In my last post I spoke about a Bordeaux, an Haut-Medoc, Cru Bourgeois, Chateau Tourteran 1999. I do not know what I will do when the grocery store finishes its stock, although I have been drinking it for more than a year now. Maybe they are ‘brewing’ it in the back, it may be counterfeit! Sounds nutty but apparently it is a real problem with great wines of a certain age; however, I don’t really think this is the case with this. I do have to let it breathe before serving it and the longer, the better. Sometimes I say that it is better the second day, like a big stew. I just read that it is the ‘second wine’ of a certain Château Ramage la Batisse, a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, purchased by Macif, a large French insurance company, in 1986. Both chateaux use traditional methods in their winemaking and are respected for their Haut-Médoc.
Bordeaux classifications are not the same as Burgundy’s Villages, Premier Cru and Grand Cru. The Cru Bourgeois label on this Haut-Medoc places it under a long list of Grand Crus. In the Grand Crus alone, there are several levels of the Grands Crus Classés – Premier, Deuxième, Troisième, Quatrième, and Cinquiéme (also know as First Growths, Second Growths, etc.). These classifications were primarily established in 1855 to classify quality in Bordeaux. With the Cru Bourgeois classification, there are Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, and Cru Bourgeois.
All but one of the wines in the Premier Grands Crus Classés list is from Haut Médoc and that one was a Graves that has been reclassified as a Pessac-Leognan to account for soil structure changes caused by urbanization around Bordeaux. That is quite a comment on the importance of terroir in the wine. At the same time as this 1855 list, the Bordeaux sweet wines were classified as well with nine classified as Premier Cru (First Growth), eleven as Deuxième Cru and Château d’Yequem granted Premier Cru Supérieur classification.
Graves, Saint-Emilion and Pomerol were not listed in the 1855 classification and the two first felt their sales suffered. Pomerol remains unclassified but produces very expensive wines - Petrus, for example. Since the original classification, Graves has created its own classification as has Saint-Emilion. However, unlike the Bordeaux Grands Crus and Graves lists, the Saint-Emilion list changes each ten years based on recent assessments of quality. Saint-Emilion classifications are slightly different from the 1855 Bordeaux listings. There are currently fifteen Premier Crus divided between Premier Grand Crus Classés A (2 wines) and Premier Grand Crus Classés B (13 wines). Furthermore, there are another group of Saint-Emilions classified as Grands Crus Classés that fall under the Premier Cru.
Makes my head spin, but I thought you would like to know!
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Birthday Dinner
So it is presque Thanksgiving, the Prince Consort celebrated a birthday this week, and it fell on the weekly Gathering Day for the Entourage. Because the PC and I were have one of those lingering non-verbal disputes – “Qu'est ce que tu veux à boire, à manger, à …?” “Je ne sais pas. Et toi?” “Rien, merci.” – for three days, I had done little planning for some sort of celebration. At auction I had purchased a Jeroboam of Chablis, La Chablisienne, Vieilles Vignes 1998. Now a Jeroboam is an oversized bottle most often seen not in wine bottling but in Champagne. It is equal to three standard sized bottles, and like all of these large bottles, except the Magnum, it is named for an Old Testament king. La Chablisienne is not a négociant but more of a collective or association of small growers in Chablis that produces and bottles wine for the vineyards in that region. Those in the Audience who have been paying attention will remember that Vieilles Vignes (Old Vines) are important because they produce more desirable grapes – more concentrated juice, fewer grapes per bunch – and, significantly, wine ages more slowly in a greater volume. Therefore, a demi-bottle will age twice as fast as a normal bottle and a magnum half as fast as the standard. Does that mean a Jeroboam will age three times slower?
It remains to be seen because, although I had purchased this Chablis, I had neglected to collect it from the auction house. However, I had also purchased at another auction, a magnum of Pernand Vergelesses 2003, a beautiful white wine from that very unusual year, 2003. I jammed that in the refrigerator on the morning of the birthday and set down to send out some email invitations to the Entourage. Typically, I sent them all to old addresses (now, the French have advanced by leaps and bounds in the recent years from a level when one would send email to French contacts, then telephone to tell them to read their email – that was in 2002; however, today they still are internet neophytes compared to most Americans and they change email addresses willy-nilly without notification), so the PC, whom I had included in the email invitation list since we were being lingeringly non-verbal, re-emailed everyone at the correct address. I also invited His Nibs to have a bilingual speaker and an ally.
