You know it is going to be a good night when the first bottle you open is a 2001 Cheval Blanc… The spirit of the late Grailey Jaynes was truly with us last week. We kept his tradition alive by sharing and appreciating some of the most terrific bottles of fine wine over many laughs with the greatest of our Graileys’ friends. We started the evening with bubbles of “Baby Billie” (375ml NV Billecart Salmon Brut Reserve) and ended the night back to Champagne with a Magnum of 1998 Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blanc Brut with each bottle in between being some of the most memorable bottles I have ever had. The 2001 Cheval Blanc was such a youngin, but still showed well with lively spice, fresh herbs and tart plums. This will be a beauty to revisit in many years to come.
A bottle of 1982 Pichon Lalande was the wine that topped the night (along with Graileys’ charts and my life)! As I tried the wine for the first time, it truly confirmed Parker’s note as ‘one of the monumental wines of the last century’. This was the silkiest wine to ever hit my palate with ultra seamless flavors of dried berries, tobacco, truffles, forest floor and dried herbs. Incredibly complex; yet streamlined with perfect texture, strength in structure and beautifully balanced with a lengthy finish that shadowed a little bit of everything from the wine: a touch of smoke, a nuance of earth and sweet preserved fruit.
The 1998 Haut Brion keeps sweeping me off my feet! Chocolate, smoke, tar, leather, graphite and charcoal. Fresh turned soil and wild violets, richly concentrated black berries and red currants all intertwined in ubiquitous layers as its sweet tannins staged its powerful structure in a sexy, velvety coat.
We can’t kick it ‘Old-School’ Graileys without some old school Napa. A bottle of 1995 Harlan and 1985 Diamond Creek Red Rock Terrace Cabernet were generously thrown on the table and as time passed, these wines showed themselves closer to Bordeaux in fashion than the bottle of 2006 Pichon Lalande. The ’95 Harlan was incredibly complex with impenetrable layers of smoke, rich dark fruit, mocha, granite and dried herbs. Leather, cured meat and smoke played out in the finish with the sweet fruit lingering behind. The ’85 Diamond Creek was beautifully soft in texture and savory in the palate, very much Bordeaux like with a mere 12.5% alcohol by volume and its multifaceted elements of everything savory and dried. From herbs to red berries, plums and black currants, leather, cedar and a trunk-load of spices like cardamom, nutmeg and cloves, this ’85 Napa Cab was quite a treat.
2000 Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape was showing perfectly at this 15 year stage with ripe, juicy fruit, fresh torn violets, charred meat and tar. The 2010 Cayuse Washington Syrah was also showing powerfully with majestic structure and rich, intense flavors of licorice, juicy meat, graphite and spice. Would like to revisit this one after time in the cellar. I can only imagine that it would be divine.