By: Ryan Tedder
What a fantastic Tuesday at Graileys yesterday! We celebrated the sun coming out with a plethora of amazing wines-young and very old. We had a full house of members and almost every style of wine was represented: Napa Cab, Champagne, White Burg, Red Burg, Bordeaux, California Grenache (SQN), and even South Africa?!
With so many great wines open I just wanted to focus on four wines that were simply outstanding! We knew it was going to a memorable night when we started with a bottle of 1975 Dom Perignon Oenotheque. The 1970 vintages of Dom P are legendary and this 75 was probably the best bottle of Champagne I have ever had. The mature bakery aromas of sourdough bread, marzipan, apple tartlet, and hazelnut were powerful, layered and hedonistic. The aromatics included daisys, beeswax and honeysuckle and the palate richness and length of finish were without equal. Holy crap wine for sure. We are looking for more as I type because that was a bottle of a lifetime.
Several fantastic White Burgs followed and consensus was that the 1997 Domaine d’Auvenay Meursault les Narvaux by Lalou Bize-Leroy was the best. It’s saying something when a village level Meursault from not the best vintage shines as bright as Montrachets from better vintages. I would say that Lalou Bize-Leroy is equal parts fanatical biodynamicist and wizard winemaker. Her attention to detail in the vineyard shines through in this wine-the glyceral weight of the wine and the underlying verve of acidic power were majestic. There was a myriad of perfectly ripe fruit that was going strong-bosc pears, quince, sweet citrus zest and lemon oil. Other lifted flower aromatics mingled with honey and vanilla to create a superb wine. Truly a wine of contemplation.
Of the reds two great Cabernet based wines really rang my bell. The 1989 Chateau Leoville Barton was absolutely singing-full of dark power and gravelly minerality. Cassis, sweet black cherry, pipe tobacco, coffee bean, and spice box oozed out of the wine and the gravel and sanguine notes framed the wine creating a powerful but balanced wine. Cedar, black licorice, dried rose petals and wild blackberries also came out of the wine as it improved with aeration.
On the other end of the spectrum we opened a bottle of 2009 Tusk Cabernet Sauvignon. Tusk is Philippe Melka’s baby (he owns a third of the winery) and is sourced primarily from Pritchard Hill and the Oakville bench. Besides having really beautiful packaging and a smart label-the wine delivers raw power and potential. This is the second vintage of this amazing Napa Cab and it tasted completely different than the 2008. The 2009 was full of wild purple and black aromas and flavors-blueberries, blackberries, black raspberry, cassis, violets, espresso and anise were forward but noticeably holding back. The wine is just so damn good but so damn young. There was an iron minerality and meatiness to the wine and the finish was 45 seconds out of the bottle. We were lucky enough to get our hands on a few bottles-definitely a cellar candidate that could be drunk in 20 years reflecting on how great the fine wines of Napa can be. All in all quite a great night of wine drinking at Graileys.