Drunk On The Moon

I opened this bottle the night I proposed marriage to my girlfriend now wife. I had made a special meal for her because she was flying out to Bogota to visit her family the following morning. She’d be away for a week or so and this was our last night together. It was time and I had my plan of attack ready. I wanted to propose in the comfort of our home. No getting on my knee at Tavern On The Green.  No Yankee Stadium Kiss Cam. I was in my socks and we we’re listening to Depeche Mode. It was simple and beautiful. She had no idea it was coming.

I don’t like to cook. Actually, let me rephrase that: I don’t like cooking in my apartment. I have no counter space and the oven is 3 feet from the toilet. My sink has a holding capacity of a coffee cup and a spoon before it hits maximum density. When I do decide to cook I have to commandeer the top of my trash can as cutting board. In spite of all of this, I wanted to cook a meal for this big night in my life. I had it all planned out, 3 courses. Salad, pasta, fish.  For the salad I wanted to keep it down home. Arugula and Parmigiano Reggiano. As simple and perfect as salads get. Next would be the pasta.  Here I was beginning to get out of my element and had enlist the help of Damian the head chef at Bar Boulud.  That day he had made allla chitarra pasta and skimmed off a few strands for me. He dusted them with flour and wrapped them lengthwise in wax paper for me to carry home. I didn’t want to make sauce for the pasta and I also didn’t want to cheese out and buy a jar of Ragu so I asked Damian to call his dealer, erm, supplier of white truffles to pay a visit. He made it over to Bar Boulud within the hour. All 3 of us of went into the office and he laid out his wares for us to examine.  I chose a gum ball sized one that stunk more than the others. “Good choice” he said. I gave him his $100 and he left speaking on his cellphone en route to the next appointment.

Next was securing a fish for the main course. I’ve always loved the way the chefs here would prepare a whole fish in a salt crust. It is the most beautiful presentation.  You whip a bunch of egg whites, fold in Kosher salt and cover the fish in this sand like concoction. It hardens up in the oven and creates a airtight shell which steams the fish perfectly. Then you take the fish out of the oven and present it to the table and crack the shell with a spoon.  The steam rises out and everyone smiles. This was my plan to do at home. I bought a beautiful 2 pound Dorade from Chef Damian. He also gave me some string to tie the fish, some sprigs of rosemary to stuff in its mouth and some written instructions to help with execution. I was ready.  

I finished service that evening around 10:30. I grabbed my fish, my pasta and wrapped the white truffle in a paper towel and put it in my pocket.  I grabbed the A train at Columbus Circle and made my way home.  On the train ride I was thinking of which wine I should choose to pair with everything.  Aged white Burgundy seemed to be the logical choice. I had just bought a few bottles of ‘89 Meursault Luchets, Roulot from my friend G. I have been a fan of the wines of Roulot since my first taste of white Burgundy 12 years ago. The wines are laser precise and clean with a stony quality that make them really a refreshing drink. As they age they get richer in texture and take on hazelnut/white truffle flavors.  It was all coming together.

I walked though the door, kissed my girlfriend, changed clothes and immediately started cooking. Within minutes my apartment looked like a condemned toxic waste spill. Pots, pans, plates, fish gills, flour, egg shells were everywhere. My girlfriend started to freak. “What the hell are you doing?? You’re making such a mess!!” I had to soothe her and tell her not to worry and promised that I’d clean it up when I was finished. She had no idea I was going to propose. She just thought—as usual—that I was crazy. Things seemed to be ready. I plated the Arugula salad and served it to Norma. Since our apartment size doesn’t allow us the luxury of a conventional dinner table we were saddled up at the coffee table and sitting Indian-style.  We smiled at one another as we munched on the salad and washed it down with the ‘89 Roulot. Delicious. I got up to clear the plates as my boiling water for the pasta was ready.  I dropped in the pasta and waited for a minute or so as Damian’s instructions told me.  It was ready.  I poured the pasta and boiling water into a colander and watched it drip dry. I then scooped them onto a plate and began shaving the mini white truffle extra see-thru thin. Their kinky aromas started to fill the whole apartment. I also added some fleur de sel for good measure. I grabbed the plates and did a sock slide on the hardwood floor to the coffee table to serve. I sat down and we smiled at each other.  We began eating this delectable pasta and took sips of the Meursault.  It was so delicious. We both let out groans of joy while we ate it.  There’s something primal about the flavors of white truffle that make them so appealing. The aged flavors of the Meursault mirrored the truffle flavor perfectly. 

“Ding!!” Was the sound that came from the timer telling me the fish was ready. It reminded me of the sound to announce the start of the final round of a boxing match. This was my final round as well.  The final round of the dinner and as well as my bachelorhood.  I was going to propose to Norma as soon as I served her the fish. I pulled it from the oven to let it sit and ran into the bedroom. I found my one of my cats and grabbed her collar and slid the ring over it and fastened it to her neck. My idea was to have one of our cats approach my girlfriend with the engagement ring around her neck. I wanted to catch her totally off guard and make it a huge surprise.  Of my two cats I decided to choose Lola, all she wants to do is eat and I figured as soon as she smelled the fish we were eating, she’d head for Norma like a heat seeking missile.  I closed the bedroom door with Lola in there.  She was locked and loaded. The fish was ready. I presented it to Norma and ceremoniously began cracking the golden and hardened egg white shell with the back of a table spoon. Steam rose up from the fractures and the fish appeared to be perfectly cooked.  I returned to the kitchen and filleted that sucker.  They looked beautiful.  I had a little white truffle left and shaved the remains over top of the fillets.  This was it. The bell was tolling. I gave Norma her plate and ran to the bedroom to open the door.  Lola darted out and ran to Norma guided by the powerful aroma of the Dorade. Norma started to laugh as Lola began having a conniption trying to get to her fish. The cat usually doesn’t wear a collar and Norma noticed immediately that she was wearing one but unfortunately she didn’t see the ring.  I had to think fast before Norma swatted her away and started to eat.  Ding! It came to me. “Check her collar, I think I put it on too tight” I said. With that, Norma held Lola and turned her to get to the fasten of her collar.  She saw the ring.  She looked directly at me and began to cry.  I went over and hugged her.  Then she started to laugh. Then we both started laughing.  Her answer was yes.  

