Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
We bashed Alice!
All right, I totally went for the rotten journalist hook. Tonight in a Paris gallery, we sedately gathered to celebrate some form of bound volume appertaining to the person known in real life and false as Alice F.
What was cool was the Larmandier-Bernier Blanc de Blancs. And Terre de Vertus (06). And Clos Roche Blanche (with lovely company of C. Roussel) in its 08 Sauvignon N2 and Gamay renditions. And Monsieur Pacalet dousing one and all with 07 Gevrey-Chambertin.
It was Parisian. It was civilized. The glasses were tiny INAO affairs, but who cares.
Can I restate:
NV Larmandier-Bernier Blanc de Blancs: if we were all good children and all went to the nice little champagne sand box in the sky, this would be poured to us ad infinitum.
06 Larmandier-Bernier Terre de Vertus: more chiseled, edgy, no dosage whatsoever, very Vertus, and better tasted in a well-lit Paris gallery than in a dungeon in the Saumurois. Just sayin'.
08 Clos Roche Blanche Sauvignon Blanc N2: I need to be John Cage and just fob some silence off on you. I mean, come on. This reconciles me with the grape it's made from, it's so harmonious, so straight, such a bringer of vinous goodness; how could one object?
08 Clos Roche Blanche Gamay: Bigger and fruitier and more tannic than an 07 tasted recently, this was a pleaser and a bruiser and a good antidote to two disconcerting wines I had tasted at lunch. A man asked, bluntly, how much such bottles cost. Alas, Catherine Roussel simply said, "Well, we have no more, so..."
07 Pacalet Gevrey-Chambertin: Young yet iconic. I caught a twinge of grapefruit, but it fled; the rest was just red fruit, rock, bramble, and long. And the cool thing was that distraction has its benefits. I got into a longish talk with Mme P, and as we periodically seemed to have emptied our glasses, we were periodically replenished. Now that's gallantry, for you.
All right, I totally went for the rotten journalist hook. Tonight in a Paris gallery, we sedately gathered to celebrate some form of bound volume appertaining to the person known in real life and false as Alice F.
What was cool was the Larmandier-Bernier Blanc de Blancs. And Terre de Vertus (06). And Clos Roche Blanche (with lovely company of C. Roussel) in its 08 Sauvignon N2 and Gamay renditions. And Monsieur Pacalet dousing one and all with 07 Gevrey-Chambertin.
It was Parisian. It was civilized. The glasses were tiny INAO affairs, but who cares.
Can I restate:
NV Larmandier-Bernier Blanc de Blancs: if we were all good children and all went to the nice little champagne sand box in the sky, this would be poured to us ad infinitum.
06 Larmandier-Bernier Terre de Vertus: more chiseled, edgy, no dosage whatsoever, very Vertus, and better tasted in a well-lit Paris gallery than in a dungeon in the Saumurois. Just sayin'.
08 Clos Roche Blanche Sauvignon Blanc N2: I need to be John Cage and just fob some silence off on you. I mean, come on. This reconciles me with the grape it's made from, it's so harmonious, so straight, such a bringer of vinous goodness; how could one object?
08 Clos Roche Blanche Gamay: Bigger and fruitier and more tannic than an 07 tasted recently, this was a pleaser and a bruiser and a good antidote to two disconcerting wines I had tasted at lunch. A man asked, bluntly, how much such bottles cost. Alas, Catherine Roussel simply said, "Well, we have no more, so..."
07 Pacalet Gevrey-Chambertin: Young yet iconic. I caught a twinge of grapefruit, but it fled; the rest was just red fruit, rock, bramble, and long. And the cool thing was that distraction has its benefits. I got into a longish talk with Mme P, and as we periodically seemed to have emptied our glasses, we were periodically replenished. Now that's gallantry, for you.