Sammamish, WA
Tasted Wednesday, November 21, 2007 by Eric with 1,077 views
Justin Wells turned 30 the day before Thanksgiving, and he wanted to celebrate in style. The anticipation kept building over the weeks leading up to the event as a legendary lineup of wines emerged. We knew this was going to be fun! So I arrived a little after 4pm at Ed Murray's to have dinner with Justin, Zoe, Ed, and Joan.
The boys were just coming up from the cellar with a bottle of bubbly in hand... We needed a little snack to tide us over until a late dinner, so Justin whipped up some burgers made of ground beef and veal and studded with bacon and blue cheese. With just a faint smear of Blue d'Auverge on a perfectly toasted Brioche bun, we are off and running with our first wine and food! And what better to match with a burger but an ultimate fizzy drink in the form of the 1986 Cristal. Yummy!
From here we just milled and chatted for a couple of hours just sipping one at a time through a gorgeous troika of wines. Justin whipped out a little pork belly that he crisped up to have as the ultimate decadence with the Rayas. Mmmmm!
As we worked on our Rayas we started to get dinner ready. A pair of 39-day dry aged Porterhouse from Bryan Flannery served as the centerpiece of the meal. The marbling on the fillets was unreal, and oh those strips! These were simply sauteed to a perfect crusty brown in cast iron with a sushi-like interior, my style of rare! Served with this were some chive mashers and broccolini with some more of the pork belly and a bit of Pork fat. And with this simple feast we poured a troika of basically perfect Bordeaux. Utter heaven!
We retreated to the living room to sip the remainders and as we approached 11pm the 1967 d'Yquem surfaced along with some Blue d'Auverge, sous-vide fruit (Pineapple, regular grapefruit and Ruby Red grapefruit) and some fruit tart that didn't stand a chance. We tried the Yquem on its own and with the other accompaniments.
Happy Birthday Justin. What a great night, and thanks to everyone for their generosity.
1986 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut
France, Champagne
Mmm, a nice nose of brioche with that mature, doughy note that Chardonnay shows. Later Justin mentioned "white chocolate" and I totally agree. This spreads out gorgeously on the palate and finishes with an amazing note of chalk. Then about 60 seconds later your mouth explodes with a mouthwatering burst of Jolly Rancher green apple candy as the acid seems to kick back in. Really creamy and perfectly ready on the mid-palate. This drank especially well with a burger on brioche, working nicely with the fat in the burger and picking up on the toasted brioche flavors in the bun. A gorgeous way to start a great evening.
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