What a great 4th of July this year. For over 20 years, I spent it with Burt Williams at his Santa Barbara home drinking fabulous wines, mostly ones he made with him, family members and a few friends. It was one of the highlights of each year. This ended when advanced symptoms of Parkinsons prevented him from traveling and eventually took him out last December.
This year, his daughter Margi, Brogan Cellars, came to SB with here 2 sons, stayed in a beachfront hotel, brought great wines from Williams Selyem and her own label, Brogan Cellars, and we joined for a wondrous afternoon of cheers, extended family and great wines while taking in a stellar bluebird day in front of the ocean {see previous review}.
Later on, we joined good friends for a special evening of good food, wine and fellowship. As if we had not already consumed enough wine, we were greeted with a Dom Perignon and then 2 Grand Cru red Burgs poured blind and life is good and our 4th just got better.
2006 DOM PERIGNON BRUT- Ive loved this release since the beginning and it just keeps on getting better; my notes from the past are consistent with what I got again on this night; for me, this vintage is mindful of the 1996 and its been drinking so good out of the gate with assurances of grandioseness upon maturity; as experienced before; the nose was majorly inviting with promises of pure pleasure forthcoming; it had bright acidity, a bounty of ripe citrus notes with lemon-lime most prevalent along with toasty brioche, it had a full on body, was zesty on the palate and had a long, sustained aftertaste; as I’ve commented before, it`s a wowzer.
We had 2 red wines blind:
2003 GERARD RAPHET CLOS VOUGEOT MOREY ST. DENIS GRAND CRU - our challenge here was to ID which vineyard of the 2 announced sources; of course, I picked them wrong as I expected the Clos de Beze to be a bigger, more full bodied wine; the Clos Vougeot was likened to the 95` Williams Selyem Summa I’d had earlier in the day with cinnamon red color, and cinnamon and spice laden red fruit in the nose which on the nose turned out to be red raspberry and strawberry; it was delicious, had a medium body and weight and finished with a nice subtle touch of the same red fruit notes; this is my preferred style of Pinot Noir, old or new world.
2003 GERARD RAPHET CHAMBERTIN CLOS de BEZ MOREY ST. DENIS GRAND CRU- this was the antithesis of the Clos Vougeot being much bigger, more complex and full bodied and having a dark fruit profile which included black cherry, blackberry and plum; coming from the same producer and vintage, it was quite surprising to find such a difference and I’d say this bottle has years to go before it’s really ready to give-up its full on treasures.
What a day! Great people, great food and wines on a special, celebrative national holiday made for a grand experience.
Cheers,
Blake