TN: Friends (Apr. 4, 2024)

[Jeff Grossman]

attendees: Brad, .sasha, Jay, Jayson, Manuel, Jeff

Not exactly an echo of the big bash on Saturday but as long as Manuel is in town anyway, the hardcore NYC group gathers again, this time at Brad's place.

Brad announced a menu of chilled asparagus soup with seared scallops and lardons (where the chives at?), braised beef short ribs on celeriac mash with sous-vide rainbow carrots (made in butter and thyme), and a cheese plate for afters. A splendid menu that offers a little bit of each season, the one ending and the one beginning. And I assure you that Brad does excellent work in the kitchen.

Da Boyz is all in fine form on this Thursday evening.

Brad and I are intermittently available as he is on scullery duty and I am your humble scribe.

Jay, ever dressed in a pale shirt with a tiny all-over floral pattern, has brought the baguettes and also some usagi from Minimoto Bakery for dessert. (I had mine the next day and they are delicately baked and even more delicately sweet with true-to-life yuzu flavor infused into the sweet bean paste inside.)

Manuel, in that liminal space between ketamine and insulin, is exuberant, curious, poetic, and as always, spinning tales.

The Dotster arrives direct from physical therapy, refreshed and nimble and alert.

Jayson is delighted for any opportunity to get away from his desk and all the moreso when there are wine geeks and wine geek wines.

Speaking of which... We had a nice spread of Austrian whites and some curious wines to accompany the soup, and an assortment of vigorous reds to complement the beef. Brad briefly considered adding a Rhone red but, after glancing at the wines cooling on the balcony, was heard to mutter, "Oh, shit, there is a lot of wine," and let the idea drop.

We offer the first sip to absent friends who guided us to these wines long ago, and who would have enjoyed this evening very much.

Nikolaihof 2007 Hefeabzug Gruner Veltliner - 12%, the regular bottling (under screwcap!), right out of the gate drinks like a muscadet with an extra hit of green leaf, so so long, welter-weight wine, the finish has a whiff of resin long into it, did I mention how long this is?

P. Cotat 2013 VdT Rose "Lot 2013" - 12.5%, saffron, resin, a tickle of mint or camphor, "That means the cepes are coming!" -Manuel; this wine blooms and changes all night long, going from one flavor complex to another, last I tasted it had gone all flan, geek catnip

Hirtzberger 2005 Singerriedl Riesling Smaragd - 14%, a big nose, golden, also mid-weight texture, sweet apricots, violets or some other perfumey flower, everybody talks about how reliably good this vineyard is; and of this particular bottle... "Like a Great Dane jumping up and licking your face!" -Jay

Robert Denis 1995 Azay-le-Rideau Sec - as crisp as the shocking '89 from last Saturday -- and no more ripe -- but maybe there are a couple extra grains of sugar in this one, long finish with a touch of toasted breadcrumbs (lees?), great wine but not very chenin-like

Piuze 2020 Chablis 1er "Vaulorent" "QC" - Quatre Chemins is a warm spot within Vaulorent; the wine gets rave reviews in the wine press but this bottle is pretty tame for a special bottling, and young wine at that, so it's probably scalped, try another bottle someday

Calera 1995 Pinot Noir, Selleck Vineyard, Mt. Harlan - made in the 20th Anniversary Vintage of the domaine; it has some old wine charms but most folks think it's stripped and scalped

Ch. La Louviere 1990 Pessac-Leognan Rouge - OMG bottle, astounding beauty and vigor, rings every Bordeaux bell... earth, blackberries, tobacco, a nip of citrus, candidate for WOTN

Ch. Pape Clement 1990 Pessac-Leognan Rouge - shows very short and, after a little while, shows corked

Dom. Rollin 2005 Pernand-Vergelesses Rouge - 13%, nice enough but no oomph today, I've read some folks who say '05s will never escape their structure prison, but I'm still an optimist so wait a few more years and try again

Ch. Giscours 1971 Margaux - 12%, the label says "Contents: 1 Pt. 8 Fl. Ozs.", the wine is deft, still slightly scratchy tannins, strawberry aspect to the fruit, very long, wonderful, "Brilliant!" -Jay, another WOTN candidate

Dom. Drouhin 1991 Chambolle-Musigny 1er "Amoureuses" - this is the full package: citrus and cherries and wet earth, just-so sweetness, viscous without being heavy, the third candidate WOTN, there is so much wine in this wine, "The power is insane!" -Jayson

Vinos Sandoval 2021 Vino de Pueblo Ledania "Fundamentalista" - Victor de la Serna's bobal, that's wine all right (rather unfair to pour in this company)

We also sip dregs of a few 1989 chenin sweeties from last Saturday; purely a hedonistic exercise.

A fine night which ran quite long for a school night.

Many thanks to one and all, and especially our genial host.

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

Robert Denis 1995 Azay-le-Rideau Sec ...great wine but not very chenin-like..

