By: Ryan Tedder
A bad week at Graileys is a great week almost anywhere else in the world. So imagine how amazing a great week at Graileys is?? It boggles the mind…Last week was just such a week! We had some many stunners it woul dmake your head spin. Some Highlights included 1970 Bollinger, Krug Rose, and Colgin Herb Lamb!
We had a good friend stop by with a wiley crew and popped these lovelies! We started with some 1999 Dom Perignon - this version of Dom P is very open and lush. It was pure toast, citrus, honeysuckle and distinct minerality and quince. We followed that with some NV Krug Rose with 2 different disgorgement dates – and subsequently different capsules and ages. The younger of the two had lovely tart red fruit, flowers, starwberries, tangerine and a never-ending tongue teasing complexity few wines would rival. The second was a touch more vinous and the fruit was rounder and more flamboyant. The citrus notes had gone to orange blossom and orange zest. The wine drank like a rich red Burg with fruit. Just great. Last was the most stunning wine of the night-the 1970 Bollinger Vintage Brut!!! Complex, large bodied, incredibily dense and memorable in every way. The wine actually tasted like it could have used a decant! It just got better and richer with air. Fresh croissant, pear, apple and lemon were present as well as a multitude of other flavors. I wish we would have drank it slower…
Some other great wines included:
1993 Colgin Herb Lamb Cabernet - This was a stunner! Full rich adn lively with all kinds of extract, fruit, sweet round tannins and beautiful length! The only thing we did not like about it was the fact that is was a 1993 – and alas-not a 1994… oh well!
1993 Pierre Morey Batard Montrachet Grand Cru - This was hands down the best white Burgundy of the week! Rich, round and refined in every way. When you drink a wine like this you realize how special great White Burgundy can be. Bravo M. Morey-you rock!
2008 Marcel Deiss Altenberg de Bergheim Grand Cru - The only Grand Cru in Alsace that allows blends, this was a special bottle of white wine. The length, dry extract, verve and complexity of this white wine leave me still thinking of it a week later. This will go for 50 years!