His Nibs accepted the invitation and offered to cook. What luck; I set a lovely table and plan great menus but am not the best chef in my circles. Afternoon arrived, HN and I went shopping, and few if any of the Entourage r.s.v.p.’ed. The biggest problem was Paris and France were in the grip of a massive transit strike. Doesn’t that seem like a misnomer or some sort of extended oxymoron? A strike, particularly a transit strike, never seems to ‘hold’ one, certainly not ‘grip’ one; if anything, it seems to let one 'lie,' or worse ‘drop’ one. Anyway, we ended up five for dinner. The menu was to be simple, better to taste wine and easy on a weeknight. Small nibbles for cocktails including rillettes of two salmon (smoked and fresh) and of crab with lime. The first course was to be soup of watercress with crab and asparagus, followed by grilled pork chops with a ‘risotto’ of quinoa, and afterwards cheese and salad, then cake and coffee.
Dinner preparation was only three-quarters finished when His Nibs became too ill to finish. I had to drive him home, race back and finish dinner. This also meant that as four for dinner, the magnum was too big, in the opinion of the Prince Consort. We had a chilled white Chassagne-Montrachet, Les Meix Goudard, Domaine Bouzereau-Benay 2004 that the PC had purchased for 20 Euros recently in one of the French versions of Wal-Mart, Auchan, so we opened that. It was lovely. I can imagine that with more time it would improve but not by much. It had a full nose that developed as the wine warmed up, filled with florals that when in the mouth mixed with a musky minerality. The soup was lovely and did the wine justice; it was also incredibly easy to make – watch for it on future menus!
Pork chops were grilled out on the barbeque and the risotto was ready. I love grilled meats and if I lived with a barbeque where it did not rain all the time, I’d cook on it all winter. Anyway, this night was clear and the chops were perfect with lots of fresh herbs roasted on them. The risotto was another story. I am not a ‘grain and seed’ sort of person and quinoa falls dangerously close to barley which I also do not appreciate. Tonight it was done with broth and tiny brunoise of carrots, so it was pretty and not dry but I’d rather have the A-Girl’s risotto, frankly. To wash this course down I had planned a Gevery- Chambertin 1er Cru, Petite Chapelle, 2003 by Domaine Desserey. Desserey is an éleveur, a grape grower, not a négociant who buys other éleveurs grapes, from the village of Gevery. This wine was, again, from the year of the canicule – 2003, and I had hope for some fireworks. I even carafed it before serving.
Now, on the subject of carafing, there are many opinions, typically, as with all truly significant subjects. Some say Burgundies are too fragile to carafe, others will say that they need to be carafed to appreciate, and others will council carafing but not in the Bordeaux sense of carafing – not for hours in advance of serving. I fall into the last camp and finally bought a traditional carafe with the very wide bottom that exposes the greatest surface of wine to the air. The nifty thing I also got is an aerator. It is rather a funnel with the point at the bottom where the wine would exit closed. Along the sides of the pipette there are small holes that spray the wine onto the neck of the carafe providing more aeration in a shorter time. It’s BRILLIANT!
All that preparation and the Gevery was delicate, thin and elegant… but that is not what a Gevery is at all! And this, a Premier Cru from a producer, not a négociant, it had all the potential to be great. While drinking it, although, I liked it. Despite its delicateness, it stood up to the grilled pork, the color was lovely if not a bit pale for a Gevery, and the nose was good. It was not until the next wine that I truly noted the difference. We had finished the main course, and although the bottle was not empty, there was not enough to go around. I had more of the same, but decided that it was not hearty enough for cheese.
At first I thought to serve my old standard – a Bordeaux, Haut-Medoc, Cru Bourgeois, Chateau Tourteran 1999. I’m not a huge Bordeaux fan but this one is dependable, rich, and very fairly priced in my neighborhood supermarket. I keep stocked as the ‘Company at Home Red Wine’ and often serve it with the cheese course. However, this night I decided to take a different route and play a guessing game at the same time. I opened another bottle of Gevery, a village, Gevery-Chambertin, 1999 from Domaine Henri Rebourseau to taste against the first Gevery.
Now Rebourseau is a great domain, one of the Chef Cousin’s favorites. I’ve visited it a couple of times and have a special affinity for it and the owner. He is the grandson of the General Henri Rebourseau who founded the domain. He is also the one who always says “Wine is a living thing and must be treated as such.” And it is he who told me that his casks in the cave where young wines age before bottling leak when there is a full moon and then reseal with the waning moon. He decided that foolish wine buyers were drinking his wines too young and wasting their potential, so he restricts who can buy them and where they are sold. Then he limits how much of a millesime is sold when it is first bottled and actually caves much of it. From his aged stock he sells to favored buyers (read: Chef Cousin) and it is from this source that I bought three bottles of the 1999 Gevery. Rebourseau also makes a Gevery 1er Cru, a Charmes-Chambertin, a Mazis-Chambertin, a Clos de Vougeot, and a Chambertin. The last four are all Grand Crus! Maybe the General knew what he was doing when he assembled this domain from various vineyards owned by his father, all around a beautiful 18th century house.
