TN: Grand Sichuan (Feb 18, 2024)

[Jeff Grossman]

attendees: Don+Melissa, Jay+Arnold, Scott+Lana, Jeff

Ah, Joisey City! Home to waterfront views, a bustling financial district, a safe and walkable downtown, and an eclectic foodie scene.

Like say, an outpost of Grand Sichuan that Jay and Arnold call their second kitchen.

Public Transit does its usual weekend detours -- no, really, folks, we're fixing! -- but we all get to the restaurant, anyway.

Grand Sichuan is not a big place at all, maybe a dozen tables, but the dishes come rolling out and all good: soup dumplings, spicy green beans, sauteed fish, sweet and sour spareribs, braised pork belly. The only misfire is an unusually spicy chicken dish.

And we roll out the wines, too, also mostly good:

Calsac 2019 Champagne Brut 1er BdB "Les Rocheforts" - base wine 2019, disg July 2021; Jay immediately throws shade by telling us that some rando on another board says this bottle falls under some new regime at the winery; bunk: the wine is just as delicious as the several other bottlings that he has brought in recent years; this one has perfectly-judged sweetness, just enough leesy/bready quality, bright (if maybe a little unfocused), great stuff

Cantina del Lupo 2021 Piemonte Grignolino "Grignole" - Scott is a known Italophile so I brought a 'little wine' to have at the table; bright and fresh, fruity and light, it's best wielded against thick sauces, Jay thinks it shows lactic; I follow it for several days and it is unchanged

Girolamo Russo 2019 Etna Bianco "Nerina" - mostly carricante, there's good weight here but only murmured complexity, not its best showing

Eminence Road 2012 Riesling, Seneca Lake - is it thriving or just surviving? "Lemon cream pie!" -Don; good body and weight, rather dry but richer than a comparable Alsatian riesling, the acidity is hanging on, altogether pretty nice

Breton 2005 Bourgueil "Clos Senechal" - 12.5%, yum

Tenuta delle Terre Nere 2014 Etna Rosso, Feudo di Mezzo "Il Quadro delle Rose" - 14.5%, rather austere tonight, alcohol shows

Eminence Road 2020 Pinot Noir, Lamb's Quarter Vineyard - 12.7%, black cherry, spicy, assertive, surges across the palate, beautiful

Kemmeter Wines MV Pinot Noir "Trio" - beautiful nose, as expected; the palate is a little flat and unexciting; I follow it for several days: the nose remains lovely, the palate is very minerally but lacks charm

J.J. Prum 2004 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese - 2 576 511 12 05; this is corked or something, the nose is good floral-fruity but the palate is weak

Willi Schaefer 2012 Graacher Domprobst Riesling Auslese - 375ml, 2 583 154 11 13, all I have is "yummy"

Pinon 2005 Vouvray "Cuvee Botrytis" - 10.5%, 500ml, 152g/l rs, delightful but a bit of chenin funk has me worried for just a minute, despite the delicate lemon-and-apricot palate this is not a delicate wine, quite sweet, a bit of tea leaf in the finish, and it's still good 10 days later

 

[Jay Miller]

A second bottle of the Prum had an intact cork and showed beautifully

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

The Lurker blinded me with 05 Senechal in October. Holy smoke, what a ride over an hour or so. I was convinced it was alluvial at the start; last couple of glasses had enough mind-arresting tuffeau to make '66 belair nervous.

 

[Yule Kim]

originally posted by Pavel Tchichikov:
The Lurker blinded me with 05 Senechal in October. Holy smoke, what a ride over an hour or so. I was convinced it was alluvial at the start; last couple of glasses had enough mind-arresting tuffeau to make '66 belair nervous.

I had '07 Clos Senechal last week, and it was very much a silken, magic carpet ride enveloped in smoky minerality. Delicious.

'05 Perrieres was an interesting contrast -- it felt brighter and more lifted; also more delicate on the palate.

A friend of mine brought these bottles to a Breton tasting that had France Breton and her husband, both of whom, I believe, have fully taken over the winemaking from her parents. I got there too late to try the '19 Clos Senechal, but they had opened a '19 Perrieres, and what struck me was that it was far less tannic than the '05. I'm not sure whether that is due to a winemaking change or because of climate change. Despite this difference, I definitely could sense a clear through-line from an '02 Perrieres I had in October to the '05 all the way to the '19 with respect to the wines' delicacy and lift.

'20 Nuits d'Ivresses, on the otherhand, was intense, dark-fruited, with a heavy streak of green and a massive dollop of tannins. Impressive and old school (I liked it quite a bit).