Chú Xī (除夕) Dinner at Home on Chinese New Year Eve

To welcome in the Chinese New Year we invited Greg & Sayo and Runny over to our place and Angela hand-cooked a full-on traditional Chú Xi dinner whilst I took the opportunity to open some bottles that required special company.

• 2002 Dom Pérignon Champagne 92 Points

  France, Champagne

  Opened 2 hours before serving, which seemed to add a bit more depth, richness and toastiness without interfering with the vibrant, youthful citrussy element. I love this more every time I drink it....and I think it can only get better.

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• 1997 Louis Jadot Chevalier-Montrachet Les Demoiselles Domaine des Héritiers Louis Jadot 92 Points

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

  Apricot-gold colour...very deep gold. Deep, bass-toned nose: ripe but sharp apricots and apricot stone, an almost botrytis-like element. Palate is deep rich honeyed but taut apricot and a good acidic frame and burnished bronze tautness followed by a big slowly evolving resonance with a the same metallic zing. Almonds....definitely an almondy metallic zing comes out with time in the glass Very heady and gains enormously in weight and presence as it warms up towards cool room temperature. Very enjoyable but not as multi-dimensional as I'd have expected.

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• 1985 Château Lafite Rothschild 95 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  Opened for 4 hours then briefly decanted and drank over the next 2 hours. Deep blood red semi-opaque colour. Nose is paradoxically refined, understated but OFMG stopping you in your tracks at the same time.....pencil lead and graphite....incredibly deep, precise essence of blackcurrant and blackberry. Palate is essence of blackcurrant....a bit dilute compared to Lafite from a blockbuster vintage but....almost profound....er, it is profound as it opens up. Understated. Intellectual....whatever I mean by that. I see no need to hurry with my other bottles and it was much better than the last bottle I drank nearly two years ago.

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• 1982 La Rioja Alta Rioja Gran Reserva 890 96 Points

  Spain, La Rioja, La Rioja Alta, Rioja

  Decanted for 5 hours before serving. Initially a light, totally transparent amber colour with a golden hue that became semi-translucent, deep mahogany red with the long decant. Immediate nose of strawberries and raspberries with some patchouli oil and incense smoke that blew off in time and revealed a perfect harmony of deep, deep bright cherry and cherry liqueur fruit, earth, loam....lovely. On decanting the palate was sharp, thin, acidic and slightly dilute with more attractive back end of Middle Eastern spice market and dry brick dust. However, after decanting it come into a superb focus of bright, very bright, sharp, incisive , knife-sharp, pinpoint cherry fruit and a lovely frame of soft oak and powdered tannins. Chiffonesque in resonance at first, it developed an enormous, deep from the bowels of the earth Godzilla slow build rolling and thunderous resonance inside the head that just reverberated on and on. Wow, this is really rather special and it more than delivered on the promise shown by an undecanted bottle drank a couple of months ago.

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• 1991 Chateau Musar 94 Points

  Lebanon, Bekaa Valley

  Aged but perfectly sound cork. Decanted 5 hours before serving. Dusky, amber-hued almost transparent colour showing slightly suspended sediment and totally watery at the edges of the glass. Nose is immediate OMG heady classic old Musar with loads of immediate red berry fruits and Chinese "gay jee" (small red dates) that evolves into very deep dusky cherry and old leather luggage and tea-box packing cases but also with a high lifted note in there somewhere too. Palate is initially very sweet dusty air-dried strawberries, slightly stewed sweet tea, raspberries, cherry stone and rose hip syrup that then became very high-noted, sharp but very lifted and precise, linear attack of cherry liqueur intermingled with cinnamon stick and temple smoke....very young, not yet rounded or resolved and hasn't reached any harmony yet. More temple smoke and Eastern spices came forward with extended time in the glass. Glorious resonance and reverberance over a very long finish. This is still a work in progress and has years of further development ahead of it....this will get as good as the 1970s Musars, I think.

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• 2002 Cayuse Cabernet Sauvignon The Widowmaker En Chamberlin Vineyard 94 Points

  USA, Oregon, Columbia Valley, Walla Walla Valley

  Decanted for 5+ hours. Cork looks like it was bottled yesterday. Deep almost totally opaque rich purple-tinged scarlet colour. Nose on decanting is initially very rich and extracted Mocha coffee, fresh-ground coffee beans, deep extracted caramel essence, cherry liquor, beef blood from a raw steak, fresh-sawn plank wood on the back end....but after a long decant it has quietened down to reveal an amazing precision that is almost 1st growth-like but also as yet very unformed.....grasslands, hay, stuff like that. Palate is initially surprisingly lithe, supple , rounded and not the hooligan that the initial nose suggested...then came a wave of mouthcoating cherry and caramel with dry tannins and dried barrel wood....not integrated or harmonized. Needs 5+ more years but you can already appreciate its potential. Huge undertones of deep cathedral organ note resonance that show its underlying quality and potential.....enormous power without over-extraction.
  
  This showed even better in the remaining glass drank the next day with a nose that had become velvety, fried bacon fat, caramel, pencil lead and pure cocoa and a palate that had evolved into rich, unctuous, rounded, chocolatey but lightened by harmonious acidity (95+). I can't wait to try this again in a couple more years if I can keep my hands off my remaining bottles.

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• 1995 Château La Conseillante 94 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Libournais, Pomerol

  Youthful but maturing-looking deep crimson opaque colour. Nose is "oh gosh", fully matured, nail varnish, died out bonfire embers, slightly pongy socks, stalks, red and black small berries, a bag of barbequeue charcoal that's just been opened......so complex. Palate is silk, chiffon, too sharp to be velvet but has all the more poise because of it. Huuuge length.......and lovely forever resonance. Thanks, Greg!

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• 2008 Donnafugata Passito di Pantelleria Ben Ryé 89 Points

  Italy, Sicily, Passito di Pantelleria

  Deep, semi-transparent burnt Seville orange colour. Nose is burnt peach and extremely ripe apricot skin. Palate is full-on, deep burnt apricot skins and charred apricot stones with lots of burnt Seville orange skin and sweet caramel. Very long reverberant finish of apricot stones - very sweet and just short of cloying. Two small glasses were enough but matched perfectly with a sweet white chocolate cake. Hand carried from Sicily by Runny....thanks!

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It was a pleasant surprise was how well the wines went with the Chinese food...which was absolutely gorgeous thanks to Angela......and we had great company and good cheer to welcome in the Year of the Dragon.