Keith Levenberg
Keith Levenberg
It's been interesting to watch the 1995 red Burgundies over the last year or two start to pry open their drinking windows after a few years in which they were showing nothing at all. They're not all there yet, but the ones that are have become among the most rewarding Burgundies of the '90s to open. So I decided to tote along a 1995 Emmanuel Rouget Beamonts to Per Se yesterday, which has lately become easy enough to score a reservation at that it seemed a shame not to go. The other reason I chose the Rouget is that we'd had the 1993 Henri Jayer Beaumonts at Troisgros roughly a year ago, so it seemed an interesting opportunity to get a sense of both wines at similar points in their aging curve in similarly fancy-schmancy environs.
The Rouget was a stunner right out of the gate which I would have confused for a Romanee-St.-Vivant in a heartbeat. It featured the expected seasoning of five-spice (like the Jayer did, though not quite so vividly as the Jayer) but was even more expansive, plush, and silky, a grand cru quality Beaumonts distinguished in both texture and scale. It continued to gain dimension as it sat but the flavors remained constant, Vosne spices front-and-center, the fruit underneath a semi-mature patina already shed of its primary colors. On the whole, it was much more polished than the Jayer was -- which had been so seared by the '93 acidity that it needed almost two hours in the decanter before it stopped tasting shrill. By the time it did it the flavors had unwound into the most textbook Vosne-Romanee I've ever experienced, but the way it was put together never showed the sophistication that the Rouget did yesterday.
As for the restaurant, I'd found Per Se luxe but soulless on my first visit, and was pleasantly surprised this time to find a menu with a more natural progression from one course to the next. My first trip the dishes didn't have anything in common other than being really well made; you wouldn't necessarily have even guessed they came from the same kitchen. This time everything did seem pretty much to reflect the same creative spirit (though I can't say if any of that spirit belongs to Thomas Keller, who seems to have nothing to do with the restaurant on a day-to-day basis). What they manage to do very well is to take the natural flavor of every ingredient and amplify it without adulterating it.
But I still prefer Eleven Madison Park.
The Rouget was a stunner right out of the gate which I would have confused for a Romanee-St.-Vivant in a heartbeat. It featured the expected seasoning of five-spice (like the Jayer did, though not quite so vividly as the Jayer) but was even more expansive, plush, and silky, a grand cru quality Beaumonts distinguished in both texture and scale. It continued to gain dimension as it sat but the flavors remained constant, Vosne spices front-and-center, the fruit underneath a semi-mature patina already shed of its primary colors. On the whole, it was much more polished than the Jayer was -- which had been so seared by the '93 acidity that it needed almost two hours in the decanter before it stopped tasting shrill. By the time it did it the flavors had unwound into the most textbook Vosne-Romanee I've ever experienced, but the way it was put together never showed the sophistication that the Rouget did yesterday.
As for the restaurant, I'd found Per Se luxe but soulless on my first visit, and was pleasantly surprised this time to find a menu with a more natural progression from one course to the next. My first trip the dishes didn't have anything in common other than being really well made; you wouldn't necessarily have even guessed they came from the same kitchen. This time everything did seem pretty much to reflect the same creative spirit (though I can't say if any of that spirit belongs to Thomas Keller, who seems to have nothing to do with the restaurant on a day-to-day basis). What they manage to do very well is to take the natural flavor of every ingredient and amplify it without adulterating it.
But I still prefer Eleven Madison Park.