A LEAP INTO UNCHARTED WATERS THAT TURNS OUT TO BE QUITE THE STROKE OF LUCK
I frequently receive messages from wine enthusiasts talking about their collections. I am contacted by a collector of vintage glass bottles. He has recently made a trip to a chateau in Brittany to collect a massive amount of very old empty glass bottles, some of them dating back to the 17th century. He has been quite surprised to discover a certain number of full bottles, mostly from the 19th century, but also with a couple from the 18th century. Among this batch, there are some very old spirits, and in particular some muscats by Joseph Nadal located in Port-Vendres. He estimates them to be from the second half of the 19th century. He tells me that he plans to open one of them during a dinner, in the company of Joseph Nadal’s descendants. He also plans to gather together a group of friends, a winemaker, and yours truly.
After hearing him talk about wines from Alicante, Tenerife, Marsala, Samos, cider spirits and other rarities, and even though I do not know anyone among the future guests at this dinner, not even the host himself, I decide to go to Tours for a leap into uncharted waters.
Emmanuel lives in a pretty 18th-century house in the centre of Tours. All the rooms that I visit harbour beautiful bottles, made of deep-coloured glass and with beautiful shapes. When it comes to old glassware, Emmanuel knows what he is talking about. We naturally head for his cellar, where we can see more of those splendid empty bottles, but it is a series of magnificent vintage bottles that catches my eye. 1882, 1846, 1837 and many other vintages are on display. The indications have been handwritten on small old school labels. We discuss quantity and prices, we examine the wines in the light, and we make a deal. I select ten bottles, all different from one another, among the batch.
The other guests arrive. Paul Nadal and his son Lionel are coming to taste their ancestor’s muscat; Michel is a collector of exceptional wines, who started buying directly at the domaines in 1953 and today owns yearly bottle allowances that would make most wine enthusiasts — myself included — green with envy.
We head for the restaurant Olivier Arlot La Chancelière in Montbazon for dinner. Olivier is not there, but his predecessor is still there; he was the head manager before the restaurant was taken over, and he will execute a beautiful menu, with some dishes worthy of a two Michelin-star restaurant. There are nine of us: Emmanuel and one of his friends; Michel the collector; Philippe Foreau, the winemaker from the Clos Naudin, along with his son and a friend; the two Nadals; and myself. All the wine providers discreetly show their bottles to David the sommelier, so that he can determine when the wines should be served and when they ought to be opened. For tonight, we will taste blind, since Emmanuel and his friends like this tasting exercise. I open one of my wines in front of everyone, because I proudly want to show them my uncorking method for vintage wines. Emmanuel tells me: “Since you are so proud of your technique, if you manage to uncork the Nadal muscat without breaking the cork, I’ll give you one of the bottles, for I’ve never managed to open them without blowing the cork to smithereens.” Challenge accepted! Motivated like never before, I seriously apply myself to opening the bottle and manage to get the cork out, completely intact. The following day, Emmanuel will keep his word.
The menu, imagined by Olivier Arlot, Philippe Foreau and Emmanuel is composed of : Appetisers, Salt and Pepper Foie Gras / Oyster from Cancale, Four Ways : In a Ravioli with a Champagne Broth; Fried with Crab Meat and Yuzu; In Its Shell with Shallot and Horseradish Cream; With a Granité of its Water, and Lemon Caviar / House-prepared Miso Soup, Foie Gras and Pigeon / Scallop, Jerusalem Artichoke, Alba White Truffle / Pike Perch Cooked in Butter, Sauce Diable / Saddle of Hare, Roasted Salsifies, Piémont Béarnaise Sauce, Jugged Hare Jus / Fresh Goat’s Cheese with Pears and Mead Vinegar / Macaroon, Chestnut Cream, Clementine / Half-baked Chocolate Cake, Tonka Bean, Cocoa Sorbet, Bergamot.
We start with the 1870 (or thereabouts) Muscat Vieux Joseph Nadal in Port-Vendres, paired with the foie gras. I want to pair it with one of my two wines, a bottle that Emmanuel estimates from around 1880, shaped like an old beer bottle. David the sommelier asks me to taste the wine and it immediately strikes me that it would be quashed by the perfection of the muscat. I therefore ask for my wine to be served later, and the muscat will be served alone. The inside of the bottle is covered by a thick dark coating. In the glass, the color of the muscat is wonderful, similar to a sun-ripe apricot. The nose is on par. In the mouth, it tastes of orange, menthol, alcohol. It is a strong and thick fortified wine, evoking fruit gums. It has a very fresh finish. It is a truly great wine, and both Nadals are deeply moved. According to them, it is made of muscat of Alexandria, dating back to a period between 1850 and 1880. It pairs superbly with the foie gras.
The wines are tasted blind. The first white wine is quite beautiful, mineral, nicely balanced and with great length. It is a 2001 Chablis 1er Cru Séchet Dauvissat, with a superb and very straightforward nose, already quite mature. The second wine has a less pleasant nose, but it has a lot of depth and fat in the mouth. It tastes of honey. It is a 1995 Chablis Grand Cru les Preuses Dauvissat, and it is shorter than the Séchet. The Preuses pairs very well with the horseradish oyster, which would not necessarily have been expected.
The Miso soup is an absolute wonder, and the third wine has a nose which is a certified copy of the fragrance of the soup. It is a tasty, smoky, heartwarming wine. It is a 1995 Vouvray demi-sec Foreau Clos Naudin. I would have thought it a lot older than that. It is a very beautiful wine.
