Memorable Wines.

People sometimes ask what my favorite wine is, or what wine I consider the best I've had. I can never really answer these questions because, in my experience, the surrounding circumstances of each bottle (company, place, food, conversation, occasion, etc. - you get the picture) are all factors that I simply am incapable of totally divorcing from each bottle. Properly trained and experienced professional tasters, the real ones, surely can, but I am not one them and do not aspire to be. For me, wine is for sheer pleasure - not investment or inventory, neither status symbol nor shameful secret. Wine is for drinking with good friends and good food.

That said, below are some wines that, for different reasons, are particularly memorable:

1986 Château Montrose - I've gone through very many bottles of this. The first one, though, was the most memorable. It was at home, after dinner one summer night around 1998 or 1999. I pretty much halved the bottle with Tonji, we've known each other since high school, since our wives didn't really feel like drinking. Leathery, cedary, powerful, yet pure, layered and complex - we recalled our carefree highschool days - the crazy things we'd do and the trouble we'd get into back then. Tonji generally favors the wines of St-Estèphe, particularly Montrose and Calon Ségur and we've shared several bottles '86 Montrose together, but I need only mention "1986 Montrose" and he, like I, also immediately recalls that one particular bottle we shared that night of reminiscing.

1983 Château Latour - My siblings all studied and lived abroad at certain points in their lives, one still does. Thus, there was a spell of around 6 years that we weren't all together in one place. That ended when we all met in New Orleans, together with our dad, kids and spouses, in spring of 2001. We made the rounds of the restaurants (Drago's in Metairie was fantastic), but, wine-wise, it was the dinner at the New Orleans branch of Smith & Wollensky (a short walk from the French Quarter) that sticks to mind. With the gargantuan steaks, I ordered a 1983 Latour and a 1992 Opus One, both of which I liked. My wife, however, without knowing what wines I had served, opined that the second red (i.e., the '92 Opus) tasted "crappy" beside the first (the '83 Latour).

Though I've had the more famous 1982, 1990, 1996 (as well as many others not as famous like the 1993), and they were easily superior to the 1983, because of that reunion, when I think "Latour", the '83 comes to mind first.

1999 Château Cheval Blanc - I've had this vintage of Cheval Blanc at least 4 times and several other vintages as well, including the "100 Parker point" 1990. When I think "Cheval Blanc", however, what immediately comes to mind is the '99 - particularly the one I opened at a small dinner at Tonji and Sylvia's. I brought the bottle as it was their nth wedding anniversary - the bouquet was just so perfumed and exquisite, I remember it clearly to this day - no other '99 Cheval I've had was as superb. Even the 1990 I brought to their 20th anniversary dinner wasn't as memorable.

1978 Château Pichon Lalande - We had this, among others, with dinner under the stars at the Miailhe's Château Siran our first night there in July 2006. Sevrine, my wife and I made dinner: seared fresh scallop salad and seared-then-roasted duck breast atop baked apples, I recall vividly. Assorted cheeses, bread and dried sausages too. It was a meal beautiful in its simplicity.

I've had the '78 Pichon Lalande at least thrice more since then, but none of them ever tasted as wonderful as the one that night.

1953 Château Siran - At a dinner in Siran, the same trip as the one immediately mentioned, but on our penultimate night there. I had always thought the Miailhes' usually leathery and masculine wines were over-performing and more age-worthy than many realize, but was absolutely stunned at how elegantly feminine, pure, perfumed and silky this 50+ year-old wine was. Truly an eye-opener and testament to the heights this château is capable of reaching.

1994 Vieux Château Certan - Opened during a quiet dinner with my wife at Melo's (Greenbelt 1 at the time) in early July 2002. It was merely OK over dinner and I took the unfinished half home to drink while reading in bed. My old notes state that after a couple of hours:

(i)ts initial closed aromas turned to a complex, heady perfume of
pure, sweet dark cherry enveloped with nuances of candied red fruit and a touch
of cedar. In the mouth, it was a pure silk of lush ripe red fruit layers with
violet plummy undertones. Its sweetish cherry and plum finish stretched out
luxuriously over hints of spices. There was absolutely no heaviness in the
concentrated flavors, no cloying in the sweetness, just layers of pure, clean,
flavors; very elegant.

I will always remember lying in bed that night, book laid down on my chest, smelling the wine's sweet perfume. No other bottle of that same wine was ever as good.

1997 Opus One - Early December 2000 in the restaurant "La Mer" of the Halekulani Hotel in Honolulu, with my wife, at a table for two over-looking Waikiki beach. The sommelier recommended it to pair with my main course of roast rack of lamb and squab. I initially declined, opining that it was surely much too young to enjoy. He gently urged me, guaranteeing we'd like it. We certainly did. This was the bottle that raised my interest in Napa cabs. I had this wine many, many times since then, but that first bottle, on that night, was the best of them all.

1955 Château Rauzan-Ségla - Served by Emmanuel Cruse with the excellent cheese course at his family's fairytale château d'Issan during a dinner in July 2007.

