Monday, January 8, 2007

New year celebration in our house

Sunday lunch was our first meal with some of our gourmet friends who arrived early to help us prepare dinner (us, the Pinauds, the Bizeuls)
1 Blanc de Bret brothers 2003, appellation Viré Clessé La Verchère, a gift from Patrick to perfect, it seems, my education… We followed by a Clos Vougeot 1992 from Leroy, quite tired when we opened it, then after 5 minutes, by a miracle, it opened up in the glasses. It is quite a good wine, especially when you think about this vintage. I still have 5 bottles which I will most likely sell for they will fetch between 180 and 200 Euros. This will allow me to buy a number of good bottles. We brilliantly ended this lunch with a bottle of Latour 1955 from Pomerol which is what is best in Pomerol in this great vintage (year of birth of Martine and Murielle). The wine started to weaken after 20 minutes, but what a wine! It is obvious that the bottle had only traveled between the previous owner and us.

Sunday evening, Everybody was present except 2 couples friends, therefore, we were 10 (with the Ambayracs and the Quérons).
1 magnum of champagne Duval le Roy 1998 Chardonnay Blanc very good, 2 half bottles d’Yquem 1997: Il love this wine (as well as everyone else), ripe, opulent without being heavy
1 Meursault Bouches-Chères 2004 from Buisson Charles which allowed us to go from Yquem to Petrus (sorry for so little !).
1 Petrus 1990 to silence people wanting to bad mouth this icon: The wine was perfect, great maturity. At this level, the only thing we regretted is not to have gone a bit wild, but it is not our style… Our love (Murielle and I) for great wines started with a Petrus 1955, we drank in 1982 in Montpon Ménestrol in the Petit Prince, this will always be a special wine for us!
We followed by l’Eglise Clinet 1990, perfect, still a bit young, very different wine than the first one, lighter, spicier, certainly the Cabernet Francs give the elegance to this wine.

After, THE bottle of the evening: 1 Latour 1982 which was remarkable all around: Pauillac at the beginning of maturity… a magnum would have been necessary. The oven roasted grass-fed lamb with Herbes de Provence and garlic transformed this wine into an absolute delight. Well, I am not going to promote Latour (who doesn’t need me for that).
1 Le Pin 2004 not to compete with Latour 1982 and to please, in thought, our friend Alain and treat our gourmet family. This wine makes you love wine, even for someone who has never tasted it (and it is my inspiration to make Valandraud), drank quickly and with greediness, a sexy wine par excellence.

After midnight, the first bottle of Maury 2004 served with chocolates and the Basques cakes from Lopez, which, after so many incredible wines, held up correctly its new place and makes me think that our 500 cases of 6 won’t have any problems converting amateurs who don’t know the Maury appellation. There you are for our New Years eve dinner, with as it is customary, oysters, foie gras, salmon, gambas, leg of lamb with baby vegetables, Brie with truffle, desert, etc.. All of that without being sick or too tired.
Vive home cooking and great wines!

For lunch on Monday, before our last 3 hard core guests couples left (Bizeul, Pinaud, Ambayrac):
1 Meursault les Chevalières from Bernard Boisson Vadot : good, ripe, balanced, a bit closed
1 Sancerre d’Alphonse Mello Edmond 2001, superb
1 Chochu, Japanese alcool made with rice, aged in our Valandraud barrels, superb with salmon (too bad we didn’t have caviar)
Followed by Flor de Pingus 2003 as a thought to Peter Sisseck
And at least, a wine from the house: Valandraud 1998, which is actually our favorite wine.

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