By: Ryan Tedder
Coming back to work after the best Napa trip I have ever experienced was made far easier with the stunning wines that were opened last night at Graileys! I will write about Napa next week because it included 2012 previews of Gargiulo, Futo, Paradigm, Odette, Gandona, Continuum, Colgin and Dana!! Graileys is a special place for wines and last night further reaffirmed that with three wines that several people would consider once in a lifetime bottles but were just a Wednesday at this magical place. Oh it nice to be back:)
The legendary D2 came in last night and we all rejoiced! We started with a bottle of 1978 Mouton Rothschild that was singing in every way. 1978 vintage Second Growths have won our annual X-Mas Blind Tastings the last two years and this Mouton was everything we love about aged, stinky Pauillac drinking in this window. Cedar, cigar, cassis, leather, gravel, dried roses, graphite, light vegetal notes and a certain sois bois note emerged from this stunner easily as the wine stayed open. It only lasted 30 minutes and it primed the pump for a Graileys’ night to remember! We followed that up with a bottle of 1971 Camille Giroud Chambertin Grand Cru that was showing like great Grand Cru of a much younger age. When blinded two separate great palates of members blind taste the wine and call it early 90s! Ripe raspberry, bing cherry and red plum notes matched with exotic spices, sandalwood, sweet truffle and fresh flowers. This producer makes wines that need 20 years to drink well and this was a primo example. I net you could drink this Chambertin for another 30-40 years!
How do you follow up those two? Well you need a bottle of 1959 Pichon Baron of course:) I pulled out the Durand and extracted this cork. It looked as good as the 1959 Pichon Lalande I pulled out in January. Oh my goodness was this wine incredible! I think I should decanted it literally just to let the wine unwind a bit! This was raw power with so much complexity and aromatic intrigue that it shut everybody up for a few minutes. This is a wine to drink over the next 100 years and I am truly a believer in Pichon Baron now. It was fleshy and muscular wine, with plenty of power. The nose had cocoa, roasted coffee, dried violets and berries. Full-bodied, with an abundance of tannins and good fruit that left me thinking about the wine on the way home with the music off. What a treat! It was great to get back to work…