On wine (9) winter 13-14

Because of the lousy weather we drank some of the better wines from my cellar, where the 1999s are almost gone. On Thanksgiving which coincides pretty much with my birthday, we celebrated with the last bottle of Ch. Mouton Rothschild, a 1993, the one with the sketch of a nude girl on the label. Because of a southern Senator's ire the 1993s imported in the US had blank labels and this one was brought from France at the occasion of the graduation of Colette's French cousin. It gave us a generous portion in our special glasses for the four adults at the table, but my three grandkids, being duly impressed by a 20-year old wine, each had a sip (none was very excited about the taste). The adults, on the other hand enjoyed the excellent wine, its marked aroma of roses, the ruby color and the slow robe. I had been worried for the bottle spent 4 years in the basement of Super House until my retirement and the acquisition of a temperature controlled cellar. As a second wine we had a 2001 Barbaresco from Poggio le Coste. Another great wine from a better vintage than the Mouton and at 14.5% somewhat less refined than the Mouton at 12.5%. But it went better with the alouettes sans tete which is the traditional birthday dish and one of Colette's most successful.. By the end of meal it had found its best and still filled the large round glasses with the smells of a Piedmont autumn. Much fun was had by all.


On Dec. 8 we had a lunch for PP who usually comes on my birthday. We had some more of the alouettes and an Alsatian appletart. I served the last two bottles of '99 Beaune les Theurons from Louis Jadot. My diary has: beautiful dark garnet, robe and lasting smooth body, mulberry/cassis.


Another highlight came on Dec. 21 at the end of a 3 day birding trip in Delaware and our stay at the Rodney Hotel in Lewes. On the ground floor of the hotel there is the "Rose and Crown" an upscale watering hole where my favorite dish is a shepherd's pie with confit de canard. At dinner, Colette had swordfish on a parsnip puree with grapefruit and capers and we decided to celebrate our tete a tete Christmas celebration with a '04 Veuve Cliquot Brut which, to answer a question we frequently asked ourselves, was indeed much better even than the best non-vintage champagnes, including a Pol Roger, we drank at home. Think of a vineyard Meursault with bubbles and without oak. Outstanding. For Christmas at home, with the traditional cassoulet we had a few bottles of '09 Pierre Amadieu Gigondas that had "a lovely dark color and great robe, a fine accompaniment, but 14.5% is unnecessary."


In the middle of January, before Colette had to go back to teaching, we spent 3 days birding in South Jersey. We stayed at a hotel where the food was pretty good but the only French wine a Dubeuf 2011 Beaujolais Villages, which turned out to be very drinkable, no doubt because that was an outstanding year there. We also had a Calif. Taittinger: "not bad, but not as good as the same price Gosset. Apparently terroir does make a difference! This one was very yeasty and not light." The birding was pretty good with harlequin ducks at close range and a snowy owl very still at about ten feet (and with a half circle of some 30 photographers). That Sunday Colette made a fine pork loin in mustard and garlic sauce which we had with a commune and non AOC Vacqueras 2011 Seigneur de Fontimple (which sounds like a character from Daudet's Lettres de mon Moulin). This was a November "Manager's Selection" in the State Store. It carried Robert Parker's stamp of approval and was nevertheless a pretty good drink. Fortunately I had bought several bottles rather than the "one to try"  that is my custom with unfamiliar wines. I assumed that one could not go too wrong with 2011. Another "Selections" was a 2011 AOC Bourgueil that could have become a favorite "every day" tipple if it were regularly available. This one was around for about three months and much enjoyed by us.


Among those "Manager's Selections" there appeared one day a really new wine from the Department of Herault in the Sth. of France. It was organic by the European Union's standards and its taste was similar to that of a Bordeaux merlot and was made of 80% merlot, 15% sauvignon and 5% sauv. blanc, with 14% alcohol. Without AOC, it was simply labeled "red wine" and of the 2012 vintage which was not a great year. It came from the Domaine de la Croix and had a minimalist label of yellow ockre with a stylized cross on an orb in siena. The color was darker than most Bordeaux and it had a good robe and an aroma of strawberries. It was very likable and I was surprised when Colette red the label on the back with its specifications, for I generally do not like merlot. It was around for about a month before the two cases were sold.   


The weekend of Jan. 25-26 was one of less everyday meals and wines. On Saturday I made a ragout of  1/4 lb of ground organic veal with an ounce of crumbled dry cepes (reconstituted in white wine) browned in half and half and balsamic on pappardelli cooked in herbed and garlic water, which with a had 2010 bandol bastide blanche that "was mourvedre ruby with a nice robe. As always I would have preferred 13.5 rather than its 14.5 which takes away its liveliness." Bandol has a lot of memories with sidewalk tables in narrow streets in late May or early June with lunch after swimming and a not yet cordoned and uncrowded beach.
On Sunday our friend and former colleague PP came to lunch. It was rather lively and amusing as each had "senior moments" that were challenges to the others as well. we had Colette's excellent pork sirloin and the last 99 Jadot Chambolle-Musigny (the commune wine), "still an excellent drink from a great year and a great terroir" that PP and I visited that yeat on the way to join Colette in the Provence. One can hardly not have a great Burgundy. talking about Burgundies. When Colette bought my "weekly" bottle of Calvados she looked around for more Dne de la Croix and came across a 2011 Julienas from a vineyard that borders the road of our evening walks when we stayed out our favorite country motel on the way to or from the Provence. 2011 was "the year that Beujolais became a great Burgundy" etc. The '11 Baujolais Villages came on the market at $20+, a price that must have met with buyer's resistance, for this bottle was $15 and worth it: "very dark, light robe, complex without the beauj. acidity and a sweet berry aroma." Not a Pinot Noir but far from the "bad plant" that a Renaissance duke ordered eradicated (probably because he had just drank a Beauj. primeur).


I noticed that our weekend wines in February were all the 2011 Bourgueils, all drunk with approval. On the 14th we had Colette's lapin with cepes in white wine and a 2011 Quincy that tasted more like a Sancerre if a bit more stern and dryer. C. had discovered it in our favorite store in Cape May and because at $15 it seemed cheap we bought only 2 bottles, which we remedied soon after. The next Pinot noir came on March 2, with C's poule au pot, a 2005 Santenay 1er cru "La Maladiere" from Vincent Girardin which in spite of the vineyards name was far from bad. During our theater trips to NYC with lunch at Les Pyrenees this had become our favorite Burgundy at the suggestion of Marcel, "our" waiter, who took to hiding a few bottles of great vintages for us. Great memories enhance reality but this one was truly special, "no harsh acidity or chaudron, a soft aroma of ripe red fruit, transparent garnet and a slow robe," 13.5%.


As emerges from my remarks, we have been drinking the older wines which we did to celebrate events as well as to feel good when the winter got us (me) down. But more or less unspoken is also the question of my age and my father's oft expressed motto "You can't take it with you," to which, since he took his faith seriously, he sometimes added:" And were we're going we don't need anything anyway." And there's the question of to whom should I leave it, as I don't know anyone who would spend , if capable, the $$$ to buy high quality stuff when the first release comes on the market. I was reminded of these very occasional reflections by an item in the NYT where the author advised the aged to "count the days" that may be left. A reader wrote in that "it is better to die with a full wine cellar than not to have any wine to drink in the last few days of life." I guess that's why I still buy some lay-away bottles, not systematically and not of the same first growths when there's a great vintage, but occasionally though at about the same rate that we drink the 99's and '00's. And "to your health," whoever!