Ladies' wines
Last night, I had the pleasure to serve these beautiful wines to a table of Ladies, who enjoyed them very much (hence the title of this post) 😉😁👍🍷
Pretty proud of the little selection I made, as it went really well with the menu, and they were really pleased in the end. The only hiccup was the Chateau Haut-Brion 2016, which was way too young and tight, and only opened toward the end of the dinner, after nearly 3 hours of decanting.
Fortunately for me, as, when I first served it, the host looked at me with those eyes saying out loud, yet without saying a word, how wrong it was of me to have chosen this particular wine in such a young vintage. And, if the wine did not open up at some point, the mood of the dinner and the host would have been seriously different. Phew...😅😅😅
2003 Dom Perignon Vintage Brut Rosé Champagne
Estimated retail price HKD 3,700 / Euros 450 / USD 472
At the opening, the nose was off-putting, sour and dusty, smelling almost like a sewer. It was weird. I pour myself a little bit to examine and taste it. Deep and intense pink salmon color, with ripe onion skin nuances. A few minutes later, the weird smell had vanished to give way to ripe strawberry and red berries aromas mingling with floral scents and limestone mineral hints. To my surprise the palate was much better than the nose, offering expressive flavors of red berries (raspberry, strawberry) and cherries, mixed with floral and mineral notes, nicely expanding from beginning to end, quite rich and substantial, yet with enough acidity to keep the focus and freshness in check. Well done.
It was a nice surprise, I must say, as 2003 was a very warm, unprecedented hot vintage (I should say), characterized by a long summer heatwave that impacted most of the wine areas across France, resulting in some weird, unbalanced, and uncharacteristic wines in some regions, most notably Bordeaux (*).
Consequently, I was happy to realize that there was still some acidity in this Dom Perignon 2003 Rosé to balance the ripeness of the fruit and bring some needed freshness/crispiness to keep the champagne focused and vibrant, thus preventing it from being dull and fat. A very interesting experience that taught me, once again, that time and wine are complexly intricated and indissociable and can make wonder together after a certain period of time, even in lesser vintages.
This is the reason why I have always been very humble regarding my knowledge about wine, over my 30 years of career, as, you never know how surprisingly well a wine, that was originally or supposedly lesser or even mediocre, may evolve and become after many years in the bottle.
(*): I have already expressed my opinion many times and wrote lengthly about Bordeaux 2003 vintage, in various posts on this blog, if interested you can read some of them here and here).
2015 Cos d'Estournel Bordeaux Blanc
Estimated retail price HKD 1,180 / Euros 145 / USD 150
Pale yellow color with green nuances. Intriguing tropical nose boasting aromas of exotic fruits (pineapple, citrus, mango) and white flowers, with some oaky notes (from the barrel aging). The palate is quite generous, ample, overall well balanced, and still rather young and fresh for a 2015 white Bordeaux. A pleasant surprise here again. (...)
2018 Bachelet-Monnot Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Hameau du Blagny Bourgogne
Estimated retail price HKD 590 / Euros 72 / USD 75
Same as last week. A delightful and sophisticated wine, racy, classy, elegant, delicate, and charming, yet ample with that glycerine sensation coating the whole palate from the beginning to the seamless long-lasting finish. Displaying a lot of buttery, popcorn notes, mingling with apple and yellow stone fruits, yellow flowers, and mineral hints. Can't get enough of it. Looooooooooove it. (...)
2016 Château Haut-Brion Pessac-Léognan Graves Bordeaux
Estimated retail price HKD 5,500 / Euros 672 / USD 700
It is a sacrilege to open a Haut-Brion so young. Nevertheless, it was interesting to check if it was really worth the 100pts it received by at least 5 wine critics including RP, JMQ, WE, JL, and AL. And... it is difficult to say. As the wine was so tight, it took more than 3 hours after decanting to reveal itself. (...)
🍷🍷🍷Work in progress, more complete tasting notes and other details coming soon....😅
Santé! Cheers!
Dom (aka LeDomduVin)
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