Chateau d'Yquem 1970

This has been a great week of tasting and drinking (two very different things...and, typically, while I do a great deal of the former, the latter is often rather limited). I attended a fantastic Barolo tasting for the Wine Media Guild this past Wednesday, and had the chance to assess the 2005 vintage in a 25-bottle horizontal divided into the various crus of the region (Brunate, Sarmassa, Cannubi, etc.). And yesterday, I attended a fascinating seminar and press tasting of the spectacular new Louis XIII Rare Cask Cognac that was led by Remy Martin’s Cellar Master, Pierrette Trichet. I’ll be reporting on both of these tastings in the coming weeks.

As for the drinking--and I know: I should have posted this note on Wine Review Wednesday--that highlight took place last weekend, at a dinner I enjoyed with my family at Philadelphia’s R2L restaurant to celebrate my birthday.

Once we were seated--right at the window, 37 floors up and with an amazing view of the city--a gift bag was delivered to the table. In it were two of those glass jars that homemade jelly and jam are stored in, and I knew immediately who was responsible: My friend Scot ‘Zippy’ Ziskind, who I’ve written about here a number of times before. Whenever he opens up a great bottle, he saves a bit of it in these jelly jars so that his friends who were not there when the bottle was originally uncorked can enjoy it. And, man, were these two serious birthday wines: A 1966 Chateau Latour and a 1970 Chateau d’Yquem. Both were fabulous--fully mature and at the sweet spots of their drinking windows. And while I loved them both, the Sauternes, for me, was the wine of the night.

The nose led off with a wild combination of apricot, honey, pronounced toffee, golden chanterelle, and spice notes. In classic Yquem fashion, the sweetness of the botrytized fruit was secondary to its perfume and its hint of earthiness; those chanterelles from the nose were also present on the mid-palate, though balanced out there by still-surprisingly-fresh pineapple, exotic spices, and bright, singing acidity. The texture was breathtakingly silky, and I could still feel it on my tongue throughout the minutes-long finish.

With apologies for the phrasing, what a sweet way to celebrate a birthday.

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Three Decades of Cheval Blanc

Last week, I had the very good fortune to attend a dinner that featured some truly legendary wines. Come to think of it, though, I probably shouldn’t use the word “featured”--after all, the primary point of the gathering was to celebrate more than three decades of a friend’s business (and his birthday, which falls around the same time). So while he brought along wines that in any other situation would have become the focus of the meal, here they played the far more enjoyable role of simply being the wines we drank at dinner with family and friends.

Of course, there’s a caveat here: Anytime you open up three decades of Cheval Blanc, a 40-year-old bottle of Chateau d’Yquem, and a Madeira from the year the Golden Gate Bridge opened (1937), is a special occasion. But the fact that conversation swirled around the wines, and was not wholly about them, made their presence at the table that much more special: We were consuming them the way they were meant to be. Which is to say, joyously.

I’ve written about my friend Scot “Zippy” Ziskind before. He’s the owner of the My Cellar wine storage facility and of ZipCo Environmental Services, Inc., one of the country’s most respected custom storage, cooling, and humidification specialists. He is also a great collector of wine in general and Bordeaux and dessert wine in particular. It was his birthday, and the anniversary of his business, that we were celebrating. As such, and given the nature of the restaurant at which he and his wife Marcie, my wife and I, and four friends of theirs (including my parents), had gathered, the context could not have been better for popping the corks on these particular bottles.

Below, then, are my tasting notes from the evening, but just for the Cheval Blanc. (I’ll be writing up the Yquem and the Madeira in future posts dedicated to those wines, and alongside tasting notes of other vintages for a better sense of context.) All of the wines had been stored in pitch-perfect conditions, which was reflected in their flawless evolution and expression, and enjoyed at Cochon, an excellent, casual, rustic-French BYOB in Philadelphia.

Chateau Cheval Blanc 1959 - The nose here can only be described as “warm”--plush and exquisitely mature with hints of gravel, sun-baked clay, and tobacco. There were background notes of dried sage and cedar, too, as well as flowers and a touch of creaminess. All that lushness followed through to the palate, which coated the tongue yet still remained light and silky. Perfectly concentrated raspberry, raspberry cream, and spice notes dominated, and ultimately gave way to a long finish rich with violets and cherry-liquor-filled chocolate. A perfect mature Bordeaux, and as good as it gets.

Chateau Cheval Blanc 1975 - Of the three vintages of Cheval here, this one was the most classic expression of the great chateau. The nose was quintessential Bordeaux, with roasted licorice, cigar humidor and tobacco, charred green bell pepper, grilled sage, smoky raspberries, leather, and a more pronounced gravel note than the 1959. The palate offered even more, with a swirl of flavors including warm stones, black peppercorn, black raspberries and blackberries, leather, cream, cigar tobacco again, and flowers. The long finish, still-fresh acid, and perfect balance promised another 5-7 years of evolution before it plateaus.

Chateau Cheval Blanc 1986 - You know it’s a great night when the 1986 is the youngest wine on the table. What really struck me, however, was the learning opportunity that this one provided. For even though it was nearly 24 years old, it still showed a distinctly youthful expression of Cheval with its aromas of wet stones, lighter-on-its-feet leather, lavender, and cigar tobacco, all of it lifted by the lovely perfume of cedar and sandalwood. This last Cheval of the night was clearly the youngest on the palate, too, with restrained crushed purple berry fruit, green peppercorn, thyme, fennel fronds, melted licorice, and the telltale gravel and clay that made itself known in all three of the bottles. The finish--incredibly long, balanced, and bright--promised another 12-15 years of evolution, and sang with oolong tea, dried sage, cherry, and cigar tobacco.

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