As great as this wine was to drink the greater thing about it was the place that it took us. We were in Burgundy for the weekend of the Hospices de Beaune. There were auctions, dinners and grandiose tastings every second of the 3 days that we were there.  We attended most of the events and were on the go the entire time.  In between a lunch and a dinner we had a few hours to kill so we went back to our hotel lobby to pop this.  We found a nice comfortable couch positioned just in front of the crackling fireplace.  I asked the hotel manager for 2 glasses and a bottle of Badoit and we went to it.  I always love the ritual of opening a great bottle of wine.  There’s the exposition where we know about the great domaine of DRC, the great vineyard of Richebourg and the tremendous reputation of the ‘64 vintage.  The rising action of tension as we peel away the corroded foil of the bottle and insert the corkscrew into the time weathered cork. Suspense is held as we smell the cork and its released as we learn that it isn’t tainted with any bacterial flaws.  Then climax as the glasses are poured and the first sip is taken when we discover the wine is so incredibly delicious.

Wines like these seem to provoke conversation. Not necessarily about wine itself, but more of deeper things like life, marriage, etc.  It’s like jazz improvisation.  The wine is the background instrument driving the backbeat that allows the lead players to riff on conversation and follow where the groove takes them. Our wine groove took us to college football, marriage, family, Europe, death, accomplishments, failures and more. The wine flowed into our mouths and words flowed out. It was almost involuntary. We kept on this groove until the bottle emptied.  Then we got up to head back to our rooms to get ready for dinner.  Left better then when we began.          

The chance to taste this wine has always been a dream of mine. 1979 Krug Clos du Mesnil’s face is on the Mount Rushmore of wine.  The more I drink aged Champagne the more I realize its all I really want to drink.  We had this in Nantucket with my wife (then fiancee) and my good friend with his family. We were celebrating my upcoming marriage and life all together. We went to swank little restaurant on the island and popped this bottle with canapes and oysters. There were 6 of us at the table and my friend and I had caught the sommelier’s eye and motioned to him to go a little heavier in our glasses while the others weren’t paying attention. I am confessing this now. Hope you’re not pissed, guys. Anyway, this wine had a reputation preceding it. Some say its the greatest (and first) vintage of Clos du Mesnil ever produced. Some even say it’s the greatest Champagne ever made. I must say it wore its expectations well, like a precisely cut British suit. The greatness of the wine was immediately evident from the first sip. My wife’s eyes grew large as she tasted it.  She knew it too.  I bet if you handed a glass of this wine to man who lived among wolves his entire life and had never tasted wine before, let alone even know what wine is, he’d say, “Woof Woof” and lap the stuff up.  Great wines like this are universal.  You do not need classes nor curriculum to understand it.  It’s all there in the double helix of its DNA. Its intuitive. I remember as I tasted the wine it rose in my mouth like air. It was like a weightless nimbus cloud that simply levitated for minutes on end. Clean, precise and weightless. Magic.

We visited Domaine Raveneau this past January. It was our first stop of a week of domaine visits in Chablis and Burgundy. We arrived in Paris via JFK early Sunday morning.  We unloaded our bags at the hotel and then spent the afternoon kicking it around Paris.  We had dinner that evening at Le Comptoir in the 6th arrondissement where we ate very well and ordered a bottle of ‘08 Chablis Sechet from Dauvissat which was smoking good. Then discussion ensued.  Who is the best winemaker in Chablis? If you asked 100 wine geeks, most likely the consensus would be Raveneau as king and Dauvissat as crown prince. My two friends at the table felt this way but I didn’t agree. My experiences tasting Dauvissat were much more consistent than Raveneau.  I once had a bottle of ‘96 Preuses that was so good it had me doing jumping jacks.  I’ve had great bottles of Raveneau too but they always seemed difficult to interpret. Like they were made in an alien winemaking code and I wasn’t given the decoder ring. Most of the bottles of Raveneau I tasted were less than 10 years old and often had these aromas of horseradish and cabbage and I didn’t really understand them. That was to change after this visit.

We left Paris at 8am and got on the road to Chablis.  Our appointment was at 11am and we didn’t want to be late. I’ve made attempts to visit Raveneau before and was always refused.  Its a seriously tough ticket and an opportunity that I didn’t want to squander by being late. We eventually turned onto the Rue de Chichee at precisely 10:55am. Once we got inside we were met by Monsieur Raveneau who was so kind and gracious toward us.  We tasted though the lineup of 2010’s which were still in barrel and very charming from the get-go. We chatted with M. Raveneau throughout the barrel tasting about the Raveneau style, the difference between the Grand Crus of Valmur and Clos, etc.  This was all done in our broken French and line of communication seemed to be wide open. Then we went to different quadrant of the cellar and M. Raveneau asked if we’d like to taste some older vintages in bottle.  “Avec plaisir” we said, or in english, “Uh, yeah.”  We had reached the bonus round. M. Raveneau opened some great older bottles of wine for us.  All of them were poured blind.  We fared ok with our guesses and the interaction between us was warm and light hearted.  The three of us from time to time would look at one another and would mouth “wow”. How lucky we felt to be there. 

