What are your wines of the 2010s?

WINE TALK
21

Still red 1863 Wiese & Krohn Colheita Port
Still white 1862 Borges Terrentez Madeira
Bubbly 1959 Dom Perignon

22

Wait a minute, Fu. Do you consider the year 2010 to be in the 2010s? [wink.gif]

Red: 1969 Leroy Chapelle Chambertin. Animale and sous bois in a lascivious package at multi course tasting at Melisse

White: 2004 Raveneau Clos four summers ago with perfect small Maritimes oysters on an outdoor patio with good friends

Sparkling: N.V. Jacques Selosse Champagne Grand Cru Lieux-dits Extra Brut Ambonnay Le Bout du Clos. Briny, nutty and psychedelic

23

Red: Gruaud Larose 1961. Many contenders but this magnum, shared with my parents last year, comes top. An ethereal wine.
White: Macle, Chateau-Chalon 1989. Finished my last bottle:-( I still dream about it (quite literally)!
Sparkling: Veuve Grenier (Henekey’s) NV Champagne (1940s base). Bottled for a London merchant long since closed down, this was off the charts. A country mile ahead of the likes of Krug '73/'90 etc.

24

1986 Château Cos d’Estournel - Birthday wine and incredible combination of right wine → right food → right people.

25

  1. 1970 Magdelaine. I had this magical birth-year wine five or six times in the 2010-19 span, the most recent a spectacular second bottle at the Magdelaine vertical that Tom Reddick posted on last year. But the most memorable bottles were at my 40th birthday dinner at Apiary in April 2010 and at my friend Sasha’s 50th birthday extravaganza in August 2014. The former had no trouble going head-to-head with excellent bottles of 1970 Mouton, Montrose, and Palmer, as well as 1959 Leoville Poyferre in magnum. The latter was part of another horizontal of perfectly preserved 1970s, and I found myself elated to have a glass of ‘70 Magdelaine in my left hand and ‘70 Figeac in my right, both en fuego.

  2. (I will play by Charlie’s rules here although I think dry and sweet wines need their own category.) This is a very tough choice because I would love to put 2 wines here, both Huet, Le Mont, and Moelleux. But I will pick one. 1989 Huet Vouvray Le Mont Debut Pressee. From the 1989 Huet tasting in NYC Sept. 2019. This is an insanely good wine, the complete package. Purity, intensity, complexity, freshness, deep classic quince-lemon fruit and baking spices and pastry at the same time. Crazy length. Supple acidity. Waves of flavor. Long and palate staining. Even someone who doesn’t like dessert wine just can’t not love this.

  3. 1996 Salon. A perfect bottle at the 1996 horizontal we held in August 2016 in NYC. That bottle of Salon just went to another level compared to anything else although I had so many memorable and compelling Champagnes, young and old, over the decade, with special mention to a beautiful 1978 Dom, a crazy-good 1995 Comtes, and 2008 Cristal. At the 1996 horizontal Salon was a head above Comtes, Dom, Dom Oeno, Pierre Peters Cuvee Speciale (Chetillons), and a slew of others.

26

Well, maybe I’m remembering a bottle but I think that my best of the decade have all been drunk in 2019 (youth has its perks ?).

  • 1990 Grand Puy Lacoste : found this bottle on the French craigslist, wanted to taste a big, mature Bordeaux from a touted year. I split the cost and the bottle with a friend and had a fantastic dinner over this. A true ballerina

  • 1995 Yquem : Private tasting with generous pours, I went shamelessly to get a refill and finished the night sipping a second glass. A wine that’s pushing me to add much more Sauternes and other sweet wines in my cellar.

  • didn’t have any stop-tracking experiences with Champagne yet, still a meh category for me given price point. I’ll go with the Champagne Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs blanc 2007 drunk this year (slightly edging the Champagne Bollinger La Grande Année 2008) but I picked this half-heartedly.

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1971 La Tache 3L
2010 DRC Montrachet
1988 Cristal Rose mag

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From wines drunk during the decade (as opposed to wines made in the decade)…

2006 Pierre Gonon St. Joseph Vieilles Vignes - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, St. Joseph (1/20/2015)
Decanted for about 3 hours, but could have used 5 or 6. By the time we got to the last pours of the bottle the aromatics had expanded, the palate had filled out, and the overall impression went from a wine of good potential to a wine of actual greatness. The full range of Syrah aromatics were on display, featuring the roasted meat and iron, accented by beautiful floral aromas. The palate texture was rich yet very focused. By the time I had a few sips left I did not want to drink the wine. I wanted to just continue to inhale the aromatics. Beautiful wine that will sadly disappear all too soon. I am really not sure what to do with my last bottle of this. It’s a treasure. (98 pts.)