I feel that way every time I drink Denis. I guess we have so few (sub)regions for great chenin, we can form notions of what is typical based on a smaller range. I also wonder if there is some chenin mutation just in Azay-le-Rideau? (Perhaps winemaking also, as we don't exactly have a ton of Azay-le-Rideau comparisons)

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

originally posted by Rahsaan:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

Robert Denis 1995 Azay-le-Rideau Sec ...great wine but not very chenin-like..

I feel that way every time I drink Denis. I guess we have so few (sub)regions for great chenin, we can form notions of what is typical based on a smaller range. I also wonder if there is some chenin mutation just in Azay-le-Rideau? (Perhaps winemaking also, as we don't exactly have a ton of Azay-le-Rideau comparisons)

Last year I had a really good Azay Chenin from a domaine called Hauts Baigneux, in case it's available locally.

 

[Jay Miller]

My most interesting takeaway from revisiting the 89 Loires was that the Huet Temoin had improved dramatically. It was all brown sugar on the first day but had gained much more complexity after a few days.

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:


Last year I had a really good Azay Chenin from a domaine called Hauts Baigneux, in case it's available locally.

Interesting! Yes, google says it is imported to the US.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

Denis is solidly in the range of Chenin wines for me, and I wonder if the idea it might not be is just an anchor from other profiles/styles that are more commonly consumed and that there never was much. I was joking with Connell that he likely has the biggest Denis collection in the world, and he said likely so outside the members of the family itself who inherited what was left. But in any case this bottle was really good. I kept going back to it.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

while in full agreement on the excellence of giscours, louviere, and especially les amoureuses, and with immense gratitude towards the bearers of those bottles, the mind-blowing jaw-dropping WOTN was one of the "dregs of a few 1989 chenin sweeties from last Saturday," namely the '89 cuvee constance.

i was lucky to catch that wine several times on release in the early-to-mid 1990s when it became an instant legend, before turning frustratingly weird for a quarter-century. the wine would turn up every now and then, mostly for themed tastings; impressive, but ultimately disappointing given its status and initial reviews.

on saturday there was hope; on thursday there was greatness worthy of broadbent's sixth star. while it's possible that the climate shift dampens this effect, let us not forget that great vouvray, and often great loire chenin in general, is metamorphic. [ no soil jokes please ]. the wines drink great, youthfully, for a decade give or take a few years depending on sweetness/phenolic levels/etc., then go into a tunnel where they become borderline untouchable, only to emerge as completely different wines of notable, sometimes drastic, relative evolution. there is no "middle period" worthy of study like in bordeaux or riesling; there is no cyclical evolution like in burgundy. i like using two wines that i owned in multiple case quantities (and can thus vouch for consistency of behavior) as vivid examples. the first, 1990 haut lieu sec, is a mild case in that it was never undrinkable while traveling through its wormhole but was merely kind of dull relative to its pre-1998 exuberance. i was lucky to have taken my time with several remaining bottles for their emergence a decade later was as glorious as it was sudden - complex, floral, citric, beeswax-y, and shockingly reminiscent of its aunts and uncles of demi-sec persuasion at a considerably greater age. 1996 le mont sec was more of the same, but more drastic in that we were all but convinced that it was premoxed until a few years ago, while every single bottle in the past eight years has been killer while fully mature.

in december of 2017 i had the pleasure of tackling a great example of 1947 haut lieu moelleux, causing the wine handler assigned to our table (some shady character named pascaline who speaks with a bit of an accent - hungarian i think??) to declare it one of the best bottles of that particular wine ever. a striking thing about the 47 is its unique flavor profile, a uniqueness that places it in a very select group of wines that stand above the rest due to so-called "character" or "personality." its flavors are exotic but what's crazy is that the acidity and dry extract facilitate its exotic nature rather than constrict it, making the newbies among us draw parallels to how beethoven's use of counterpoint in opus 106 and opus 110 exaggerate rather than (as in the case of most other early/mid 19c composers attempting the same) dilute the romantic elements. i view this unique profile as the proverbial next level of integration, rarely seen in wine, where intellectual pursuits and hedonistic pleasure get married and have a baby. there was more than a casual resemblance to the 47 in the 89 that emerged from its 25-year long journey through a tunnel on thursday night, but with an unfair advantage in that it contains le mont. that means even more length, more acidity-driven power, more densely packed florality on the palate. it was just as exotic while completely pure. and, last but not least, we can never separate a great bottle from the context and the atmosphere of a great experience that, in this case, was bordering on surreal as my dear friends debated the relative intellectual and hedonistic qualities of vinos sandoval bobal fundementalista and calera mr harlan pinot as i sipped the dregs of this wondrous elixir.

 

[Yule Kim]

This Chenin wormhole theory is interesting. I remember at the Loire dinner we had in October that the '96 Huets (Le Mont Sec and 1er Tries) were singing while an '08 Le Mont seemed pretty awkward.

Opening up '10 CdB Demi-Sec and '08 CdB 1er Trie next weekend, so we will see if they are in a good place, 'oxed, or perhaps still hurtling through hyperspace towards a future of vinous glory.

 

[Brad Kane]

A most fun night! Indeed, the way our banter went, it felt like one of our classic jeebs from 2004, or so.

