Dinner with Friends and a Couple of Wines

My friends Doug & Marsha were in town. A couple months ago, they kindly helped me track down a watch I wanted through their jewellery business. So I treated them to a couple of my wines over dinner. They are not heavily into wine, so I thought I'd introduce them to a couple wines they haven't tried before. Frankly, I thought both of these wines would show too young, but I was happily wrong on both counts!

• 1999 Domaine Chandon de Briailles Corton Blanc 91 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Beaune, Corton Grand Cru

  (This is the Corton blanc.) This was surprisingly open and ready to drink (lucky for me). I expected to get a baseline on how this wine was doing, but instead found it was in quite a good drinking stage. It does show some lavish creamy new oak right now, which I think will integrate some more over time. Nice ripe tree fruit with medium to low acidity. A bit of an edgy mineral component adds some zing. The sommelier thought it was not a wine to keep much longer, but I thought it would likely peak in about 5 years. I think I'll gamble on my instinct and keep a bottle until 2010.

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• 1998 Tenuta Guado al Tasso (Antinori) Bolgheri Superiore 94 Points

  Italy, Tuscany, Bolgheri, Bolgheri Superiore

  This wine surprised me with how advanced it seemed for its age and for the magnum format. I do not mean this to denigrate the wine, which was excellent. But my expectations of a primary beast of a wine proved false. This tasted like a middle-aged top Bordeaux. Nice flavours of cassis, pencil lead, cedar, woodsmoke and old leather. Plus just a hint of green pepper (but not too much). Pretty smooth mouthfeel. Really stunning with a veal chop dish and quite respectable with a cheese plate too. I don't think this is going over the hill soon, but based on this bottle, it will not be a long keeper either.

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