The fourth white wine smells of truffle, because the dish includes white truffle. The fifth is a lot stricter but creates a divine pairing with the scallop dish. The fourth is tasty, the fifth is more taut, a bit tighter. The fourth is a 1996 Pouilly Fuissé Tête de Cru Mme Ferret. It shows great aromatic complexity, with a hint of flintstone influenced by the white truffle. The fifth is a 1996 Vouvray sec Foreau Clos Naudin. It shows real depth, purity and precision. The Vouvray has a more « sea-based » expression, with a superb finish.
The nose of the sixth wine is camphorated while the nose of the seventh reminds Emmanuel of church tapers and the wax of church benches. Philippe Foreau’s friend is the best at identifying the wines. He recognises the sixth wine as a 2002 Riesling Clos Saint Hune Trimbach. But I have to admit that blind tastings will always leave me puzzled, when you can have someone announce, for example, that the seventh wine is a Riesling when it turns out to be a wonderful 2003 Château Grillet – a superb, brilliant, smoky, lengthy wine. I simply exclaim: “what a great wine!” and refrain from hazarding a guess as regards the grape variety that I am not able to recognise. The Saint Hune is powerful and quite short in the mouth. The Grillet is pure bliss when paired with the perfectly cooked pike perch, but the sauce diable is not the wines’ best friend.
For the saddle of hare, whose meat is tender but not gamy enough to my liking, there is a selection of four wines, and as soon as I smell them, I know they are going to come out strong. The first has a nose to die for, and I am the first to announce the domaine de la Romanée Conti. I am quite proud of myself, for until now, I have been relatively discreet when guessing the identity of the whites. The depth of the nose is just divine. In the mouth, it is less triumphant, more restrained, but with very precise flavours: there is woodfire smoke, truffle, and the archetypal rose and salt. It is the epitome of the domaine, with a very strict, very tight dimension, and an infinite length. It is a truly great bottle. It is a 1971 La Tâche Domaine de la Romanée Conti.
The second wine is powerful, rich, tightly textured. I suggest a 1964 Palmer, because of Palmer’s audacious character in that vintage, but Michel, who contributed the La Tâche, stops me right there and says: “This is a 1971 Pétrus.” Emmanuel jumps as if he had won the lottery. This is his first Pétrus, and he loves it. And then, here comes one of those moments I truly love. The label of the Pétrus bottle has been gnawed away by humidity, and there is no way to tell what vintage it is. The sommelier brings the cork, and says in a very diplomatic way: “I am sorry, this is not 1971 but 1969.” This in turn makes me jump in my own seat, for such power is not compatible with the 1969 vintage. Emmanuel grabs the cork, shows it to me, and it becomes clear that it is a 1959 Pétrus. It is a great wine, and I made a mistake about the bank, but this wine is not a typical example of what the right bank produces for Bordeaux. Its power, its truffle flavour put it in a class of its own. This is not the most powerful of all the 1959 Pétrus that I have recently tasted, bottles and magnums combined. The nose of the wine is intense, and it pairs best with the jus of the jugged hare.
We are so captivated that we almost forget how subtle the next wine is: it is a 1985 Pommard Rugiens Domaine de Montille which is probably ever-so-slightly corked. The fourth wine is quite strange, fizzy, and almost too green. It is a 2004 Vosne Romanée aux Brûlées domaine Méo Camuzet, but it is much too young in this tasting flight.
The 1921 Château d’Arche Pugneau Sauternes that I brought with me has a perfect level and a really pretty golden amber colour, which is darker than the colour of the muscat but of the same gold. I very much like its nose and the smell of citrus, even if the wine is a bit short in the mouth. Its botrytis is present even if the wine is slightly dry. Of course, because we are today on the lands where the Vouvray reigns supreme, the locals are happy to criticise the Sauternes. It is accompanied by a younger Sauternes, which smells of turpentine and is not as complex as the 1921: it is a 1988 Château Suduiraut that would deserve to be cellared for longer.
I am the worst ambassador for my vintage bottle, whose almost black glass prevents us from admiring the colour of the liquid inside. This bottle comes from the same motley batch of 19th-century bottles that I purchased and out of which I had selected a bottle when I showed up to taste a 1690 bottle in Rennes. It was a delicious Madeira wine. Tonight, the bottle I have selected turns out to be faded, dull, and unexpressive. I confess my disappointment to tonight’s guests, and I am contradicted by our expert guesser of the night. This wine is a sherry. Since I was expecting a Madeira wine, I was quite wide of the mark. Now that I know it is a sherry, my judgment is completely different about what I will tentatively call a 1870 Sherry. The expert friend tells me: “Make no mistake: this is an excellent wine.” But I don’t get as much pleasure from it as I should have, for my first erroneous analysis still has some effect on me.
If I were to rank tonight’s wines, I would say : 1 – 1971 La Tâche Domaine de la Romanée Conti, 2 – 2003 Château Grillet, 3 – 1959 Pétrus, 4 – 1995 Vouvray demi-sec Foreau Clos Naudin.
For two of tonight’s dishes – the Miso soup and the scallops — the execution deserves hands down two Michelin stars. The service is attentive and considerate, making this restaurant worthy of a visit. The generosity of Michel the collector and of Philippe the winemaker, the warm atmosphere created by and around Emmanuel, all turn this evening into a memorable moment. In the end, this leap into the unknown is much more rewarding that I was expecting.
The next day, as I stop by at Emmanuel’s to collect the bottles I had purchased, I discover that he has added the payment for his bet, which is another Nadal’s bottle, along with two full or almost-full bottles of 18th century wines.
Fortune favours the brave!
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