The Most Intense Sensory Experience of my Life

The most intense sensory experience of my life came to me, unexpectedly, on the night of April 20^th of this year at the Crabtree Kittle House in Chappaqua, NY. We’d sat down to an 8:00 dinner reservation and at 8:02 ordered a bottle of the 2001 Coche-Dury Meursault. To the discontent of my girlfriend, I’d spent the past two hours in the room pouring over the textbook-like wine list so that when we sat down to dinner--I knew what to order, exactly what to order.

For those of you unfamiliar, the Kittle House is a quaint little inn in Chappaqua NY with okay food, top-notch service, and the best wine list in the country. I should say that the occasion of our visit was to celebrate my 24^th birthday—something that I’d forgotten almost completely by the time the Coche-Dury arrived. You see, my girlfriend was there to celebrate me. But I was there to celebrate Coche.

Coche-Dury is the greatest white winemaker in the world and I’ve become a slave to the liquid. In fact it was a Coche-Dury Bourgogne Blanc, drank 6 months earlier that changed the way I look at white wine. Needless to say, the wines are surreal.

The 2001 Coche-Dury Meursault was poured and it was young. Exceptionally young. And beautiful. But tight. I asked for it to be decanted and set aside to open up, to breathe. I ordered an IPA. Julie ordered a cocktail. We ordered food—I can’t remember what. As I said, the food at the Kittle House is just okay—and ‘just okay’ by necessity. At the Kittle House, the food takes a supporting role to the greatest wine list in the country.  And I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

After oysters on the half shell, I went to use the bathroom. I stood at the urinal staring at the wall in front of me thinking; ‘Life couldn’t get any better. Kittle House. Girlfriend. Coche-Dury.’

Walking back to the table I realized that it had just gotten better. A lot better. I noticed 4 additional glasses on our table and two open bottles of wine. A 1957 Chateau Latour. 1945 Bernard Sachs Chambolle-Musigny.

I never could have imagined that our Coche-Dury would take a backseat that night, but for the moment it did.

Leo, one of the Kittle Sommeliers explained that a very well-cellared collector was having dinner in the other room that night. He’d brought by some serious bottles and he wanted to share. For the next hour my nose was buried in magnificent wines that were older than I was, older than my parents were. After the Bordeaux and Burgundy, Leo brought us the 1935 Cappellano Barolo. And a 1992 Jadot Montrachet. We ate dinner with 10 glasses of wine on the table and the wines were unreal. I’ll always remember each and every one of them.

After finishing the wines I went off to find the gentleman who had bestowed these magnificent wines upon us, but he was gone. I don’t know what I was going to say to him but I remember feeling my heart sink a little bit after learning that he had just left.

I returned to the table to drink the 2001 Meursault which in the meantime had transformed into something hauntingly decadent while sitting in a decanter on a side table. Coche-Dury is an emotional experience. It shows you something that you didn’t know a grapevine was capable of, and then it teaches you to understand it, and then for a brief moment you comprehend the esoteric. And then the wine is gone and you are left only with shadows of what it was.

I recall leaving the dining room thinking that I didn’t deserve to experience such divine works of art. Who was I to drink 70 or 80 year old wines, just to piss them out the next morning? I thought of Mr. Cappellano in 1935, punching down and pumping over thick Nebbiolo caps. Was I the one that he had intended to drink this wine? Surely not.

But it was the most intense sensory experience of my life.

Gems from the Kittle House Cellar:

1900 Ausone

Signed.

#sommelierproblems

Maybe I am a brandy drinker...

Pasta Nostra 7/13/13

It was a Pasta Nostra night last night. I’d never been to Pasta Nostra but I’d been told that it was one of the staples of Sono. My buddies Matt and Ashby are fanatical about the place so they invited us for a double date dinner and a bit of tasting with Joe, the gentleman that owns the place.

Dinner started with the 2011 Cantina Tramin Gewurtztraminer—a wine that was amazingly aromatic, sweet spicy (clove, nutmeg, cinnamon) and flavor filled. Admittedly, I’m not a huge Gewurz guy—I think it’s the spices in combination with generally low acidity. Without the right food it can be cloying. In any case, I knew Matt would love this wine (the guy loves spicy Belgian beers and alike) so we ordered the Tramin from Alto Adige and it sang, especially with our Calamari and zucchini flower with goat cheese. It’s logical that you can take a low acid grape and grow it in an especially high-acid region and come up with a balanced wine. And at 15% ABV.

