Which Wine Are You Opening For Easter Dinner?

WINE TALK
41

We had the 06` Taittinger CDC along with a righteous creamy homemade vegetable soup and rajas tamales.

42

We drank the latest release of Selosse’s Initial, which is the 2013/2012/2011 blend, dg. in Fall 2019, and a bit tighter out of the gates (but with a bit more potential) than the immensely drinkable 2012/2011/2010 blend that came out last year. Great with smoked salmon on large croutons with cream cheese and capers. Then, two wines from the South-West of France, on which I wrote notes for cellartracker:

  • 1949 Château La Truffière Thibaut Monbazillac - France, Southwest France, Dordogne, Monbazillac (4/13/2020)
    The 1949 Château La Truffière Thibaut Monbazillac showed extraordinarily well, bursting from the glass with a complex bouquet of barley sugar, marmelade, bitter orange, dried apricots, mocha and smoke. Full-bodied, layered and enveloping, this rich, powerful dessert wine gained in finesse and integration as it sat in the glass, concluding with a long, expansive finish. Based on the cork, this bottle appeared to have been reconditioned in the 1970s. (95 pts.)
  • 1952 Château Ausone - France, Bordeaux, Libournais, St. Émilion Grand Cru (4/13/2020)
    The 1952 Château Ausone is showing superbly, offering up a kaleidoscopic and fully mature bouquet of griotte cherries and plums mingled with caramelized orange rind, warm spices, tobacco, candle wax and sweet soil tones. Medium to full-bodied, layered and satiny, it’s incisive but enveloping, with built around melting tannins and lively acids, and concluding with a long, intensely sapid finish which—along with the wine’s exotic aromatics—is its defining characteristic. (93 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

43

1999 Francois Gay Chorey-les-Beaune
Started with lots of earthy notes, leaves and chanterelle. Within an hour that transformed more into soy and worcestershire. Hardly any fruit left. Drink up.

44

Easter has come and gone. Magret in a cherry sauce with 2015 Privé Vineyard Pinot Noir Le Nord

45

There was only one tiny lamb rack at the store, so I augmented it with two shanks and we did lamb two ways - roasted rack with garlic and red wine braised shanks with herbs de Provence. We also did a new potato and spring vegetable salad with lemon vinaigrette.

Gaston Chiquet Blanc des Blancs d’Ay was the starter and salad wine; January 2019 disgorgement
2012 Valdicava Brunello di Montalcino went with the lamb

Salad course won by a landslide. Valdicava from a meh vintage isn’t inspiring to me and didn’t really synergize.

Cheers,
fred

46

Ham, asparagus, 4 variations on deviled eggs, potatoes. 2015 Ultramarine Rose (not very Champagne like, but nice full bubbly) and 375 of '83 Canon (strangely muted, not like another recent bottle, but didn’t detect any overt TCA)

47

It was gloomy and rainy and there were only two of us so we had an Easter pizza with a young crianza from Ribera del Duero and a sparkling Falanghina.

48

2018 Rivers-Marie Sonoma Coast PN with grilled pork chops and a shallot-cherry sauce (with grilled asparagus and spuds). Tasty, if a bit monolithic at this stage.

49

17 Carlisle Derivative w salmon and yellow squash risotto. We were improvising but turned out to be a nice pairing.

50

2006 Andrew Will Two Blondes with pork shoulder from the BGE, asparagus and sweet potato casserole. The 2006 Two Blondes was heavy on Cabernet Franc (almost 40%) I thought for an Andrew Will blend. It kept improving after being open for 4-5 hours. Alfert would have approved.

We also enjoyed a few wine leftovers from Saturday night’s dinner including a 2012 Arterberry Maresh Arterberry Maresh Chardonnay and 2002 Evesham Wood Cuvee J Pinot Noir.

Looking forward to a few tastes from each again tonight.

James

51

hey brian…pull the cork 2 hours before our dinner and right away the explosion of nose hit you in the face in a great way! first hour it was still little tight but knew it would open up by the time our steak was ready…this bottle was at its peak and not going anywhere anytime soon. great balance of fruit, tannin and acid. the weight of the wine on the palate is not heavy but has really nice dark red fruits. very long finish. always love karl lawerence and this was no exception glad I still have 2 more :slight_smile: