Compare and <i>Contraste</i>

[Sharon Bowman]

Last night I had a special time and opened an Egly-Ouriet Blanc de Noirs Vieilles Vignes "Les Crayres." Tonight, I decided to be decadent and do a compare and Contraste. That is, Anselme Selosse's blanc de noirs, formerly bottled as "Contraste" and now called the "Cte Faron," after its parcel in A. Both are a hundred percent pinot noir with dosage from none to 3g/l (for comparison purposes) and similarly ripe grapes, old oak barrels, etc.

The bottles in question, however, were of disparate ages. The Egly was based on 2006 and disgorged in January 2010. The Selosse, based on 2001* and disgorged in 2007.

Why do I give the details? Oh, no real reason. Here was an excuse for geekiness to permit indulgence. I didn't feel I learned anything, in truth. I just enjoyed two fabulous champagnes, madre de dios.

They were different in style, but of course the one from Ambonnay and the other from A, the ages different, approach: such drove home that we're not here for flights, even if said flights have some 24 hours between them.

It's been heavily snowing in Paris, and one curls up in one's home with some tasty dinner and then some of these.

Social commentary: fellows on WD, I adore the corridas on here recently. But as much as I want to fight (I am a fighting Scottish lass), I wait til I can fight right. Until such time, I hafta tell about delicioso champagne delicioso that I had happy excuses to open.

This is my last bottle of Contraste and there is no more Contraste to be made. I gives a quiet nod and I quaffs my biz.

But I loves y'all. Fight on.

*If memory serves.

 

[SFJoe]

Aieeee always sounds more like a balloon over a cartoon character than a village, but I can't even say "Musigny" right.

 

[Unknown]

maybe an odd question: how much did you enjoy the contraste.

i ask, because there have been times when i thought that selosse's basic blanc de blancs was the most delightful thing that might ever pass between my porky lips. yet somehow, though i've admired his other wines and have always appreciated them (even the solera shit with the schizophrenic dude on the label, though i admit that one was pushing it), i never really felt the same love.

make sense at all, or am i just a dumb slut who is missing something?

fb.

 

[Yixin]

Same for de Sousa, in my experience, and in that glorious mid-noughties run, Krug MV.

 

[Sharon Bowman]

originally posted by fatboy:
maybe an odd question: how much did you enjoy the contraste.

This time, immensely. It "worked." I have had weird experiences with this wine, in truth. And I had started to despair. The times I've tasted it at the domain it's been a thing of joy, etc., and the bulk of the times elsewhere (from bottles nevertheless brought back from said domain) it has been a washout.

This was not, but at the same time, I've always found it more Selosse than pinot noir or A or what have you.

i ask, because there have been times when i thought that selosse's basic blanc de blancs was the most delightful thing that might ever pass between my porky lips. yet somehow, though i've admired his other wines and have always appreciated them (even the solera shit with the schizophrenic dude on the label, though i admit that one was pushing it), i never really felt the same love.

I can see this. I have been starting to feel that sometimes the flamboyance of the other cuves is over-the-top. They're not appropriate, I guess. They're baroque as hell. They have cast-iron curlicues and hammered bronze and little mirrors mixed in with mosaic tiles. And that is nobody's idea of champagne. Whereas I fully agree that Initial is just fabulous champagne. I had a regular, straight-up, not-much-bottle-age recent Initial a month ago and thought, "Fuck me." It was just commandingly good champagne. A recognizable idiom, but with an extra dash of sapidity and length and all that good stuff.

So in that sense, I think his other cuves are for decadents and junkies.

A friend recently said that a '96-based blanc de blancs from half-bottle was on the thin edge of "too-too." Which I can see.