So, with this sort of history, you, cher Audience, can imagine that Rebourseau’s Gevery is a glass of wine that makes you take notice. I poured it from the bottle, no carafe, and asked who could identify it. First guess was a Bordeaux (a bit naïve considering the form of the bottle) but no one could imagine it was the same wine we had been drinking. The color was a deep ruby, the nose was full with ripe red fruits and an undercoating of the muskiness so appreciated in great Burgundies. In the mouth, there was more of the same with a deeper, fatter quality to the aromas. The muskiness took on a warm spiciness and the flavor lingered after you swallowed. Delightful! It was interesting to note how Rebourseau brings to his village appellation some of the same qualities that are expressed in the Grand Crus. What a great winemaker.
Interestingly, the Prince Consort appreciated the 1999 Gevery but preferred the 2003. He and I share an appreciation of the finesse and elegance found in many red Burgundies but I think that I prefer my Gevery’s to be bigger and bolder. I also had another taste of the white Chassagne-Montrachet that had started the meal. By now it was at room temperature and full of flavors that were less obvious in the wine when it was cold. A sharp toasty minerality balanced well with warmer honey tones. I could have drunk it with the cheese, actually.
Dinner closed with a lovely 3-chocolate cake, yummy, several layers and beautifully decorated with shavings, tulles, and a macarron. Coffee and collapse; tomorrow was Thanksgiving!
It remains to be seen because, although I had purchased this Chablis, I had neglected to collect it from the auction house. However, I had also purchased at another auction, a magnum of Pernand Vergelesses 2003, a beautiful white wine from that very unusual year, 2003. I jammed that in the refrigerator on the morning of the birthday and set down to send out some email invitations to the Entourage. Typically, I sent them all to old addresses (now, the French have advanced by leaps and bounds in the recent years from a level when one would send email to French contacts, then telephone to tell them to read their email – that was in 2002; however, today they still are internet neophytes compared to most Americans and they change email addresses willy-nilly without notification), so the PC, whom I had included in the email invitation list since we were being lingeringly non-verbal, re-emailed everyone at the correct address. I also invited His Nibs to have a bilingual speaker and an ally.
His Nibs accepted the invitation and offered to cook. What luck; I set a lovely table and plan great menus but am not the best chef in my circles. Afternoon arrived, HN and I went shopping, and few if any of the Entourage r.s.v.p.’ed. The biggest problem was Paris and France were in the grip of a massive transit strike. Doesn’t that seem like a misnomer or some sort of extended oxymoron? A strike, particularly a transit strike, never seems to ‘hold’ one, certainly not ‘grip’ one; if anything, it seems to let one 'lie,' or worse ‘drop’ one. Anyway, we ended up five for dinner. The menu was to be simple, better to taste wine and easy on a weeknight. Small nibbles for cocktails including rillettes of two salmon (smoked and fresh) and of crab with lime. The first course was to be soup of watercress with crab and asparagus, followed by grilled pork chops with a ‘risotto’ of quinoa, and afterwards cheese and salad, then cake and coffee.
Dinner preparation was only three-quarters finished when His Nibs became too ill to finish. I had to drive him home, race back and finish dinner. This also meant that as four for dinner, the magnum was too big, in the opinion of the Prince Consort. We had a chilled white Chassagne-Montrachet, Les Meix Goudard, Domaine Bouzereau-Benay 2004 that the PC had purchased for 20 Euros recently in one of the French versions of Wal-Mart, Auchan, so we opened that. It was lovely. I can imagine that with more time it would improve but not by much. It had a full nose that developed as the wine warmed up, filled with florals that when in the mouth mixed with a musky minerality. The soup was lovely and did the wine justice; it was also incredibly easy to make – watch for it on future menus!