As we were finishing up and walking up the wooden steps of the cellar to the outside, C asked M. Raveneau if he’d like to join us for lunch. He told us maybe and that he’d have to call his wife first. He pulled out his red vodaphone and dialed her up.  We overheard him greeting his wife and asking her if it was cool if he came with us.  “Oui, oui, ok, oui, d’accord, je t’embrasse” he said and then hung up.  He smiled and let us know that it was ok and he could come.  He told us to go ahead to the restaurant and he’d meet us in 5 minutes because he wanted to pull a bottle to bring with him.  Jesus, what luck we had! We made it to the restaurant and sat down, M. Raveneau came by a few minutes later with a labeless crusty and dusty bottle.  It looked seriously old.  We were giddy as children.  He brought his own corkscrew and popped it himself.  Poured himself a taste and said “merde.” It was corked.  Damn.  It was too good to be true. This visit was just too perfect I thought to myself. The bottle had to be corked so the universe would re-align.  All good, we asked the waiter for the winelist and were just going to order something to go with lunch. Then M. Raveneau got up and said he was going back home to get another bottle. We were stunned.  I asked him as he was putting on his coat what the corked bottle was, “78 Les Clos” he said. Unbelievable.

He returned a few minutes later with another bottle of wine.  It also had that grey and crusty moldy look to it.  No label as well.  This time he told us what it was, “1978 Montee de Tonnerre.” I got choked up by this act of generosity. I felt so fortunate. He popped and poured it and it was brilliant.  It had this car exhaust type smoke that just screamed out of the glass. The palate was flinty and salty and absolutely delicious. It was the greatest Chablis I had ever tasted.  It also had some years still ahead of it.  Then I figured out the code.  Raveneau must be aged.  I repeat, Raveneau must be aged.  I’m talking, 15-30 years of age for good vintages. 

We finished up lunch and we’re walking M. Raveneau back to the domaine and chatting while we strolled.  I asked him his thoughts of Dauvissat and he said he loved the wines they made.  He also said that the Dauvissat and Raveneau family were cousins. That made perfect sense. 

No one had high expectations for this wine. It was a bottle among 6 others that were opened for a Champagne collector dinner at Bar Boulud.  Everyone seemed more excited to taste the ‘79 Krug Vintage that was also in the evenings line up.  With low expectations hanging in the air like cigarette smoke, I was given the bottle to open up first.  The idea was that this bottle would be dead, cooked or oxdized and “lets get it out of the way early” to move on to the others.  I took the bottle to my station and pulled out my corkscrew to start cutting the foil. Usually you could peel the foil with your hand but this was an ancient bottle of champagne. The foil was thick and dense like compressed asbestos. You could almost re-side a rancher house in Levittown with this stuff.  I finally cut through it and made it to the cork.  The thing was in there.  I tried twisting off with my bare hands but it wouldn’t budge.  I grabbed a serving napkin aka serviette aka liteau to give me better grip. I twisted and the top of the cork broke off. F*@#!! This always happens to me.  It broke off like a muffin top breaks from the base of the muffin.  The stem of the cork was still in the neck of the bottle and nothing had crumbled off or had fallen into the bottle itself, so no biggie really. I unwound the the coil of my corkscrew and screwed it into the remaining cork.  I was gentle not to go in too deep fearing it would push the cork into the bottle. I was in.  I gently pulled up and the cork gave. Then I heard it.  A beautiful and unexpected noise.  Like an angel sighing, the air inside of the bottle helped push the cork as I was pulling it out. *Pop*. Well, hey, um, ok, wow, really? It was not only alive but it was also vibrating. I couldn’t believe it.  I poured myself a little taste to confirm and there it was.  We were in business.  I returned to the table like a messenger giving good news from the battlefield. “We’ve taken the hill with no casualties, sirs. The troops are returning at once.”  Everyone at the table was shocked to hear that the bottle was not only alive but was also extraordinarily delicious. The posture of everyone at the table went from relaxed to ramrod straight. I poured each of them a taste.  A chorus of “HOLY SHIT” came from everyone’s mouth. We had caught lightning in a bottle.  

Tasting this wine was an experience that I will always remember. These wines really do not exist any longer.  Let alone in such perfect condition. There was a legendary wine auction that took place in 2004 with Christies that is still spoken about with reverence today, The Doris Duke Collection. Doris Duke was the daughter of James B. Duke who was a big time tobacco tycoon who established Duke University in North Carolina. Apparently, she spoke fluent French and took steamships to Europe on the regular.  She was known to have impeccable taste and had a wine cellar at her estate in Hillsborough, NJ that would make any sommelier weep. She had a knack for collecting the great wines of the era and in serious volume: 100 bottles of ‘21 Dom Perignon, 30 magnums of ‘29 La Mission Haut Brion, and nearly 5 solid cases of ‘29 DRC Vosne-Romanee Gaudichots, which was all sold at the auction in ‘04. It was said that her entire wine collection was stored in a retrofitted meat-locker with an airtight seal. This is what makes a great wine collection into a liquid El Dorado. Perfect storage can turn good wines into great wines and can turn great wines into religious experiences. The ‘29 Vosne-Romanee Gaudichots had magic inside of it. 

As it happened I was in Aspen in June for the Food & Wine Classic.  I was invited to help with wine service for the 30 plus wine events that take place over 4 days. We were there to pop the bottles, check if they were sound, decant if necessary and then serve to the guests. All done on a continuous schedule that had us starting at 8:00am and finishing at dinner time. Serious work indeed. Luckily we had a crack group of sommelier’s to do the task. On the third day of the festival, as I was decanting a magnum of ‘84 Silver Oak, I received a text from a sommelier friend who was in town, saying to meet at a specific address ASAP. It was an ominous message but I knew it’d be worthy of a trip. So I finished up at the event and rushed to grab a cab with a few of the sommeliers who were working with me.  We when finally made it to the address, which seemed like a lifetime, it was at a beautiful home of a very passionate wine collector. Truly a lovely guy.  I introduced myself and he invited me into the kitchen where I saw a bunch of familiar sommelier friends who were smiling and laughing and opening up bottles of wine.  I saw the bottle of ‘29 Gaudichots and my jaw dropped.  I had only heard about this wine, never have seen it before, let alone have the chance to taste it.  But as I got closer to the bottle I saw that it was empty, as was the decanter sitting next to it.  Damn, just missed it I thought.  Then right at that moment, RB came over and asked if I had a chance to taste the ‘29 and I told him no. He grabbed an empty glass and literally poured 3/4 of his glass into and said, “Enjoy.”  What a gesture! What a guy! What a wine! I grabbed the bottle and spun it around, there it was right on the back.  A circular sticker saying “The Doris Duke Collection.” El Dorado indeed.  

I opened this for my sommelier F’s last day before he moved back to Europe. He grew up around Condrieu and absolutely loved the wines from the Northern Rhone. We had a lot of fun working on the floor together. We’d blind taste each other wines during dinner service every night.  He was a prodigious blind taster. Seriously good.  He loved being a sommelier and it showed in his work.  On the floor he was like a young colt, bucking with excitement as he’d approach tables and discuss wine options with them. If the table chose something great you could immediately tell it on his face and he’d rush downstairs to grab the bottle and would start rapping Wu Tang in his thick French accent audibly. It was a sight to behold.

I worked with F. for about a year at Bar Boulud/Boulud Sud until he got the call up to work at Restaurant Daniel. I was bummed to see him go, but those as they say, are the brakes. He actually left on not-so good terms. We had a big falling out a few weeks earlier. As it happened I was away for the weekend and he was on the floor.  We had just received our allocation of Domaine Jamet, Cote Rotie that week.  I recieved allocations of 06’s & 07’s including the rare Cote Brune bottling. I thought at the moment the 06 was showing best so I immediately put it on the list. The other wines were too young and I wanted to wait at least a year before I considered offering them on my Northern Rhone page.  Anyway, as I was about to go to bed that evening, a good 200 miles from the restaurant, I started scrolling through my Facebook feed and there it was, a photo of an open bottle of ‘07 Jamet Cote Brune under F’s name with the comment “Ouah, Ooh la la, C’est si bon!!” or something like that.  He had sold it to one of the tables. I flipped. I only received 6 bottles of that rare wine (now 5) and it wasn’t even close to be ready to drink. Added in the fact that you NEVER sell anything as an assistant sommelier that isn’t on the list without asking.  I got back to the restaurant that Monday and F. was to come in at 3pm.  I told him to meet me in my office as soon as he arrived.  When he did I verbally lit him up like an Xmas tree. I was upset and I transferred my disappointment onto him like a 50lb bag of sand. Which in turn made him very unhappy.  Our last week together at BB/Bsud was one of not much interaction.  We worked side by side and were civil but the vibe between us wasn’t the same.  It was already in the works that he was to go to Daniel at the end of the week, and he did so.  We didn’t really say goodbye to each other. Over the following few months we didn’t see each other at all.  We never had the chance to patch things up.

A few months later word had got out that F. was having issues with his visa and would have to return to France in a few days.  Upon hearing this I immediately texted him and invited him to come by for bite at Boulud Sud. I wanted to patch things up and let him know he was my man. I wanted to treat him to dinner and open a great bottle of wine for him.  I wanted the bottle of wine to speak for me.  I wanted it to say, “Hey F. its cool, whatever happened is water under the bridge. It was great working with you and you are a phenomenal sommelier.  Your future is bright and I look forward to watching you attain your goals.” The bottle would have to be special to do this. I chose a bottle of ‘83 Chave Hermitage because I knew he loved the producer. When he arrived, we hugged and I pulled him a seat up at the bar.  I told him that I had a surprise for him.  I had opened the bottle 2 hours earlier to let it open up and at this point it was singing and ready to go.  I had decanted it to take it off of it’s sediment but also to make it easier to serve it to him without him seeing the bottle. It was a perfect bottle of ’83 Chave.  The wine was smokey & savory and popped from the glass in high fidelity. As I approached with the decanter, I told the GM and a few of my somms to “watch F’s reaction” as I poured him a glass and he took his first whiff. “OOOOOAHHHH” he let it out like an involuntary spasm. I knew it was coming and we all doubled over cracking up. The kid just loved Northern Rhone. He was so touched by the gesture.  The message I wanted the bottle to send had been received loudly and clearly. Things were now cool. As expected, he nailed the wine blind. Called it as Chave from mid-80s. Once he finished he got up to leave and we hugged eachother again.  I wished him all the best and we set plans to visit and taste in Southern Italy together next year.  

Had this at La Paulee in San Francisco this year.  Daniel Johnnes’ Burgundy lovers throwdown. It was held at the Westin in Union Square.  Lots of great sommeliers from all over the US beg, borrow and steal to get to this event.  At the event you work from 8am to 12am.  You unload cases of wine, pour wines, break down rooms, re-set rooms, eat pizza and do an intense 5 hour dinner service. And its all worth it as you get to taste some truly unforgettable Red & White Burgundies.  

The Paulee bounces back from NYC to SF every other year. As one would expect, the energy of the event changes with each city. NYC is crammed, fast paced and very intense.  SF is more spacious, more relaxed and easier. As an example, at my first La Paulee NYC in 2007, a gentleman at one of the tables handed me a bottle of ‘88 Chambolle-Musigny “Les Amoureuses” from Roumier to open for him. As I pulled the cork, the stench of wet cardboard came out of the bottle.  It was horribly corked. When I returned to him with the bad news he told me to bring the bottle out so he could taste it himself.  I brought it over to him, he tasted it and said, it was fine. “Decant it and pour it for everyone at the table”. I couldn’t believe my ears. This wine was disgustingly corked. “Are you sure?” I asked him. “Pour it” he said.  I held my nose and poured the wine. The first person to taste it nearly spit it out on the floor. “Why would you pour me a corked wine?!” he asked my incredulously. I apologized, cleared the glasses off of the table and used my napkin to wipe the egg off of my face.  All in a days work.

