A decadent 30th birthday for Justin Wells

Sammamish, WA
Tasted Wednesday, November 21, 2007 by Eric with 1,077 views

Introduction

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.

Flight 1 (1 Note)

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!

  • 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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Flight 2 (3 Notes)

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!

  • 2005 Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru

    Gorgeous shimmering gold in the glass. Bang, this whacks you with butterbrickle, butter, flint, a hint of soap bubble (yes, my glass was perfectly clean, this was a soapy smell in the actual wine). The palate is HUGE, oily, penetrating every corner of your mouth and lighting up every last tastebud. An explosive, lifting finish. Wow, this is loaded with fruit. The acid is there but it is hidden underneath SO MUCH baby fat. It was almost too much, so I let this sit for about 90 minutes in the glass. Upon revisiting this was much more flinty, minty, the nose gaining the snap I am used to in Leflaive. To date my pinnacle experience in White Burgundy is the 1999 Leflaive Chevy which I have had twice. In comparison to this 2005, that is much more dominated by racy acidity and minerality, whereas at this stage the 2005 Chevy is just so packed with opulent, showy fruit that it's hard to make the connection to that 1999. Only after a lot of aeration could I really see the similarities. This is going to be a monumental wine, although at this stage it is more academic than pleasurable.

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  • 1971 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Echezeaux

    France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Echezeaux Grand Cru

    Wow, a knockout wine with a haunting nose. Peat, smoky cherry, rose petal. Justin mentioned "cinnamon red hots" and yup there they were. We all just swirled and swirled and swirled for the hour that this lasted. The mid palate was surprising, almost more reminiscent to me of Hermitage than Burgundy, especially on the approach. Beefy, surprisingly heavy and dense, yet with an extraordinary spicy, stemmy character towards the finish that brought you back to Burgundy. This lasted for about an hour and then started to turn the corner, but while it lasted it was a special wine with surprising heft.

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  • 1989 Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape Reserve

    France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

    Wow! This is a pure laser of kirsch. Poured next to the 1971 DRC Ech it took a minute to wrap my head around this, so I set it down for a few minutes. Coming back to it my first reaction was "Holy shit and OMFG!!!!" This got so SPICY with a little air. Rayas can be just so darned special, and this is a really beautiful and powerful vintage with so much freshness and youth still evident. Grenache, Grenache, Grenache, does it get any better?

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Flight 3 (4 Notes)

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!

  • 1989 Château Haut-Brion 100 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

    I wasn't scoring on this night, but this wine was obvious. Decanted for about 45 minutes. OMFG and my clear wine of the night. Just unconscious stuff. Smoky chicory, unreal mineral, a sweet core of pure Bordeaux elixir, what else could you want? Sage, soaring cherry, graphite, this is just a baby, but it is so delicious, approachable, vibrant and complex. After a few hours it started to tighten up and strut its unreal structure. This is a wine that my grandchildren will likely enjoy if they are lucky, but it's already so beautiful that it's haunting. A true legend.

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  • 1986 Château Mouton Rothschild

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Tasted from 375ml. Offered up double-blind I correctly guessed Bordeaux thinking that maybe this was the 1989 Lynch Bages or a great Montrose. Not a terrible guess. Without glasses handy we might have sampled a few furtive sips straight from the decanter, on right on pop and pour this wine was at peak, just pure syrup of Pauillac. The color is black as night. A wine of sickening (in a good way) intensity. Loaded with those Mouton minerals. But after this brief flash of glory, this clamped down HARD and fell sound asleep. With a lot of swirling you could get that black, Pauillac tobacco, but the palate locked up tight. Let 'em sleep or decant the holy living heck out of these.

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  • 1990 Château Cheval Blanc

    France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru

    Wow, what an exotic nose! Green notes of Cab Franc, coconut, vanilla, so utterly distinct from the 1986 Mouton and 1989 Haut-Brion. This was just so idiosyncratic and with time in the glass this picked up soy, chocolate and gained more and more of a Merlot personality. Wow, wow, wow! Does anything else taste or smell like this? Really picking up weight and gaining a rich, chocolaty, right bank personality.

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  • 1977 Raymond Cabernet Sauvignon

    USA, California, Napa Valley

    A birth-year wine for Justin. We had little expectation for this, and upon initial decanting this was all horse and brett without much other nuance. However, this unfolded beautifully for 3-4 hours and held its own against a shockingly good lineup of Bordeaux. Great notes of graphite emerged from the horse and continued onto the palate with beautiful minerality. There is a really sweet, Napa core to the fruit, but at ~13% this was so at home with the Bordeaux, nothing like today's typical California Cabernet. Relative to the Bordeaux consumed next to it, this didn't offer the persistence and depth of palate. Still this was just outstanding, pure, mature Cabernet. With time there are nice notes of mint and other green/vegetal flavors that I found quite pleasing. Justin mentioned "celery seed".

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Flight 4 (1 Note)

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.

  • 1967 Château d'Yquem

    France, Bordeaux, Sauternais, Sauternes

    Perhaps the only disappointment of the night. I had this wine once before in 2004, and it was a religious experience. Perhaps my expectations were too high for this bottle? We debated whether to have this early or late, with a compromise being reached of a glass poured early. The nose was haunting with toasted coconut, orange marmalade, and honey, so unctuous and alluring. I just wasn't ready to go here yet though. Revisited later, the nose was still the same. The palate was similarly explosive with layers of caramel and orange syrup. However for me, it was too much with a burned note to the caramel and a bitterness to the thick, twangy botrytis. I wanted more snap and acidity, more fireworks and vibrancy. The wine was enormously complex, but increasingly I find a heaviness to older Sauternes with something offputting about those burned caramel flavors.

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Closing

Happy Birthday Justin. What a great night, and thanks to everyone for their generosity.

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