Pork chops were grilled out on the barbeque and the risotto was ready. I love grilled meats and if I lived with a barbeque where it did not rain all the time, I’d cook on it all winter. Anyway, this night was clear and the chops were perfect with lots of fresh herbs roasted on them. The risotto was another story. I am not a ‘grain and seed’ sort of person and quinoa falls dangerously close to barley which I also do not appreciate. Tonight it was done with broth and tiny brunoise of carrots, so it was pretty and not dry but I’d rather have the A-Girl’s risotto, frankly. To wash this course down I had planned a Gevery- Chambertin 1er Cru, Petite Chapelle, 2003 by Domaine Desserey. Desserey is an éleveur, a grape grower, not a négociant who buys other éleveurs grapes, from the village of Gevery. This wine was, again, from the year of the canicule – 2003, and I had hope for some fireworks. I even carafed it before serving.
Now, on the subject of carafing, there are many opinions, typically, as with all truly significant subjects. Some say Burgundies are too fragile to carafe, others will say that they need to be carafed to appreciate, and others will council carafing but not in the Bordeaux sense of carafing – not for hours in advance of serving. I fall into the last camp and finally bought a traditional carafe with the very wide bottom that exposes the greatest surface of wine to the air. The nifty thing I also got is an aerator. It is rather a funnel with the point at the bottom where the wine would exit closed. Along the sides of the pipette there are small holes that spray the wine onto the neck of the carafe providing more aeration in a shorter time. It’s BRILLIANT!
All that preparation and the Gevery was delicate, thin and elegant… but that is not what a Gevery is at all! And this, a Premier Cru from a producer, not a négociant, it had all the potential to be great. While drinking it, although, I liked it. Despite its delicateness, it stood up to the grilled pork, the color was lovely if not a bit pale for a Gevery, and the nose was good. It was not until the next wine that I truly noted the difference. We had finished the main course, and although the bottle was not empty, there was not enough to go around. I had more of the same, but decided that it was not hearty enough for cheese.
At first I thought to serve my old standard – a Bordeaux, Haut-Medoc, Cru Bourgeois, Chateau Tourteran 1999. I’m not a huge Bordeaux fan but this one is dependable, rich, and very fairly priced in my neighborhood supermarket. I keep stocked as the ‘Company at Home Red Wine’ and often serve it with the cheese course. However, this night I decided to take a different route and play a guessing game at the same time. I opened another bottle of Gevery, a village, Gevery-Chambertin, 1999 from Domaine Henri Rebourseau to taste against the first Gevery.
Now Rebourseau is a great domain, one of the Chef Cousin’s favorites. I’ve visited it a couple of times and have a special affinity for it and the owner. He is the grandson of the General Henri Rebourseau who founded the domain. He is also the one who always says “Wine is a living thing and must be treated as such.” And it is he who told me that his casks in the cave where young wines age before bottling leak when there is a full moon and then reseal with the waning moon. He decided that foolish wine buyers were drinking his wines too young and wasting their potential, so he restricts who can buy them and where they are sold. Then he limits how much of a millesime is sold when it is first bottled and actually caves much of it. From his aged stock he sells to favored buyers (read: Chef Cousin) and it is from this source that I bought three bottles of the 1999 Gevery. Rebourseau also makes a Gevery 1er Cru, a Charmes-Chambertin, a Mazis-Chambertin, a Clos de Vougeot, and a Chambertin. The last four are all Grand Crus! Maybe the General knew what he was doing when he assembled this domain from various vineyards owned by his father, all around a beautiful 18th century house.
So, with this sort of history, you, cher Audience, can imagine that Rebourseau’s Gevery is a glass of wine that makes you take notice. I poured it from the bottle, no carafe, and asked who could identify it. First guess was a Bordeaux (a bit naïve considering the form of the bottle) but no one could imagine it was the same wine we had been drinking. The color was a deep ruby, the nose was full with ripe red fruits and an undercoating of the muskiness so appreciated in great Burgundies. In the mouth, there was more of the same with a deeper, fatter quality to the aromas. The muskiness took on a warm spiciness and the flavor lingered after you swallowed. Delightful! It was interesting to note how Rebourseau brings to his village appellation some of the same qualities that are expressed in the Grand Crus. What a great winemaker.
Interestingly, the Prince Consort appreciated the 1999 Gevery but preferred the 2003. He and I share an appreciation of the finesse and elegance found in many red Burgundies but I think that I prefer my Gevery’s to be bigger and bolder. I also had another taste of the white Chassagne-Montrachet that had started the meal. By now it was at room temperature and full of flavors that were less obvious in the wine when it was cold. A sharp toasty minerality balanced well with warmer honey tones. I could have drunk it with the cheese, actually.
Dinner closed with a lovely 3-chocolate cake, yummy, several layers and beautifully decorated with shavings, tulles, and a macarron. Coffee and collapse; tomorrow was Thanksgiving!
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