In SF this past year, I had a table that had a godawful string of corked/ bad bottles in a row. 

1985 Ramonet Montrachet: CORKED.

1985 G. Mugneret Ruchottes Chambertin: CORKED.

1990 Lafon Montrachet: OXIDIZED.

2001 Dujac Bonnes Mares: CORKED.

2001 d’Auvenay Bonnes Mares: CORKED.

With each bottle I approached the table with a bedside manner like Trapper John MD, “I’m sorry sir but she’s not gonna make it, she’s expired.” I felt so bad for them. I always asked them If they’d like me to give them a taste to confirm and they always said no and that they trusted my judgment. This made me even more invested in them having good bottles of wine.  I wanted them so badly to have a great bottle of wine.  A wine that made them all smile broadly and nod heads as they tasted it.  A wine that they could share with the table adjacent because its just that good and that’s what you do when you’re at La Paulee. The next bottle up was a 1985 Domaine Leflaive, Chevalier-Montrachet. I had my fingers crossed.  I popped it, poured myself a taste and there it was…bulls-eye! I’ve had the wine a few months earlier but it didn’t come close to tasting as good as this bottle did.  It’s as if the bottle gained strength from the bad bottles preceding it. I was jubilant. I grabbed the bottle and skipped my way to their table with an ear to ear smile.  It was written all over my face and they smiled back at me. We didn’t even have to speak.

Had a couple sips of this during a collector dinner held at Boulud Sud.  The theme was “1989” which was a great vintage throughout the wine universe. There was a serious line-up of great wines from great producers: Ramonet BBM, Chave red & white, Guigal LA LAs, DRC Echezeaux, etc, etc.  There were 3 courses of food to be paired with the 20 odd bottles that evening. Whites with salty fried things and fish. Red Burgs with chicken and finally Bordeaux/Rhone with a slab of Cote de Boeuf.  I remember two specific things happening at this dinner. The first is how when the waiter was serving the Cote de Boeuf to the table, he lost his footing and spilled beef jus entirely down the back of one of the collectors. It was wince-worthy. Immediately as it happened, 3 managers swooped in like birds of prey toting club soda with salt and dropping business cards telling him how we’d pick up the dry cleaning. Like a damage control A-team. The second was how this bottle of ‘89 Haut Brion flipped my lid.  THIS IS A LEGENDARY WINE. I never tasted this wine heretofore and had only heard about how great it was.  The hype is totally justified. It is delicious. Its powerful, its deep, its also elegant and beautifully aromatic. The tannins are creamy and not sand paper dry. It also has that great Bordeaux signature of tobacco ash that can’t be replicated anywhere else on planet earth.   

Had this at La Paulee de Meursault in Burgundy last month. The Holy Grail of wine BYOB’s. It takes place in the Chateau de Meursault in the middle of the village.  This year was the 80th anniversary.  It originally began as a big party after the harvest for all of the landowners, winemakers and vineyard workers in the village of Meursault. Everyone was to bring their best wine and share it with everyone at the table.  Today the event is pretty much the same except there are winemakers from outside Meursault in attendance as well as their guests.  That’s how I got in.  A friend had an extra ticket and invited me. At first I said no because the restaurant is in the middle of the busy season, but then realized this was a once in a lifetime type event and had to figure out a way.  I flew out Friday night directly from dinner service and flew back Tuesday morning straight to the restaurant.  White-knuckle style. When we arrived at the Chateau de Meursault we were handed a glass of Meursault and took a tour around the cellars at our own pace. We wandered around and then made our way to the dining room.  The room was fairly empty when we got there and it was HUGE.  It was filled with long white tables with tan elementary school type chairs.  Each table had a large white placard hanging from the rafters above it with the table name which was a vineyard in Meursault.  Ours was “Meursault Casse tetes.” Our table was right in front of the stage where there was a podium for speeches and a riser for about 15 Burgundian folk singers who’d burst into song at random intervals. As soon as I found my place I started to get really excited and had a lot of nervous energy.  My adrenaline was rushing.  I couldn’t believe I was here.  I had a feeling that reminded me of when I was kid.  When I’d go roller skating at the rink near my grandparents house. As soon as I’d enter the rink I’d get this rush so intense that I’d burn with fire to get on the platform to skate.  I’d run away from whomever I was with to get to the skate rental line as quick as possible and exchange my Converse high tops for worn pair of black leather rolling skates with orange wheels.  I had that same feeling there in Meursault at that moment.  Except it wasn’t roller skating that I was impatient to do, it was drinking Burgundy. Then the bottles started opening.  Fast and furiously they came.  Jeroboams of this.  50 year old bottles of that.  All of the great Burgundian winemakers were there. They’d pour wines for me at my table and then I’d find them at theirs and would return the gesture.  It was incredible. You’d start to feel the alcohol and then you’d hear 15 guys all dressed the same sing these goofy and fun wine drinking songs. It was surreal in the best possible way.  Lots of noise and laughter filled the room. Then my man M sitting across from me opened this nearly 6o year old bottle of Grand Cru White Burgundy. I dove in. The color was brown-orange like turning leaves and it tasted like Cafe Au Lait. Smoky, creamy, chocolate, nougat, meaty beef broth.  It was alive and kicking with a seam of acid that lifted up the entire package. It was thickly rich and long. I was making guttural noises as I tasted it. M was smiling and half-laughing at me.  I was in my element and deriving real joy from this bottle of wine. Like I was back at that rollerskating rink. 

