Hospices de Beaune at dusk
Venerable Hospices de Beaune is the oldest charitable auction in the world, founded in 1859 – though the hospital it benefits dates from 1443. The event is also important because the auction prices are said to set market levels for the new vintage of top-tier Burgundy wines, each year.
I do love the walled, old city of Beaune. It’s brisk and medieval-feeling in the early dusk of November day when the Great Auction has just finished. Market stalls are bustling, lively entertainers sing and dance, and the lanes are filled with European tourists snapping up local artisanal foods: rich parsleyed hams, ultra-fresh crunchy-crusted breads, spiced honey-cakes. Alas, not for me, this year.
So I was pleasantly surprised when I received an invitation to taste some of the Hospice de Beaune wines from earlier years, as Christie’s (which took over the auction a few years ago) toured several US cities this fall. In Boston, we tasted at the First Republic Bank, so you can imagine it was a pretty haute crowd. Maybe next year I’ll get back to Beaune…
There were about 20 wines, mainly from 2009 and 2005, but with a few intermediate vintages too. My favorite reds were two of the 2005s: the Beaune 1er Cru, Cuvée Nicolas Rolin, and the Pommard 1er Cru, Cuvée Dames de la Charité. The whites were wonderful, notably the easy-drinking (are you allowed to say that about Burgundy?) 2007 Pouilly-Fuissé, Cuvée Françoise Poisard, and the beautifully balanced 2009 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru, Cuvée François de Salins.
Tags: 2005 Beaune 1er Cru, 2005 Pommard 1er Cru, 2007 2007 Pouilly-Fuissé, 2009 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru, Beaune, Burgundy, charitable wine auction, Christie's, Cuvée Dames de la Charité, Cuvée François de Salins, Cuvée Françoise Poisard, Cuvée Nicolas Rolin, Hospice de Beaune
If I was a Bordeaux chateau owner, I’d probably do the same thing: concentrate on China right now. Still, it’s a bit unnerving when you see it happening right in front of you. Like at the recent Chateau Palmer lunch, with the Commanderie de Bordeaux in Boston. Charming Palmer marketing manager Bernard de Laage played it down, but he was essentially handing us over to a second-in-command, while he does the Asia route. Second in command in this case is the equally charming longtime friend of Palmer Jean-Louis Carbonnier, whose French accent is even more charming, but still…
It was, however, a wonderful lunch: BYOB Palmer at Upstairs on the Square in Cambridge, Mass. Not being a Palmer collector, I was allowed to bring the apéritif champagne: Cuvée Louise 1996, which went over pretty well. OK, yeah, it was a wine-snob lunch, and we all enjoyed every minute of it.
The wines: Palmer’s delightful 2003, 1990, 1989, then finishing with a very young and fresh 1983. In the middle, the 1979 was corked, alas, but someone rallied with a 1990 Léoville Las Cases, very herby by comparison with the lush Palmers. The menu: Potage of Native Celery Root with black truffle dumpling; Szechuan-Peppered Duck Breast with vanilla mascarpone potatoes, red wine roasted figs, turnips and their greens.
With the cheese we had Alter Ego’s second vintage, the merlot-based 1999, alongside the Palmer 1999. Both were terrific, and the Palmer got to show off its refinement.
Tags: Alter Ego, Bernard de Laage, Chateau Palmer, Commanderie de Bordeaux, Cuvee Louise, Jean-Louis Carbonnier, Leoville Las Cases, Upstairs on the Square
Chocolate, chocolate, I’ll try anything chocolate. Sometimes I’m surprised. Like with Van Gogh Vodka’s new Rich Dark Chocolate. I’ve tried quite a few of their flavors before, and I’m not always convinced. This one was very convincing. First of all, it actually is a dark chocolate flavor. If you were expecting creamy sweetness, this was confusing. If you were expecting a flavoring agent, this was also confusing. Because it is, after all, vodka.
Van Gogh Vodka Rich Dark Chocolate
We also had fresh oranges, so we tried adding some of the juice and a slice of orange and that worked too – though I would recommend either the lemon-lime OR the orange, not both. Or try your own combinations. There’s plenty of vodka in that bottle.
Actually, it was a relaxing Jacob’s Creek webinar the other day — once I calmed down and realized there was nothing I could do to get the sound to work on this laptop I took on vacation with me.
It’s been a while since I tried Jacob’s Creek wines, and I was favorably impressed with several of them.
