint of anise, this luxuriously flavored, precisely balanced, relatively full-bodied wine was an absolute hit; and, if I might add, a wonderful pairing with the duck skin course.

The rest of the courses started coming in rapid succession and things started to get a bit more serious...

...as did the wines:

In the order I had them:

1990 Château Lagrange (3rd Growth, St-Julien) - The Doc's bottle, served pre-decanted (shown in the picture with a bowl of warming, earthy shark's fin soup). I recall the first bottle of Lagrange that made me take notice was a 1996 from the Vigneron, and, a subsequent 2000 from him, to me hammered home the heights this château is capable of.

The 1990 is a full, ripe (typical of the vintage) , masculine (typical of the château's style) wine. Big, muscular, yet harmoniously flavored and deftly balanced with dominant profiles of earthy ceps, slight truffle, cassis, molten black fruit, cigar box, slight nuances of black pepper, smoky cedar coming in towards the back.

In addition to the many merits of the Lagrange already mentioned, I might add that it is a very consistent and reliable maker. Despite all these, it remains "reasonably priced" - by no means a cheap wine, mind you - rather, in terms of its quality, I imagine it could sell for much more.

1999 Château La Mission Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan) - Feli's bottle. Seeing it reminded me of the wine-and-lauriat dinner hosted by Bernie almost 2 years ago at Lili - all the pairing reds were from Pessac-Léognan.

Though many Bordeaux reds I've tried are already drinking quite nicely, I suspected this big-name wine would be less ready than it turned out to be, and I'm glad I was wrong.

I enjoy '99 Bordeaux, they generally mature faster (hence, I can enjoy them sooner), are not over-the-top-ripe/extracted (only so much manipulation can be performed without churning out a Frankenwine monster), and not as "thin" as many have written. True, they may not age as long as "stronger" vintages, but, then, I don't care - I'll just drink them earlier.

This is an understated, dignified wine with good typicity (which is important to me) in its slight roast herbs (think dried thyme and marjoram), mild/earthy tobacco, small red berry highlights over a dark sea of cassis and, to a lesser extent, plum. This wine discreetly beckons, rather than openly allures (like the above-mentioned Ostertag does) one to explore its secrets. Demure, discreet, seductive. I liked it like that.

Not rich or luxurious like the '89 (Doc's) or '90 (the Stockbroker's) or as well-structured as the '94 (the Doc's) I've tried in the past, but a definite pleasure in its own right.

At this point, I dropped off tasting and concentrated on the food, particularly on the fish maw dish which deserves special mention. All the dishes were good, ind you, but this was exceptional.

I've always favored fish maw, its supple, gently yielding texture and delicate difficult-to-describe flavor, yet do not get to eat it too often as my wife and most of my friends are not particularly taken by it. The one last Friday, however, was an exception. My wife openly praised it and the Stockbroker...well, you can see how he attacked it with gusto.

After a brief concession to gluttony, I resumed drinking.

1999 Château Pavie (St-Emilion) - The Stockbroker's. A no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners hedonistic style. Loads of eager, lush, well-extracted ripe cherry, raspberry, plum with dark fruit and mocha undertones laced with sweetish nuances of clove and vanilla bean - pretty much consistent with my old notes from 9 March 2005 - but this time with a slight separation of flavors. It displayed a much higher level of ripeness and extraction than any other '99 from Bordeaux I can remember.

When subsequently asked about my ranking of the night, I opined that although this wine was openly pleasing, it lacked elegance (an opinion the Vigneron shared). The Stockbroker suggested that, judging from the results of past Challenges (i.e., the triumphs of the Doc's '98 Pavie and my '98 La Couspaude), taste in wine may have changed. I recalled that I didn't vote for either of those wines at the respective Challenges, and that I'd had (and liked) the '99 Pavie before, and so, looked up my old notes the next evening.