2007 Moric, Blaufrankisch Average Retail Price $ 29 

Drank this on a pontoon boat floating on Lake Neusiedlersee. The water was steel blue. Storks were flying overhead and nesting on top of the bungalows along the coastline. A very well made wine, done more in the Burgundian style than the traditional Austrian. Pinot Noir doppelganger.

2010 Crivelli,Ruche di Castagnole Monferrato  Average Retail Price $24

Heard about this from Mr. Levi Dalton.  Smells like rose petals and coriander. Tastes elegant and fresh tricking you that its actually 14.5% alcohol.  I love the label as much as the wine that’s inside of it. I start daydreaming when I look at it.                                       

2009 Domaine Chamonard Morgon “Le Clos De Lys”  Average Retail Price $24

Put on my radar by my sommelier Eduardo Porto Carreiro who joined me by way of LA a few months ago.  Chamonard is more known on the west coast than over here on the east. He sang high praises of the stuff so I reached out to my wine rep for a sample.  Loved it at first sip and bought the remainder of her stock. Really soft and velvety style of Cru Beaujolias.  The low addition of sulfur helps for immediate pleasure sensations.                                                                                          

2010 Holloran Pinot Noir, Oregon  Average Retail Price $24

WOW.  This is great domestic Pinot Noir at a very reasonable price.  Refined, aromatic and not too much alcohol. When I taste wines this good I try to buy as much as I can to pour them by the glass at the restaurant. I had this BTG on the list for a good 6 months this year. Guests loved it, staff loved it. 

2010 Domaine Faury, Saint Joseph Average Retail Price $29

My name is Michael and I am a Northern Rhone junkie. This scratches the itch for relative chicken feed. Served it at my rehearsal dinner.  ‘Nuff said.

2010 Pietracupa, Fiano di Avellino Average Retail Price $ 27 

Phenomenal wine that came on my radar thanks to Levi Dalton.  Real character here. No oak. Thick textured with a cumin-like spice on the finish. Easily one of the greatest Italian whites I’ve ever tasted.  Gets better with age, too.             

2011 Gaia Estate, Santorini “Assyrtiko” Wild Ferment   Average Retail Price $ 24 

Greece’s answer to Puligny-Montrachet.  Mineral and saline with just enough fat. Wild yeasts and barrel elevage. This wine is a perfect example of how Santorini can hang with the great wines of the world.                                                                          

NV Domaine Tissot, Cremant du Jura Average Retail Price $ 24 

Favorite sparkler outside of Champagne.  Served it at my wedding.  ‘Nuff said.                                                                                                                                       

2010 Domaine Mardon, Quincy “Tres Vieilles Vignes” Average Retail Price $ 18

Jesus this is good.  Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc done right.  Flinty, citrusy and peppery.  Tastes like a cool breeze.  A fraction of the price of Sancerre and better than a lot of them.                                                                                                                                                                                              

2009 Domaine Hugel Riesling Average Retail Price $ 19 

Undervalued like Bluestar Airlines. Delivers all of the things one loves about bone dry Alsatian Riesling. Granny smith apple and stone flavors for days. People sleep on Hugel.  My bet is the label.  Looks old and dusty.  Also, it resembles the “Gentil” label exactly, which is their $8.99 bargain basement wine that you can find in every bodega from here to El Segundo. Time for a label regime change. 

That’s me with Jean-Pierre de Smet and Olivier Leriche. I worked with them at the Domaine de l’Arlot in Nuits St Georges from 2002 to 2004.    I had ran into them unexpectedly on a visit to DRC last January.  It was a beautiful surprise. Jean-Pierre is on the left.  Charming and smooth talking alpha male.  We had a lot of great wine together.  Had my first Musigny and Vin Jaune with him.  Olivier is on the right.  Smart and sweet guy.  He just left Burgundy and bought a domaine in the Ardeche.  Domaine des Accoles.  We always had fun working in the vineyards together.  I’d always screw up and make some sort of mistake and he would tell me that I should own my own domaine and call it Domaine de Maladroit.

Had this at Commerce with a good friend of mine.  It took me nearly 30 minutes to find the place.  It’s in the West Village but sits on a quiet, sleepy cul de sac on the west side of 7th Avenue.  Ill remember next time that it’s on the same block as the Cherry Street Theatre. I had heard about the place from the guy who owns Evening Land Vineyards.  Said he goes there all the time and that the roast chicken was the bomb. Sounded good to me as we needed a simple, somewhat neutral dish to play a background foil to the genius ‘71 Ponsot.  The bottle looked great but the fill was a little low, at the bottom of the neck in fact.  Not a good sign but not necessarily a deal breaker. I opened the bottle myself at the table.  Poured my friend a taste and then one for me.  We smelled at the same time and in stereo yelped “WOAH.” I started moving back in forth in my seat and did a little dance. That nose told us everything. It hit you in the heart like a lawn dart. Bulls-eye. The nose tells you everything.  You can tell if a wine is great, dead or fake just from smelling it.  That’s all I wanted to do.  Smell that sucker.  Incredibly dark and dank black cherry nose.  Deep, dark and dank. And then it hit me…MULCH.  It smelled like the summer of 1997.  I was landscaping that entire summer between my Sophomore and Junior year in college. I hated it. The first day the owner threw a sputtering weed wacker at me for not listening to him.  I bet he never tasted ‘71 CDR Ponsot. Like the ‘71 DRC Richebourg, food ceased to matter when this was in front of me. The roast chicken became cold but I didn’t care.  I just kept smelling the sweet mulch aromas in the wine and kept accessing the landscaping vignettes in my head.  Wines like these keep you from being a good dinner guest. They put you inside of yourself.  Unable to perform small talk or help wash dishes. I’ve never deep sea scuba dived or sailed on a boat by myself but I bet the feeling is similar.  We finally finished the bottle and picked up our conversation where it left off before we had the first sip.  Back to reality.  Back to rent payments, 401K, cat food, toothpaste, shoe shines and corkscrews.  Thank God for corkscrews.

