Full Monty Tasting Dinner (Montrachet & Le Montrachet only)
Stephen Gold's home, San Francisco, California
Tasted Friday, September 18, 2009 by rjonwine@gmail.com with 1,686 views
Introduction
This was a remarkable tasting event. Not only was this a wine dinner devoted solely to white wines (a pretty rare occurrence in itself), but it was also devoted to the wines of one very special terroir--the most famous Chardonnay-producing vineyard in the world. What made it all the more unusual was that, with so many white Burgs involved, none were oxidized or prematurely oxidized. I fully expected at least a few of them to be, since white Burgs, especially from the second half of the 90s (which most of ours were), have had well publicized issues with "premox." Maybe part of the "power" of Montrachet is the warding off of premox (or perhaps winemakers take extra care to avoid faults in their Montrachet bottlings, there being so little of that precious fruit available to begin with). Either that, or we just got incredibly lucky.
Many thanks go to Stephen, who proposed the tasting, offered his lovely home for it, generously provided extra bottles, and arranged for John, our caterer, who did a terrific job pairing food courses to our unusual all-white wine lineup. When Stephen proposed the tasting in late August, he indicated that he wanted to do it by mid or late September, which didn't give a whole lot of time for those of us whose cellars were then bare of Montrachet--which was most of us--to source and obtain delivery of the requisite sample with some bottle age, "worthy of drinking now." Stephen urged us on, however, and those of us on hand managed to score some lovely bottles in a relatively short amount of time, hence my thanks to everyone who attended as well.
Our dinner began with an opening Champagne and hors d'oeurves, followed by a flight of vintage Champagne and oysters. We then did two flights of Montrachets, randomly selected from our line up of 11 bottles (1 bottle from each of our ten participants, and an additional bottle contributed by Stephen), each flight poured blind. These were accompanied by the very appropriate food flights pictured below. We finished with two youngish but very tasty bottles of Yquem, contributed by Stephen and Keith, and a foie gras course, followed by a slice of cake.
In our Champagne flight, the two '96s were a great treat, with the Dom slightly edging out the Salon for me in terms of accessibility now. My Montrachet of the night was the '96 Remoissenet, closely followed by the '95 Remoissenet. What was most impressive, however, wasn't one or two star wines but the great quality, power, depth and complexity of the wines in our Montrachet flights overall, with great showings by Sauzet, Marquis de Laguiche, Bouchard and Colin-Deleger as well. Our two youngest wines, an '01 and '02, were also, of course, the tightest and therefor hardest to evaluate in terms of their potential. Our oldest, the '89 Marquis de Laguiche, was showing beautifully, and seemingly now at its peak.
Everyone on hand enjoyed the tasting so much that we're already talking about doing it again in a year, giving ourselves plenty of time this time to source additional stellar bottles worthy of current drinking.
Flight 1 - Opening Wine (1 Note)
Appetizers: deviled eggs; crostini w/tomato, Bellwhether Farms ricotta and pounded basil; Belgian endive w/ herbed feta and goat cheese; dates w/ Gorgonzola and toasted almond
Flight 2 - Vintage Champagne Flight (3 Notes)
Beau Soleil, Point Reyes and Island Creek oysters with Champagne mignonette
Flight 3 - 1st Montrachet Blind Flight (5 Notes)
Summer's end corn soup w/ seared shrimp, shrimp glacee and chervil
Flight 4 - 2nd Montrachet Blind Flight (6 Notes)
crab salad w/ tarragon aioli, Early Girl tomatoes, purslane salad and shaved fennel
Veal Scallopini w/ new potatoes and haricots verts
Flight 5 - Yquem Finish (2 Notes)
seared Sonoma foie gras w/crostini and roasted figs
NV Pol Roger Champagne Brut Réserve 91 Points
France, Champagne
Light bright yellow color; light citrus, mineral, fresh apple nose; tight, creamy textured, tart apple, citrus, mineral palate; medium finish
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