Dinner at Auburn LA
Auburn Restaurant, Los Angeles
Tasted December 6, 2019 by Aravind Asok with 114 views
Introduction
I'm frustrated with hipster somms. We got the ``reserve" wine pairing ($80 with 4 courses), where the somm talks to you to discern your tastes and then pairs with your food. This could be great in principle, but I was really disappointed with the execution. I'm always happy to try new and interesting wines. Unfortunately, ``interesting" should not mean flawed.
Nevertheless, corkage is $50/btl, and since my wife and I were planning to take different courses, the reserve tasting seemed like a better option than bringing 4 bottles of wine. I won't make that mistake again...
Flight 1 - The wines (6 notes)
White
1996 Kalin Cellars Chardonnay Cuvée W
USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Livermore Valley
Had a glass of this poured for me. The somm at Auburn in LA tried to tell me this was ok...and I responded, probably incredulously, "Are you sure this is not oxidized?" in an attempt to politely address the issue. When the rationalizations persisted, I simple said: "if this was white burgundy, I would say it was totally oxidized." In any case, awful. Completely oxidized...not pleasant, intellectual sherry oxidation, just pour it down the drain and turn the lights out oxidized. The color was just dull brown.
Red
2017 Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Crozes-Hermitage
Lovely, but far too young. Violet in color, with intense nose of hi-toned red fruit...so bright. On the palate, excellent acidity, more red fruit and sweet black raspberry. Maybe the slightest hint of feral, but really fruit-forward. I'm still not drinking my 12s and 13s since they are still unwinding... This was a sort of strange pairing with duck...but it mostly worked.
Red
2015 Pavillon de Léoville Poyferré
France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien
Paired with 30day dry aged course. Much of my note isn't about the wine, but I think the somm was confused about this as there was a lot of waxing rhapsodic about how lucky they were to have this wine on their list. It'a a second wine of a well-known BDX chateaux...it's pretty cheap and there's a lot of it...not a wine I would ever call "special".
Anyway, good classic beef and BDX pairing. This was good, if a bit simple: a touch of cedar and lots of red and black fruit. Softer tannin than I would expect, but I guess this is a pretty forward vintage.
Closing
Not listed in my notes is a dry furmint (whose name and vintage I didn't catch) that was flawed (tasted mildly corked), and reasonable sauv blanc/semillon.
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