My old notes reveal that we drank this bottle alongside the Doc's 1999 Château La Clusiere (the vineyards of which have since been folded into those of Pavie). Said notes also show that, at the time, I noted the Pavie in question as putting out "[an] elegant performance". I didn't, however, then note any separation in flavors or that it was so exuberant or eager to please.

After much thought, while I cannot, honestly, completely rule out the possibility that my taste in wine has changed, I doubt it in this case. Most likely, it was a combination of the wine's evolution (after all, the gap is almost 3-½ years) and the wines it was being compared to.

Still and all, on the subject Friday evening, that bottle of '99 Pavie was a wantonly luscious and wide-open sexpot - a "pok-pok" of a wine - a bombastically sexy "pok-pok" to be sure - but a "pok-pok" nonetheless. Not particularly elegant, intellectual, contemplative or intriguingly mysterious, but, then, again, not all wines have to be. As a matter of fact, I think that if all wines were so, drinking wine would all too easily become boring. Everything has its place.

1996 Domaine de Chevalier (Pessac-Léognan) - My bottle. I bought a few of these a while back because I really like the traditional, understated, terroir-driven style of this château and its wines are reasonably-priced to boot (I got this particular batch at under US$60 each; the next batch at a ridiculously under-valued US$45 per bottle). After all, with good quality at a good price - what's not to like?

It just so happens that Jancis Robinson (a holder of a Masters of Wine degree, the British taste-nemesis of Robert Parker, Jr.) in September 2006 rated this the one of the highest non-1st growths of the vintage (with a score of 18/20, equal to those of Châteaux Latour and Haut Brion), while Parker gives it a "mere" 88/100 (which, most likely, keeps the wine at its reasonable price).

I entered this wine in a recent IWFS blind 1996 red Bordeaux horizontal tasting (i.e., wines from different châteaux but all from the same vintage) - mainly out of curiosity, really, to see how it would fair. With its discreet nature and understated style, I didn't think it would do well in a blind tasting, especially tasted amongst the "showier" big names such as Cos d'Estournel, Léoville Poyferré (both of which I personally favor), Angelus and Palmer which were included in the line-up. To my surprise, and, I'm sure, to many others', my bottle came out first place, closely followed by Cos d'Estournel which the Doc and I predicted would take the gold.

In any event, true to form, this wine gave off a whistful bouquet of mild truffle and asphalt, cassis, dark fruit, delicately laced with dried herbs and subtle tobacco with sweetish cedar and a whisper of vanilla-cream towards the end. On the palate, it gracefully mirrored its bouquet with added topnotes of red berries; comparatively silky in texture with a lithe, supple medium body. No "blockbuster" this, but a textbook in propriety and quiet manners. Meticulous and precise.

With dessert of mildly sweetened, earthy, vaguely smokey roasted chestnut/walnut pudding that tasted like it had cocoa and chocolate in it:

1988 Château de Fargues (Sauternes) - The Vigneron's bottle, surely chosen with last May's all-Sauternes lauriat in mind. The château is owned and run by the Lur Saluces family with whom the Vigneron's has old ties. Until recently, the Lur Saluce family used to own the pinnacle of Sauternes, and, therefore, the pinnacle of sweet whites, Château d'Yquem. No more than that need be said to vouch for de Fargues' history, quality and pedigree.

A beautiful wine of both richness and finesse, it is not a huge, opulent, unctuous wine like, say, the '67 , '89 or '97 Yquems; rather, it displays its tangily-botrytised, floral (yes, honeysuckle) , wild honey, sweet peach, kumquat, candied apricot, orange rind and vanilla custard undertones with great purity focus and restraint (though notably bigger/fuller than the '86 de Fargues was a little over 3 years ago).

I loved it with the dessert (mingling with the earthy chocolate/carob nuttiness mid-mouth while the firm, balancing acidity cuts a swathe through it towards the back and cleanses at the finish) and I loved it by itself.

Good wines that night.