Dinner at Cole's TNs

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Yule Kim

Yule Kim
Members of the DC contingent had dinner at Cole's this past Saturday. Mary and Cole made a wonderful pork tenderloin, Maureen's minty pasta dish was divine, Jonathan's potatoes were delish and Bob's famous Brussels sprouts were great.

Jonathan mentioned that he didn't think tasting notes would be posted by the time he left for France next week, so I decided to expedite the matter by writing some down and dirty tasting notes while using Robert Parker's patented 89-100 point scale to help illuminate the hedonistic descriptions.

I don't remember all of the details, but I'll edit as corrections start trickling in.

2002 Huet Le Mont Demi-Sec. Yum. 91 RP points.

2010 Vatan Sancerre. Yum. 91 RP points.

1989 Barrot Chateauneuf de Pape. Yum. 91 RP points.

1986 Quintarelli Ca de Merlo. Yum. 91 RP points.

1987 Faively Clos de Corton. Yum. 91 RP points.

1976 Jadot Beaune Clos de Couchereaux. Yum-O. 92 RP points. [WOTN]

This was the wine of the night, because I brought it.

1988 Domaine de Pousse d'Or Clos de Bousse d'Or. Yum. 91 RP points. [MAG]

Our most controversial wine of the night. Heated arguments about the origins of the word "Bousse." Maureen thought it was a legal issue. Jonathan thinks it was a more archaic spelling and started demonstrating by pronouncing the consonants "b" and "p."

1975 Lungarotti Rubesco. Yum. 91 RP points.

Fun fact: apparently this was the first wine the Emperor Hirohito drank in public. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure he had lost his divinity by then, so it doesn't qualify as ambrosia for the gods. That might have bumped this up to 93 RP points.

1987 O. Raffault Las Picasses. Yum. 88 RP points.

I thought it was delightful, but one for the anti-pleasure police and anti-flavor jihadis.

2004 Clos Rougeard "Clos." Yum. 88 RP points.

Ditto.

1983 Chateau de Fargues. Corked. 88 RP points. [HALFSIES]

We also dissed Jonathan by not opening his Texier Cote Rotie. I guess it will have to wait for the next bangin' Peking duck dinner.

Unfortunately, our good friend Rudy couldn't make it to dinner. He was planning to bring '47 Cheval Blanc. It would have scored 98+ RP points.
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:

1988 Domaine de Pousse d'Or Clos de Bousse d'Or. Yum. 91 RP points. [MAG]

Our most controversial wine of the night. Heated arguments about the origins of the word "Bousse." Maureen thought it was a legal issue. Jonathan thinks it was a more archaic spelling and started demonstrating by pronouncing the consonants "b" and "p."
Click to expand...

There'a book about the estate entitled "Pousse d'Or ou Bousse d'Or?": http://www.athenaeum.com/livre/1610...-d-or-textes-en--laure-gasparotto-pousse-d-or

The vineyard has been known as Bousse d'Or historically, which comes from "bousse de terre," which in the Burgundian dialect means "good earth."

In the 1860s, an owner had already given the vineyard the name Pousse d'Or, but it reverted back to Bousse d'Or a short time later. In 1913, the owners called the vineyard the Clos de la Pousse d'Or because they considered the exisitng name unpronounceable, and they installed a marker inside the vineyard identifying it as Clos de la Pousse d'Or. In 1954, the owners incorporated, creating the Société du Domaine du Clos de la Pousse d'Or. From 1913 to 1964, all wines from the vineyard bore the label Clos de la Pousse d'Or. After that, the vineyard name again was changed back to its historical Clos de la Bousse d'Or.

The name of the estate, however, could not change to Bousse d'Or for legal reasons -- an estate generally cannot bear the name of a vineyard, even if the vineyard is a monopole owned by the estate. I asked Thierry Brouhin of Domaine des Lambrays how Lambrays got around the rule (others that come to mind include Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Domaine les Varoilles, and with a little reflection, one can come up with more), and he said that an exemption had been granted because of the historical use.
 