So I tasted along happily with the quiet slides, making my notes and enjoying the silence.
Jacob’s Creek Chief Winemaker Bernard Hickin
Tasting notes on the Jacob’s Creek Reserve Wines:
1. Barossa Dry Riesling 2010: mineral and limestone, a touch floral. Acidity around the edges of a longish finish. Crowd-pleaser in the house, after the tasting.
2. Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2009: Peaches in the nose, but not too much vanilla. Good acidity. Mix of Old- and New-World styles. Lushness with positive citric qualities. Surprisingly pleasant discovery for me.
3. Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2009: floral and jam aroma, along with a saline quality. Jam with the barest touch of earth and a sweet finish. Very New World fruitiness.
4. Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2009: plenty of leafiness, black current in aroma and flavor, some minerality and heat in finish. A soft wine.
5. Barossa Shiraz 2008. Earth and butter, in a medium-light style. Very ripe fruit, as well. New World, easy to sip.
Tags: Jacob's Creek, Jacob's Creek Reserve, Jacob's Creek Reserve Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2009, Jacob's Creek Reserve Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2009, Jacob's Creek Reserve Barossa Dry Riesling 2010, Jacob's Creek Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2008, Jacob's Creek Reserve Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2009
I’ve had some of the the Exclusiv Vodcas for some time now, and I’m glad I waited and sampled them over the course of several weeks, in different ways.
Exclusiv is a wheat vodka made in Moldova, a tiny country tucked between Romania and Ukraine.
First, I want to mention that the bottles’ design is lovely; they make a very attractive presentation. 
Nobody drinks vodka neat, at room temperature – except samplers like me – so Exclusiv is obviously made to be consumed chilled. This was most apparent with the unflavored version. Adding citrus, either lemon or lime, was a plus for the unflavored. But it proved unnecessary with the flavored versions.
With any flavored liquor, the manufacturer has several choices. This producer chose to use an orange oil type flavoring which has two advantages: it’s not too sweet, and it holds up well when chilled. However, it’s not so easy to get this type of flavoring for other fruits, so the raspberry is somewhat sweeter, even when chilled.
Also interesting is the price: a premium vodka, only around $13 for a fifth, or $20 for 1.75 liters.
I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before that this was lacking.
Well, problem solved: the new Guide to the Wines of France is out in English. It’s by top wine critics Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve, who have both been prominent in their field for several decades. They have published this volume in French for many years; finally, we get to read it in English.
When I first started going to France a lot (about 10 years ago) I would run into Michel Bettane everywhere. In Alsace, in Bordeaux, in Champagne… He was always there at the winery, had just left, or was about to arrive. Luckily for me. I knew if he was around, this was a winery worth covering. And later, when I got up the nerve to talk with him, he actually answered my questions.
When you start reading Bettane and Dessauve’s new guide to French wines, you realize this isn’t about whether or not French people would favor their own wines over other countries’. It’s about men who have grown up in France, know the history of the wine regions, and can provide context for each winemaker as well as current evaluations of the wines.
One of the best parts of this book is also the worst part. It’s the front section of the book, where the authors talk clearly about wine in general and French wine in particular. This includes everything from wine labels and grapes to “How to Use this Guide.” Unfortunately, these pages were given to a designer who slapped these fascinating paragraphs into large, unreadable blocks of text: they look good on the page, but are impenetrable to a reader.
Design in the rest of the book is much more user-friendly. Divided into wine regions, each page contains short, pithy paragraphs about each winery’s history and how it fits into the region. These descriptions are followed by brief wine tasting notes, along with guidelines on when to drink both current and recent vintages.
This is a great book to pick up, after you’ve introduction to wine. Assuming the design flaws are corrected in future editions, I would recommend the Guide to the Wines of France as a great source for anyone who wants to delve a bit deeper into one country’s wine.
Bettane & Dessauve’s Guide to the Wines of France. By Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve. New York: Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 2011. $35.
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Tags: French wine, Guide to the Wines of France, Michel Bettand and Thierry Dessueuve, Michel Bettane, Thierry Desseauve
The Macallan. Why does “the” sound so pretentious at first? And now it just rolls of my tongue. Actually, I haven’t had any tonight. Recently I sampled several (again), from ten- to 25-year-old.
My favorite? The 17-year-old, which was elegant, smooth, with good body. I’d prefer to sip that one in the evening with its hints of flowers and fruit, whisps of peat and smoke.