Had this with Big G & the boys in Nantucket. Magnum sized.  Tip top condition with the London importer label which is usually a good sign.  There’s something holy that happens when you open great bottles of wine.  Everyone becomes quiet and speaks in hushed voices.  The bottles seem to have a magnetic force that pulls you to it to flank the one who’s doing the opening. You slowly watch as he cuts the foil, pulls out the Ah-So cork-puller and the Pulltab waiters corkscrew just in case.  The cork comes out and you hold your breath. Please don’t be corked, cooked, dead, maderized, oxidized, re-fermenting or counterfeit you say to yourself.  Then the moment happens.  You learn it isn’t any of those things, it’s actually a incredible bottle of liquid that’s beat the odds and here it is on the dinner table for us to celebrate. Rejoice.

This was the centerpiece to a dinner we had in October.  The anticipation of tasting it was great. We had fantastic bottles preceding it but they didn’t really register. The mag of ‘71 Richebourg was the main event. The food was served and the glasses were poured.  I smelled, then smiled, then became silent.  We all became silent.  The clock stopped. It was like we were all underwater. Unable to communicate, just miming words. Each of us in our own place.  No one touched the food for a good 10 minutes. Perfect bottle of wine. Layers and layers of flavor.  Sweet black fruit. Soy sauce. Autumn leaves. All spice. A truly amazing bottle of Red Burgundy that survived 40 years and had this effect on 5 grown men. How holy can you get? 

This was a bottle left over from a private dinner at the restaurant. About 25 bottles were opened altogether. There was 1/3 of this left.  I snatched it as everyone had left and grabbed my manager meal and burrowed into my office.  It was a long, physical service and sitting down with a glass of Champagne was what I needed. I usually don’t want to drink wine after service. I taste wine all night, analyzing every bottle that gets served to guests. Checking to be sure that the wines are sound, free of flaws etc. Beer is usually the beverage of choice when I sit down as it helps shut down the analytical side of my brain.  However there was no way I could refuse a glass of the legendary ‘82 Salon. This bottle turned out to be incredibly fresh.  There’s word among collectors that aged bottles of Salon have a tendency to oxidize prematurely. And ‘82 is said to be one of the worst offenders.  Not so with this bottle.  The lemon and Granny Smith apple flavors in its youth had transformed to caramel and shortbread cookie.  There was also a streak of salinity that washed over like high tide. I kept looking at the bottle as I was drinking it and said to my self “holy sh**, this is INCREDIBLE.” It had instantly changed my mood.  It was nearly 11:30 pm and well past quitting time yet I decided I wasn’t going to leave my broom-closet sized office until the bottle was emptied. The experience was similar to when you’re listening to music in your car, and you’ve already arrived home. You’re in your driveway but its impossible to move because the music sounds so perfect and the moment demands you stay until the end.  I poured another glass and was feeling the spirit take hold. I started playing some music. I loosened my tie and smiled.  I kept sighing. In that moment anything felt possible. Wines like ‘82 Salon can make a poet/ motivational speaker out of anyone. I took my last sip and saw that it was 1:00am.  Everyone had left and the hallway was pitch dark.  I used my Iphone to light my way to the kitchen. Walking through on my way to the exit I saw the dishwasher eating french fries and the night porter wearing a dust mask while cleaning the ovens. “Bonne Nuit/ Adios” I shouted to them with the taste of ‘82 Salon still on my tongue.  

This wine made me emotional. I put my nose in it and it immediately grabbed me by the collar and said “wake up wine nerd!”  I woke up. It’s incredible that great wine can do that. I kept letting out groans as I was assessing it and making a spectacle of myself. I couldn’t help it. It was so perfect.  So feminine and masculine at the same time. Soft, supple, sweet black fruit and a meaty beef broth flavor that worked together beautifully. Life becomes heightened with wines like these.    

Greg opened this to celebrate his birthday in Beaune. That evening it ended up being all of our birthdays.  He said he had a special bottle he wanted to open up and when he showed it to us our mouths dropped. I almost teared up at his generosity.  I felt so fortunate.  I thought of my parents for some reason.   It was about 6 of us at the table.  A few NYC somms. A few Burgundian winemakers and Greg. The restaurant sommeliers’ eyes looked like flying saucers as he saw the bottle and rushed to the table to open it up.  We saw the way he handled the last few bottles and politely told him we’d prefer to open it ourselves.  He demurred and begrudgingly brought us over a candle and wicker cradle. We all stood up and watched  DJ do the honors as if he was performing heart surgery.  Cork came out perfectly.  He poured a small amount into a glass and smelled it….he smiled, grabbed his heart and faked like he was fainting.  It was legit. We didn’t want to move the bottle too much so we all crowded around it to get our individual glass. I got mine and sat down and just sniffed for 5 minutes before I took a sip.  Jayer’s wines are mythical.  So rich and plush but pure. So easy to love. The ‘90 was pushing the limits of ripeness but never did it feel heavy. It still retained a balance and elegance that few other winemakers could pull off. I find a common thread between the Red Burgundies of Henri Jayer and the White Burgundies of JF Coche. Both of their styles are very upfront and easy to appreciate. I’m convinced that if you handed someone who has never tasted wine before a glass of Jayer or Coche they would “get it” and say its delicious. They satisfy a primal taste.  But they are more than that.  They are also incredibly intricate with pitch-perfect precision. Yin & Yang.