I thought it was Cole who said that Bousse was an older version of Pousse. I said that I'd never seen that variant when reading French, but that I didn't read much old French and that since B and P (like the pairs F/V and D/T) are voiced and unvoiced versions of the same sound and thus frequently change from one to the other, it made sense.

The Clos Rougeard was the Clos.

I wasn't that hot on the Volnay. It was a nice wine but overshadowed by the Corton and the Jadot Beaune. I went through a case of the 89 Barrot but had my last bottle probably 6-8 years ago. This bottle hadn't lost a step from them. Chateauneuf like they used to make it. I also liked the Raffault better than Yule did, I guess, based on his points.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I wasn't that hot on the Volnay. It was a nice wine but overshadowed by the Corton and the Jadot Beaune.
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I'll restrain myself, since I wasn't there.

With difficulty.
 
I find that I enjoyed the 88 point Rougeard a little more than the 88 point corked de Fargues (from half bottle, if you are keeping score). Though of course this raises the question of what an 88 means on an 89-100 point scale.

And I believe the Quintarelli was a Ca de Merlo 1986.

And 93 points to Leah for putting up with all of this.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:


I wasn't that hot on the Volnay. It was a nice wine but overshadowed by the Corton and the Jadot Beaune. I went through a case of the 89 Barrot but had my last bottle probably 6-8 years ago. This bottle hadn't lost a step from them. Chateauneuf like they used to make it. I also liked the Raffault better than Yule did, I guess, based on his points.
Click to expand...

Those were Robert Parker Points, not Yule points.

I didn't want my subjective jihadist predilection for high-acid reds to influence the ratings.

The Raffault and Clos Rougeard would have gotten far more Yule points.
 
We had the 2004 Poyeux (and 2003 Poyeux) on Saturday. Loved the 2004, not so much the 2003. I'm not sure I was 88 points on it, though, maybe 43? (Of course with 19.5 for optic)
 
The above derivation of the name of Bousse d'Or coming from Burgundian dialect was based on a quick check of Clive Coates's "Côte d'Or." Now, checking out other sources, here's way more than you ever wanted to know about it:

The above-referenced book by Gasparotto gives a more cautious derivation. A 1982 book on the history of Volnay to 1966 cites a 1272 document in the Volnay archives that includes "Bousse d'Or" in a list of climats called "le Village;" however, it does not appear that the author cited where in the archives he found this document, nor does it appear anyone else has located it. Bousse meant "earth" in 12th (sic) century French, coming from the Gaulish "bawa." In various documents from the 13th to the 16th centuries, the name is given as Boussse-Tourte, Boussetort or Boussetorte, leading to speculation that the second part of the name meant "tort" in today's French, or "twisted," and so Gasparotto speculates that it means a plot of land were something twisted, i.e., grape vines grow. Gasparotto also notes that the present vineyard is located immediately below the old ch“teau, and every 10th century ch“teau had a basse cour, or poultry yard, and just below the ch“teau would be a logical place for it. Moreover, "basse" was pronounced "bousse" in medieval French.

Landrieu-Lussigny in "Climats et /Lieux-Dits des Grands Vignobles de Bourgogne," which she recently co-authored with Silvain Pitiot, cites the Boussetort and related names and speculates that it meant that "bousse" was a variant of "bosse," perhaps coming from the vulgar Latin "bottia," meaning a rise in the land, which the vineyard does do, and that the "twisted" reference above would mean that the rise in the land was not in a straight line at the time.

At any rate, the present name appears in 1621, and thereafter, the "d'Or" part remains, despite variations on "Bousse" such as "Bouche" and "Bouzes" in various 19th century texts.
 
Ya had to bring in the bangin' ducks, didn't you?

I had that Lungarotti before, but I drank it in private. Perhaps I'm a closet Emperor and don't know it?

Thanks for the notes!
 
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