The Macallan is single-malt, which means it’s all made in one distillery. Sort of like estate-bottled wine. At that tasting I also learned that the US is the #1 market for The Macallan. The second is Taiwan, which surprised me. And, apparently every country has their own preferences for aged scotch. In Italy they drink 5-7 year old with tonic. The UK likes 10-year-old. In Japan it’s 17-year-old, which I think has something to do with the symbolism of the number. And in the US, our favorite is 18-year-old.
That same day I met the new Northeast Brand Ambassador, who was just being broken in – I mean introduced – to the market. His name is Charlie Whitfield and he’s British, which means we love his accent. Actually, he’s Scottish. Or is he Scotch? Anyhow, we were in Boston that day and though he’s based in NYC, he had sense enough to talk about the Red Sox (though he mentioned he thought NY had a baseball team too).
Whitfield got to do the ice trick at this event. Somehow, he took a large block of ice and compressed it into the shape of a ball with a special copper machine. It doesn’t take long, maybe a minute or less, and it’s a great bar trick. If I had a bar, I’d get one of those machines from The Macallan people.
What you end up with is an ice sphere that fits perfectly into a glass, and melts slowly to create the perfect melding of The Macallan and water at a cool temperature. I wonder who in Boston has an ice ball machine?
Tags: Charles Whitfield, ice ball, Scotch, single malt, single malt scotch, The Macallan
For me, it’s fascinating to see a wineglass, a decanter, a wine bottle that sat on a dining table hundreds of years ago. It might be plain and thick and unevenly shaped. It might be thin and delicate and rimmed with gold. At the Corning Museum of Glass in upstate New York, I was fascinated by their elaborate collection of glassware, ranging from ancient through medieval to modern times.
Whether you like to think of yourself as a former king or a former peasant, you’ll be enthralled with this collection. All the more so, because it’s glass, and there are so few glass items in the world that have lasted this long.
Bonus: take a workshop and create your own glass piece. This photo is the interior of the pulled-glass flower I made one afternoon — with plenty of encouragement from a patient teacher at the museum.
Tags: Corning Museum of glass, glass flower, wine, wine glass
In London they have a Champagne Grand Tasting every year. Why is this the first time it’s come to the US? This year the New York Champagne Grand Tasting was held in a beautifully decorated, small ballroom at New York’s Plaza Hotel.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the finest champagnes I sampled:
Alfred Gratien Brut Rosé Classique, tons of acidity
Ayala Brut Majeur NV, with good acidity and not overwhelming
Ayala Blanc de Blancs 2004, still needing some more time to develop
Besserat de Bellefon Cuvée des Moines Brut, very restrained
Boizel Brut Réserve, classic balance with a nice floral touch
Boizel Brute Millesime 2000, light and well integrated
Boizel Brut Rosé NV, also very well balanced
Bollinger Special Cuvée NV medium light, lighter than I remembered
Bollinger Rosé NV, similar in profile to Special Cuvée NV
Bollinger La Grande Année 2002, lemony and light, more yeast than agar
Gaston Chiquet “Tradition” Brut NV, complex and medium-light
Gosset Brut Excellence, smoothly excellent
Gosset Millésime 2000, spice from lees, baked yeast nose, not too huge
Gosset Grande Réserve, round flavors structured, lemony finish
Henriot Brut Souverain NV, a good, hearty mouthful
Henriot Brute Millésime 1998, astonishingly light, age felt mainly in the finish
Lanson Black Label Brut NV, lots of toasted oak
Lanson Brut Rosé NV, gold-red salmon color, would be good w/ smoked salmon
Philipponnat Grand Blanc 1999, smoky, yeasty, asks to be served with dinner
Pierre Gimonnet et Fils 1er Cru Brut NV, honeyed, finish so dry it’s almost chalky
St. Chamant Blanc de Blancs Brut NV, medium body, easy to drink
Stephane Coquillette 1er Cru “Carte d’Or” NV, well-made on the dry and lemony side
Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs 2000, elegant with toasty yeast, orange
Thienot Rosé NV, nicely dry
Vilmart & Cie “Grand Cellier” Brut NV, complex aromas and flavors floral to salty
Tags: Alfred Gratien, Ayala, Besserat de Bellefon, Boizel, Bollinger, Champagne, champagne grande tasting, Gaston Chiquet, Gosset, Henriot, Lanson, Philipponnat, Plaza Hotel, St. Chamant, Stephane Coquillette, Taittinger, Thienot, Vilmart & Cie