I was certainly odd man out on the '71 Giscours. All soil and structure, but some of us actually want some fruit in our wine and this had virtually none.

My wines of the night were, aside from the leftover Huets, which showed brilliantly five days after opening, were the Hirtzberger and the La Louviere. It seemed like you liked the Bobal more that evening than you're expressing here. I really enjoyed it. Fun, fruity stuff with enough structure to keep things interesting. It's not going to make you ponder the meaning of life, but that's not its purpose.

Is scalped another way of you saying corked? I didn't try it, but was told the Piuze was corked. So was the the Pape Clement, but there was no tca on the Calera, it just didn't show well. Decent fruit upfront, but falling apart on the mid-palate and finish.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

there was something significantly off about the Piuze. It had the derivative traits of being corked ( palate scalping, abrupt shortness ), but without explicit TCA, aromas or flavors.

 

[Jay Miller]

Agreed. I couldn’t say the Piuze was corked v=but there was definitely something off about it and it might have been low level tca

I thought the Calera was very lightly corked

 

[MLipton]

As someone highly sensitive to cork taint, I can tell you that numerous times wines I have found distinctly corked others have found fruit scalped, so — yes — fruit scalping is a common sign of low level taint.

Mark Lipton
TCA guinea pig extraordinaire

 

[Michael Lewis]

The 2010 Huet wines I've opened in the last few years are either in the middle of the wormhole and shouldn't really be touched at the moment, or they are oxidizing more quickly than one would hope or expect. I've seen the occasional very good bottle, but that seems to be the exception (I won't get into all the stuff about whether it is an exception that proves a rule, whether that is a tautology, the meaning of prove, etc.). A 2010 Le Mont Sec last week was not an exception.

The wormhole theory does not seem to apply to the Petillant, by the way.

 

[Oswaldo Costa]

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
(I won't get into all the stuff about whether it is an exception that proves a rule, whether that is a tautology, the meaning of prove, etc.)

How disappointing.

 

[Yule Kim]

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
The 2010 Huet wines I've opened in the last few years are either in the middle of the wormhole and shouldn't really be touched at the moment, or they are oxidizing more quickly than one would hope or expect.

Thank you for the datapoint. I remember Mark saying something similar a couple of months ago. I will still pop it open to check in, but I'm not optimistic.

 

[Pavel Tchichikov]

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
The 2010 Huet wines I've opened in the last few years are either in the middle of the wormhole and shouldn't really be touched at the moment, or they are oxidizing more quickly than one would hope or expect.

I know exactly what you mean. I am leaning towards the wormhole for the time being: I did not find that the oxidative character, when encountered, affected the persistence of fruit in the finish; also, the wines improved over a couple of days.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

The 2010s I’ve had in the last 2 years, Le Mont and CdB Sec and Demisec IIRC, were all varying degrees of outstanding.

Mike, have all your Petillant bottles been dead? I will pull one soon if so to check myself.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Brad Kane:
It seemed like you liked the Bobal more that evening than you're expressing here. I really enjoyed it. Fun, fruity stuff with enough structure to keep things interesting. It's not going to make you ponder the meaning of life, but that's not its purpose.

It's a quaffer. Not going to look good being poured with things way above its pay grade.

Is scalped another way of you saying corked? I didn't try it, but was told the Piuze was corked. So was the the Pape Clement, but there was no tca on the Calera, it just didn't show well. Decent fruit upfront, but falling apart on the mid-palate and finish.

Do you want to actually have me answer the question you put to me or do you simply prefer mumbling to yourself out loud?

All the crappy wines were probably corked but only the Pape-Clement had noticeable TCA. (Like M'k L said.)

 

[Michael Lewis]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
The 2010s I’ve had in the last 2 years, Le Mont and CdB Sec and Demisec IIRC, were all varying degrees of outstanding.

Mike, have all your Petillant bottles been dead? I will pull one soon if so to check myself.

Apologies, Jason, I was not clear. Regarding the Petillant, I was attempting to make a vintage-agnostic comment (as there has not been any 2010 Petillant in my cellar in some time). I find that the Petillant is typically delicious at any stage, and does not seem to enter the wormhole at all. Rather, it evolves a little more linearly, in my anecdotal experience.

All the usual qualifications apply: smallish (well, maybe medium) sample size, have not controlled for late releases from the estate, and most of the Petillant I have tasted has ranged from just released to roughly college-aged (except for that bottle of the 1964 that Joe brought to a dinner at the Good Fork about 15 years ago, which from its showing at the time could well have traveled through a wormhole and already made it out into a new galaxy on the other side - all I know is that it was not in transit at the time).

 

[Jayson Cohen]

Got it. I still have 3 bottles of 2010 Petillant. I loved it so much on releaae. But this is a good reminder of how long it’s been and the need to pull a bottle.

I just pulled a bottle of the 95 Foreau Reserve from off site to open soon. That was from a half case I split with Joe on release but somehow we never squared up and he never took his half.

A few of us had a bottle of 64 Huet Petillant just a couple weeks ago that unfortunately was shot. My past experiences were all glorious.