Dan turns 30, We drink 82s

Keens Steakhouse
Tasted Saturday, September 22, 2012 by coremill with 636 views

Flight 1 - Champagne to Start (1 Note)

  • 2002 Bollinger Champagne La Grande Année 90 Points

    France, Champagne

    Rich golden apple, plenty of bready/yeasty qualities. Palate filled out more with air. Tasty and rich but nicely balanced. Still, I only liked this and didn't love it. Some of this may be style (I think I'm more of a BdB guy), but to me this was not good enough for its price.

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Flight 2 - Muscadet with Oysters and Bacon (1 Note)

  • 2004 André-Michel Brégeon Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Gorges 89 Points

    France, Loire Valley, Pays Nantais, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine

    A very nice muscadet, with surprisingly good depth to the typical citrusy fruit and the leesy character really showing. Not as mineral as some I've had, but oysters brought out the sea-shell aspect while it was a surprisingly good pairing with bacon.

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Flight 3 - An Intermezzo of Two 82 Italians (2 Notes)

  • 1982 Il Poggione (Proprietá Franceschi) Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 90 Points

    Italy, Tuscany, Montalcino, Brunello di Montalcino

    From a bottle purchased at the winery last year. Decanted upon opening and then immediately served. A very nice wine that got totally overshadowed and lost in the shuffle by what came after. Really nice, complex nose with earth, fresh herbs, and a powerful core of dark, sour cherry fruit. Still very much alive, with plenty of fruit, acid, and tannin remaining. The tannin is just a bit rustic for my taste, but nearly every old Brunello I've had is like that and I think that's just the way sangio ages. Would have liked to spend more time with this.

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  • 1982 Giacomo Borgogno & Figli Barolo Riserva

    Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo

    Original release. Double-decanted a few hours before drinking. An incredible, powerful, complex nose, best nose of the night, with meat and iron and fur and earth and black cherry fruit and some other things going on that i didn't specifically note. Unfortunately the palate is a complete letdown: it's tart and tannic and drying and while there's still fruit there, it's totally unbalanced by the acid/tannin. If only it had tasted like it smelled. 97 pt nose, 87 pt palate.

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Flight 4 - Three 82 Bordeaux (3 Notes)

  • 1982 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 96 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    Oh wow. Still dark, midnight color, still opaque. Huge nose of cassis and plums and blackberries, florals, molasses. With air the florals fade and and a spicy, curryish cigar note emerges that was almost vosne-like in its aisan spice elements. In the mouth the wine has incredible richness and texture, like a down pillow drenched in black fruit. There's still some chewy tannin but the tannin is so soft and refined and buried by the fruit that you hardly notice it, and wine amazingly manages to be as rich and soft as it is while maintaining a sense of structure and poise -- I've never had a wine this rich that wasn't also overly heavy. If i'm quibbbling I'd note that the finish wasn't quite as long as I might have expected, but that's picking nits. Utterly fantastic.

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  • 1982 Château La Tour Haut-Brion Flawed

    France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

    For the first 30 seconds I thought this was going to be a wonderful Graves, so strong was the smell of scorched earth. But others quickly pointed out that I was wrong, as the wine was flawed by excessive VA. More air only made things worse. Shame.

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  • 1982 Château Brane-Cantenac 92 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

    A really lovely classic claret. Aromas leap out of the glass with plenty of cassis, slightly redder in tone than the PLL, a bit cedary, nice florals.. A wine that goes for elegance rather than power, but with impressive intensity given the lighter frame. The only demerit here is that there's not quite enough concentration left to buffer the tannins and it's starting to dry out slightly. Drink up.

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Flight 5 - A Sweet finish (1 Note)

  • 2010 Dönnhoff Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel 89 Points

    Germany, Nahe

    Second time I've this in a month and it's not nearly as good as the previous bottle. It's quite sweet, with apple and peach flavors. The palate is rich and concentrated and juicy, but it lacks the intensity and definition I remember; I taste and feel the density of the sugar more than I taste fruit flavors.

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