My enjoying the cheeses and wine had a lot to do with the venue, of course, as well as the company and conversation of my seat-mate, Jean-Pierre Chambas (a French immigrant to the US who owns and runs Aleph Wines, one of the biggest wine distributors in South Carolina), a bull of a man with a walrus moustache, gentle demeanor and great wealth of knowledge of food and wine.

1997 Domaine Romanée Conti Le Montrachet - The Doc, Stockbroker and I thirded a bottle of this over lunch at Tivoli, late March 2005. The Stockbroker arranged for a special menu for us revolving around this bottle. I recall we had a 1996 Dom Pérignon to start. What a wine. What a lunch. A lot of time was spent analyzing, re-analyzing, savoring it, alone and with each course, and, naturally, discussing all the aspects and nuances thereof.

1977 Gevrey Chambertin by Emile Bourgeot - Shared with me by Robert Burroughes sometime in August or September 2006. Though an admitted Bordeaux amateur, I'd had some experience with red Burgundies at the time, but never really quite understood why they were so revered. This was my first romance with a truly good, aged Burgundy, its perfume touched with decayed violets, as well as the nostalgia it elicits. I've never looked back. The Doc had told me more than once that he'd read that "All roads lead to red Burgundy". With that bottle, I finally got what he meant.

~ Memorable Lunch, Almost Forgotten Wines ~

Since the members of our little wine group fell into each other's company, we've had so many superb bottles, it would be impossible to try to make a list of exceptional ones. However, there is this one particularly memorable lunch we somewhere lost in time and alcohol (the Vigneron hadn't joined us regularly yet, so I'm guessing it was late in 2005) where the Stockbroker and I got majorly plastered (the Doc much less so - or so he insists). So much so, that the Stockbroker and I couldn't be roused from our naps and, consequently failed to attend our respective dinners that night.

Ironically, we all remember that lunch well, but couldn't individually be sure of what bottles we drank. Thus, we had to piece the list together from our collective memories. I recall we started with the Doc's 1996 Dom Pérignon, then moved to the reds with our main courses - though there may have been half a bottle of white from the Stockbroker somewhere in between.

The Doc remembered he brought a 1998 Tertre Roteboeuf (which I liked so much I served the same wine on my following birthday), and the Stockbroker remembered my 2001 Opus One (a gift from good friends from Hillsborough, Ca). With dessert, we had the Stockbroker's half bottle of excellent 1983 Rieussec (that one I remembered). I also recall the Stockbroker opened a Napa cab, but can't remember what it was as this was the one that surely "pushed us over the edge", as it were.

It was a stroke of luck that I brought a driver that day as I was in no condition to drive myself. I slept all the way back home and continued thereafter to the next morning. The dinner I missed was hosted by us at home, so my wife was, understandably, peeved at me for not attending to the guests (better than throwing up all over them, I thought).

We three then decided to limit our lunch wines to just one white or bubbly and one red from then on unless the Vigneron or someone else joins us.

~ Not only old or extra-special wines can turn out memorable of course ~

The first Bugey Cerdon I ever tried, the maker of which I have long forgotten. At Ducasse's 1930s-esque Parisian bistro, Aux Lyonnais, in July 2006. I didn't really know what Bugey Cerdon was at the time, but noticed that everyone around us seemed to be having this scarlet bubbly as their apéritif, so I ordered some for my wife and I - very inexpensive. It was just so light, refreshing, simply enjoyable and dangerously drinkable, it set the pace for a memorable dinner that night. The oeufs cocotte here was the best we've had, even Robuchon's, while very good, couldn't do better. The grilled calf's liver is to die for - honest, hearty, robust and rustic. Have dessert elsewhere though.

I ordered a case of the Cerdon de Bugey Caveau de Mont St-July (under $15 per bottle in California) when I got back to Manila. Everyone who I let try it loved it. Sevrine, after her first two glasses told me to keep it away from her as she would drink the whole bottle herself. Mrs. Doc loved it too when I brought it to their beach house and had the Doc buy her her own stash of it. The Stockbroker ordered 4 cases of the stuff. Enough said.

2002 Domaine Michel Niellon Chassagne-Montrachet - A simple village (i.e., neither a premier cru nor a grand cru) Chassagne-Montrachet from one of the better makers of the area, with our second course of langoustine and truffle ravioli, during my wife's and my first meal at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris. The interplay between the wine and the dish and discussing all the numerous courses with my wife made it memorable.

2006 Joseph Mellot Sancerre La Gravelière - A couple of bottles during a late dinner (around 10:45pm) with my wife at Au Pied de Cochon in Paris with moules farçi, assorted fresh oysters and os à moelle. It was cheap, around 39 Euros per bottle restaurant price (I subsequently checked and it could be bought at 12-13 Euros at retail), but it was superb and paired well with everything we had, even the thick, spicy, garlicy tomato-based sauce of the moules. We slugged down almost the entire first bottle before our food arrived, ordered another bottle, got tipsy, struck up a conversation with a nice, young Russian couple at the next table, and, eventually, stumbled back to our hotel way past 1am, laughing like idiots.