Mini-Bordeaux offline at Palace Kitchen

Seattle, WA, USA
Tasted Friday, July 2, 2004 by Eric with 1,427 views

Introduction

Mike Baker was in town and looking for some Seattle folks to open a few bottles with, so Jason & Tracy Goldberger and myself met up with him at the Palace Kitchen for a quick 'happy hour' offline focused on Bordeaux.

Flight 1 (1 Note)

We started out with a nice but very closed Kabinett before we moved into a double-blind tasting of Bordeaux.

Flight 2 (5 Notes)

Then we moved onto the big boys! The hands-down favorite was clearly the 1990 Château La Fleur de Gay followed by a surprisingly youthful bottle of 1982 Les Forts de Latour.

  • 1990 Château La Dominique 91 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Libournais, Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

    The nose is spicy with some sur-maturite (overripeness, thanks Mike). The palate was initially quite closed with minerals, graphite and an earthy and dusty personality. However, with some time to open up this became much more expressive with nice bottle sweetness and incredibly smooth mouthfeel. This has a silky, lingering finish. A very feminine and soft wine although it does have a nice backbone of structure.

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  • 1982 Château Latour Les Forts de Latour 92 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

    This shows faint bricking at the rim, yet the wine has a glowing translucency that clearly shows its age. The nose shows a healthy hint of barnyard with lead pencil and cedar, textbook Pauillac. The mouthfeel was initially very leathery, yet as this gained air it actually got more black and brooding. I am amazed at the amount of structure here, a very masculine wine. That said, it is also very sweet, cedary and enjoyable. I waffled between 92 and 93 points, going with 92 since this is charming but lacks a bit of complexity. Still, with a Palace Kitchen burger it is hard to ask for a more pleasurable glass of wine!

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  • 1992 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 88 Points

    USA, Washington

    On the very first sniff I guessed Quilceda and then second guessed myself for the next 15 minutes. In the end I stuck with my Quilceda guess but embarassingly was off by almost a decade on my vintage guess. What the hell was I thinking?!? Anyway, the nose shows cinnamon with some faint floral notes and emerging cedar. The palate shows lots of charcoal with searing structure and somewhat uncharacteristically choppy tannins. This is drinking unbelievably young with a wall of tannins. This shows solid length, but the fruit is hiding.

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  • 1990 Château La Fleur de Gay 95 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Libournais, Pomerol

    Oh my goodness, this wine was everything the 1990 La Dominique wished it could be. The nose was explosive, sultry, spicy and ripe with black fruit, cedar and cotton candy. Wow! The palate is thick and oozing with sweet, roasted fruit, amazingly ripe with what Mike called a "torrefacted" mouthfeel. This was just so think and ripe, totally unreal! If a lot of my 2003's turn into this I will be very happy. Thanks Mike!!!

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  • 1986 Château Beychevelle 89 Points

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Saint-Julien

    The nose on this shows remarkable cedar. The palate is awesome with tobacco, minerals and earth. Great structure, almost too dominating with not quite enough fruit to match up to it. I flirted between 89 and 90 and ended up a bit stingy. After the La Fleur de Gay this had a very tough act to follow.

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Closing

(As an aside, Mike's two non-wino frends ended up bailing on us, but in his gracious attempt to cover for them half the bottles in the tasting were from his cellar. Thanks for your remarkable generosity Mike!)

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