10/25/2013 - The Gilded Sage wrote:

It is my extreme good fortune to possess a considerable quantity of this precocious young Graves.

I enjoyed it most recently October last, at my annual celebration of St. Crispian's Day. I always serve claret at this occasion, in honor of Henry's victory at Agincourt, and am certain to extend perverse invitation to a number of the Frenchman with whom I am acquainted. Vicomte de Toulouse was in attendance this year, and took the ribbing with characteristic good humor, even intoning at the course of milk-and-marrow-braised lamb, "He who hath not stomach to this feast, let him depart!"

We found the wine adolescent and brooding, but possessed of a coiled power that rather astonished. Aromatically, it called to mind an enchanted fairytale wood—damp earth, brambles, split branches of pine, and beneath these a certain carnality lurking, like the threat of violence or the promise of a kiss.

It was a long and luxurious meal (worthy remembrance, one guest remarked, of a war that lasted one hundred years). As the sun was rising and the Vicomte made his way to his rooms, he paused on the stairs and made a delicate bow. "A most splendid affair, Lord Ashton-Whitely," he said, his French accent thickened by fatigue and by wine. "Gentleman now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here!"

7/14/2013 - The Gilded Sage wrote:

My dear friend, the Vicomte André de Toulouse, likes to celebrate Bastille day each year with the sort of feast that would surely have landed all participants in the guillotine.

This particular vintage of Yquem (which I have tasted on only one other occasion, after far too much Champagne to have formed a coherent note) was served at the end of this year's meal with a pan-seared foie gras of most singular provenance. The name and location of the farm from which it had been procured were kept steadfastly secret by my host and his butler. I was told only that it was not AOC classified, owing to the fact that its fowl had been raised exclusively on a diet of black truffles. One can imagine, but can scarcely describe, the richness and complexity such feed imparts. "Qu'ils mangent du foie gras!" bellowed the incorrigible Vicomte, and silver plates of this magnificent preparation were brought round with glasses of the amber Sauternes.

The wine: Well, it too was magnificent, caressing the palate as fine silk sheets do the body—deliciously, richly, and yet rather coolly. While mature, it remains taut—even severe. I was reminded of a stern, aging matron of French who used to come to the manor for my weekly lesson; age had softened her, but not very much; she wore scarves and smoked long and thin cigarettes; unused to nonsense she employed a firm touch. Well, you can imagine...

A final note: for all the whimsy of this particular feast, there was also admirable care taken in its preparation and design. The final dish, described here, brought full circle a progression of almost architectural intricacy, and echoed earlier courses of duck a l'orange (served with a '45 La Romanée) and a consommé of juvenile truffle hog.

I am most grateful to my host for arranging this event. He really is a most remarkable sybarite. What a happy miracle that his noble line should have escaped the proletariat's blade!