Imperial Treasure Shanghai, Ngee Ann City, Singapore
Tasted Friday, October 30, 2015 by Paul S with 555 views
After a whole series of Burgundy dinners, we had a couple of very successful deviations to the Northern Rhone and Piedmont. This time round, we decided to continue to go off the beaten path and return to a place where quite a few of us started our serious wine drinking - Bordeaux.
We had some superb on the night. With the theme being 1982, '89 and '90 First Growths and Super-Seconds, one would expect that really. However, even though we all really enjoyed the wines and I scored them as well as any other set of wines I have had this year, we somehow missed the visceral pleasure that we got from either the Piedmont or Rhone dinners, and certainly from Burgundy dinners in the past that had wines from the same bracket that we had tonight. Don't get me wrong - the Bordeaux we had were all really good, even great, but they were just somehow missing that magic spark. Even though the 1990 Las Cases was absolutely brilliant, I think it was perhaps only the 1982 Palmer that came close to capturing both head and heart for me. I hope this does not mean that we have been spoiled for Bordeaux for good!
2007 Domaine Fontaine-Gagnard Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet 93 Points
France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Criots-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru
This was a nice start to the night. Not a perfect white Burg, but very good indeed. It had such a lovely nose, with gentle drifts of butter and cream, sweet red apples, some dried flowers, and some earthy, spicy, minerally accents around the sides of the bouquet. Beautiful. The palate was rich and round, with a surprising amount of depth for a 2007, showing a thick, almost oily fleshiness behind its well-integrated flavours of red apples and cream layered over a mouthwatering white fruit base on the midpalate. All this was punctuated with by a citrusy streak of 2007’s bright acidity, which help to keep the wine relatively tight and focused all the way into a nice finish seasoned with a little mineral and spice. My only issue is that the wine seemed a bit heavyset at points, with a touch of alcohol floating out at its edges - quite unusual given Fontaine-Gagnard’s usually spare, elegant style. Overall though, very good indeed, and it has the chops to last for many years barring any premature oxidation.
Post a Comment / 1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue
2011 Willi Schaefer Graacher Domprobst Riesling Kabinett 92 Points
Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer
Wow - what a change a year or two makes. This is really coming into its own now and it absolutely lovely to drink on the night. It had a light, dancing nose that is so Mosel, with lithe scents of grapefruit, sweet apples and white peach laced with touches of mineral, lemon zest and white flowers. All very subtle, but really pretty. On the palate, the overt sweetness that the wine had in its infacy has mellowed quite nicely, leaving behind a beautifully pure mouthful of white fruit with peachy hints, all held into a brilliant crystalline balance. A beautifully drinkable wine - this was soft and creamy in texture, yet laced with wonderfully integrated acidity that gave it that such a wonderfully energy and focus. Lovely finish too, with a gentle seam mineral and just the lightest kiss of spice gliding away on the midpalate. 2011 is not the strongest vintage in the Mosel, but this perhaps allowed the house to craft a more classic Kabinett that drinks beautifully well at a relatively young age. Yum. NB: on a side note, this actually went pretty well with a notoriously hard to pair dish of steamed hairy crabs.
Post a Comment / 1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue