Bellevue, WA
Tasted Saturday, April 8, 2006 by Eric with 1,255 views
Michael Gordon was kind enough to instigate a small tasting featuring first growth Bordeaux from our cellars. The idea was to enjoy a few gems in a relaxed home setting, with small flights, lots of time, and some monstrous Lobel's strip steaks. The partners in crime included myself (Eric LeVine), Michael Gordon, Jason Goldberger, Justin Wells, Roy Hersh and Ed Murray.
As everyone arrived, Michael greeted us with some nice cheese, pate, prosciutto, smoked duck breast and a lovely pair of bubbles. The few times I have had them next to each other I have preferred the 1996, but on this night it showed more ungainly youth compared to the more mature elegance of the 1990.
Jason Goldberger had brought along a lobe of foie gras, but we didn't realize that there was no kitchen fan. So, with my heavy encouragement, Jason agreed to try and cook it outside on a cast iron pan over the grill. Lesson #1 when searing a product that is nerly all fat: open flame is not your friend. The first set quickly turned into foie flambee. However, we recovered by putting the cast iron a bit higher. Interesting...
At last, we were down to the reason for being here. I had organized the flights and elected to start us out with the only right-bank wines and the Haut-Brion. My thought was that the haut-Brion would be more expressive than the Pauillac wines and thus could hold its own with the Cheval. This was a lovely first flight which indeed featured the most exotic aromatics of the evening.
This second flight was a bit of a dud.
At this point Michael rolled out the 20oz. Lobel strip steaks. I love rare meat, but this was closer to bleu and resembed a block of seared tuna more than beef. Still though, the flavor of this meat is just unreal, and we had just the right wines with a killer trio of 1986's. The Mouton was just out of this world...
We finished up with some blue cheese, fudgey chocolate cake and a port. I was pretty much done at this point and didn't get a lot out of the Port.
Thanks Michael for organizing a wonderful evening and to everyone for sharing such gems!
1990 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon 94 Points
France, Champagne
Lovely champagne. Fine bead. Very precise, loaded with citrus and mineral. Surprising vigor and power on the palate. This bottle at least seems years away from maturity.
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1996 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon 93 Points
France, Champagne
Wow, not a great showing for a great wine. Very aggressive, almost overbearing. Huge and packed with waves of citrus, nuts, very concentrated, but also a bit astringent. Let 'em sleep.
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