1998 Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Eiswein - Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer (5/21/2011)
This is probably the greatest sweet wine I have ever tasted in my life. Iced peach and strawberry with spicy, honeyed overtones give some description of the flavors, but do almost nothing to convey the experience of a wine that could be doled out with an eye dropper yet still provide more mouth filling flavor and persistence than in a magnum of a normal wine. Each miniscule mouthful was an explosion of flavor with blazing acidity that was perfectly buffered by the equally intense sweetness. There’s really very little way to adequately describe the experience, except to say wow. Bravo to Hans Leo Christoffel for shepherding a masterpiece into being. (100 pts.)

1988 Krug Champagne Vintage Brut - France, Champagne (8/15/2015)
Holy mother of God is this good. The aromas and flavor are beautiful, but that is not the best part of the wine. The palate weight, the depth of complexity and the unbelievable length are what set this wine apart from every other Champagne I have ever had. Seriously, this is one of those singular wine experiences that it will be hard to shake. It will diminish other Champagnes I drink for a very long time. Stunning wine. Absolutely stunning. (98 pts.)

29

Yeah David that '88 Krug is amazing. It was my bubbly of the decade as well.

30

I had that 2006 Gonon VV several months the ago. Definitely ranks up there with one of my top 3 Rhônes in recent memory

31

99 roumier musigny
08 drc montrachet
88 krug mesnil

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I remember that day we drank the krug mesnil like it’s yesterday. Too bad Matty’s explanation on how he’d survive in prison is too nsfw to post. Lol

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1971 Produttori Rabaja (nose was off the charts! Been a fan of PDB ever since, backed-up the truck on 2013s)
2014 Morlet La Proportion Doree (best new world bdx-blend I’ve ever had. This vintage specifically. None of the newer vintages have risen to this level)
2002 Krug Vintage (nothing has compared to-date, next level good. Never had Mesnil, can only imagine how good the 2002 Mesnil will be)

34

Red: 2012 Lail J. Daniel cuvee - shared with friends at TFL, my first thought was, “well, I suppose it makes sense why people score wines 100 pts”. Maybe not the sexiest answer (I’ve had 82 La Mission, 89 Pichon Baron several times, and 85 La Tache recently) but at the time it was the greatest I had tasted, and the other experiences, while amazing, didn’t trump it. Honorable mention goes to 1974 Bertani Amarone della Valpolicella.

White: 2015 PYCM Corton Charlemagne - at L’assiette Champenoise in Reims with the Tour de France racing by us this summer. Hard to beat.

Bubbles: NV Prevost La Closerie Les Beguines (I think '14 base). Having tasted a number of tetes des cuvees in the past, I put my nose into the glass and… wait, wtf is this?!? Wow wine. I’m trying hard to get a hold of a fac simile or Climax for comparison. I have yet to try many aged champanges (hopefully that will change this decade) but loved a 1990 Winston Churchill recently.

35

Relying on a very fallible memory here.
But with the observation that there were some almost impossible choices to be made I will follow the rules and go with:

  1. Still Red - 1959 Magdelaine
  2. Still non-red - 1955 Gonzalez Byass Sherry
  3. Bubbly - 1995 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne
36

Red: 1989 Chave just a month ago. I’ve had lots of great ones and I can’t say this is objectively better than some others, but it hit all the right buttons on that night. I bought the bottle on release.

White: 2005 Domaine D’Auvenay Meursault Narvaux courtesy of Herwig a few years ago. I’ve had some Raveneau and Coche that have been in a separate space than other white Burgundies, but this was in a different dimension.

Sparkling: Selosse Initial from Joel at an offline in SF quite a few years back now. Again, I can’t defend this as best but it was at a time when I wasn’t really getting Champagne and it was so different and spectacular that it sent me down the wormhole. As a result I’ve discovered a bunch of great producers and wines I love across a range of prices.

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Not so fallible!

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  1. Still red: 1990 Pousse d’Or Cailleret 60 Ouvrees. Not sure it’s “objectively” the best I’ve had, but most memorable to me.
  2. Still non-red: 1989 Leflaive Batard, several times. The energy on late 80s Leflaive is surreal.
  3. Champagne: 1988 Salon by a whisker over the 1988 Krug.
39
  1. 1990 DRC Richebourg
  2. 1959 d’Yquem (dessert) or 2014 Jadot Batard Montrachet (dry)
  3. 1996 Dom Perignon
40

goldman talking about how to game the prison system is the highlight of that day.

the 88 krug mesnil is as advertised. also had it 2x during paulee events.