Had this at DJ’s crib for a Memorial Day picnic.  All the wine nerds were there:  LD, EA,RV,DH, etc.  We were popping bottles of Burgundy like it was it was our jobs (it is!).  Nice weather and incredible food. There was even a bluegrass band there plucking away and singing some Grapes of Wrath type music. It was a perfect way to kick off the summer.  We opened some great wines. Some lived up to their reputations, others did not.   Some wines were corked.  Some were flat.  Some were dead. Some were so good that the crowd became silent. The ’97 Chave Hermitage Rouge had that effect on me. It’s not considered a great year in the Chave canon but it was GREAT at that picnic. Not too young.  Tannins were soft and sweet.  No scraping dryness.  Adolescent aromas were starting to bloom. Just right.

PS: Can anyone identify the gent with the cheshire cat smile behind the bottle?

This was a stunner.  Popped and poured at B’s Annual Birthday Bash.  All things being equal, if I had to choose one type of wine to drink everyday for the rest of my life, it would have to be Champagne.  Aged Champagne that is.  The transformation of Champagne from a hard-edged Granny Smith Apple tasting sparkler to a lush, nougat and creme brulee flavored elixir is nothing short of alchemy.  The Clos des Goisses is one of the most blessed pieces of land in all of the Champagne region and is a blend dominated by Pinot Noir.  The richness of the Pinot Noir came through in the caramel candy and cashew nut flavors of the ‘79. The bottle disappeared like vapor.  

I’ve always hated Gewurztraminer.  Too heavy.  Too sweet.  Too alcoholic. Until I visited Alsace where I tasted the Gewurztraminers from the limestone based Grand Cru vineyards of Furstentum and Altenbourg.  That’s where it all made sense. Limestone soils in Alsace bring a saltiness to the wines. Adding a savory element to an otherwise cloying experience.  Whether the wines were dry or full blast dessert style, the saltiness of the limestone brought a refinement and grace to the otherwise flabby Gewurz.  I was pretty happy with myself once I figured this out. It usually happens that way.  You taste, taste, taste and taste but can’t really grasp the personality of a certain wine until you visit the vineyard. After visiting Furstentum and Altenbourg I thought I had Gewurztraminer on lock. And then I visited the Rangen….

…the highest altitude vineyard in Alsace. The soils are generally sand and volcanic material. In fact, Rangen is the only vineyard with volcanic soil in all of Alsace. There the expression of Gewurztraminer was a totally different animal than the ones from Fustentum, etc.  They were large and thick with a common characteristic of smokiness that I imagine is due to volcanic residue in the soil. Honestly, I really wasn’t wowed by the Rangen Gewurztraminers as much as the ones from Furstentum, etc until I had the 2008.  The 2008 Zind-Humbrecht Grand Cru Rangen Gewurztraminer is easily the greatest Gewurz Ive ever had in my entire life. Its got fruit so perfectly ripe and precise you’d think Adam and Eve harvested it themselves. Its got 64 grams of residual sugar with a balancing 6.1 grams of acid that make the wine taste dry.  It also has 12% alcohol. In essence, its Gewurztraminer with plump fruit, zinging acid and the same amount of alcohol as Muscadet. It’s unbelievable.

This wine was a revelation. It wasn’t the most delicious wine Ive ever had in my life, but it was definitely the oldest. Story goes that the Sperino’s—who are famous for Isole e Olena winery in Tuscany—wanted to return to the abandoned winery of their ancestors in Northern Piedmont. It was there they found scores of vintages dating back to the mid 19th century.  The oldest was the 1861 and Luca Sperino in all of his generousity brought a bottle of it along with the 1904 (pictured right) to Bar Boulud last June.  The wine was amazingly alive and quite fresh. According to Luca, the only reason they were still alive was that they were stored upright and the thick mold in the cellar over time covered the bottles and created an airtight shell not allowing any light nor air to get through. Luca said that if they were stored on their side for 150 years the cork would have eventually disintegrated. What was really incredible was that the wine, originally red turned clear…..

..all of the anthocyanins dropped out of the wine, leaving a petrified crust stuck inside the bottle. I have never in my experienced a wine like this.  It smelled like shoe leather and rain water and tasted like a Sercial Madeira with extra salt. I couldn’t stop thinking of Abraham Lincoln when I was tasting it.  1861 was the year he was inaugurated. I was imagining it possible that he tasted this wine too.  Maybe the Sperinos shipped him over a few cases to congratulate him on his election.  

I opened this as the clock struck midnight on December 31, 2010. My first sip of wine of the new year.  As Jay Z’s “New York” was blasting over Bar Boulud’s Bose speakers and guests locked lips and wished each other well, I had grabbed my assistant sommelier, Josiah Baldivino to come with me behind the bar to toast each other and the future. We had a long year together.  A tour of duty. He was to go back to San Francisco with his newly minted fiance and I wanted to pop something great from my personal cellar to show appreciation, wish him well and welcome in 2011. JF Coche is the Michael Jordan of White Burgundy.  He is without peer. His wines are expensive but by no means are they the most expensive white wines of Burgundy. Every time you open a Coche-Dury among other great wines of Burgundy, the Coche always blows everything else off the table.  Many consider Corton-Charlemagne his best wine (its easily his most expensive) but I think his Perrieres wears the crown.  This bottle was incredible. Just the perfect balance of opulence and stoniness. So thick and round but precise and fleet-footed. You think to yourself, how can this wine have both extremes of richness and precision at the same time yet flow so smoothly?  That’s the genius of Coche.

Just opened a Tumblr account to talk more about wine in a forum with more than 140 characters at my disposal.  I thought it’d be fun to begin with a list of my 10 best wines of 2011.  Ill announce them in ascending order one at a time beginning tomorrow.  Should be fun.  Stay tuned….. Michael Madrigale