Joe decided that we should follow the spicey Gewurz by nothing other than a 2004 Fattoria Coroncino Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore Gaiospino Fume. 2004 Verdicchio. Long name. Beautiful label. Stunning wine.  Manzanilla brininess meets White Burgundy minerality with honey, herbs, and a late onset oak profile, a bit buttery but not off-putting. Flinty and floral. This is the best Verdicchio I’ve ever tasted.

The whites were followed by the 2006 Castello di Neive Santo Stefano Riserva Barbaresco—a true stunner. I explained to Matt that Barbaresco is a village not far from Barolo with a reputation for producing Nebbiolos in a generally more elegant style than Barolo. This is a wine that truly lived up to that reputation and was refreshing following the extracted and pruney Barbarescos I’ve tasted lately. I like my Nebbiolo red-fruited, lifted, and floral. Not only did this wine meet those parameters but it delivered a gorgeous tertiary white truffle that didn’t overwhelm the fruit but made this wine my wine of the night. Apparently Bruno Giacosa used to (or still does, I don’t know) buy fruit from Castello di Nieve. Outstanding quality indeed.

We ended the night with a bottle of 1980 Bertani Amarone that Matt and I had brought to share with Joe (and the ladies). The Bertani was very well built, and very much alive but maybe not what it should have been. I think it was a little corked (or absent in some other facet). It was clean smelling, although a bit dull, on the nose with subtle dried cherry, raison, and (as Joe suggested) shoe polish. On the palate it was vibrant and packed with fruit but came short on the back palate and finish. To be fair, it was brilliant beside the entrees that it accompanied but just not what it might have been or could have been. Again, this wine was not ‘corky’ by any means, it just didn’t show up the way I had hoped it would. I also don’t think its lackluster performance was due to age but a shortcoming of this particular bottle. Very pleasurable and nostalgic nonetheless, beside top-notch ingredients and company.

Meursault Snacks--Buttery and Mineral Driven

#meursaultsnackin'

Gotta Get Down on Friday: 2002 Lenz, 2002 Schueller, 2002 d’Yquem, Et al.

This past weekend for the first time in a very long time I had Saturday off (#sommelierproblems?), so I decided to have some friends over, raid the cellar, and have a Friday night wine experience.

We started with some cold cold Muscadet, the 2010 Luneau-Papin Clos des Alees Vieilles Vignes Muscadet Sur Lie- Sevres et Maine which is drinking crisp, creamy and beautiful accented by green apple, apricot, peach, and mineral.

From there we went to Chinon with the 2007 Domaine des Pallus Chinon 'Les Pensees'—a textbook example of mature Cabernet Franc (without being too herbaceous).  And then a taste of the 2003 Domaine Calvet-Thunevin "Les Dentelles" Cotes du Rousillon Villages a wine that is spectacularly ripe, high octane and dark-fruited—Priorat-like is what I called it. It rings in at a monstrous 15.5 but it carries it well. This is serious juice.

The French reds were followed by a 2002 Lenz Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (from North Fork Long Island)—a very mature Cabernet showing dried black fruits punctuated by a distinct crushed leaf earthiness. This wine is lean in its old age but still showing good acidity and pretty November-like aromas (dried leaves, burning leaves, and smoke).

After the French Reds it was down to Fat Cat (the finest wine list in Fairfield County, for those of you not up to snuff on your CT wine lists), but one more trip down to the cellar first to find something good to bring with us. What to drink on the hottest, most humid night of the summer? Dessert wine, but of course.

The walk down to the bar was sweaty. I could feel the half bottle wanting to squirm loose from my wet palm. We were relieved from the heat as we walked into Fat Cat and ordered a magnum of 2002 Schuller ‘Oncle Leon’ Pinot Gris. It was flinty, off-dry, crisp, rich, floral, and spicy—all at the same time. It drank beautifully. My buddy Matt said that it was one of the best white wines he had ever had.

After the mag we were joined by my buddies Mark and Tony for dessert wines. The wines were nothing short of magnificent beside the Fat Cat butterscotch pudding which I have always said is the most addictive gastronomical indulgence in the world. Mark and Tony shared with us a killer bottle of 1989 2^nd Trie Domaine d’Ambinos Coteaux du Layon-Beaulieu. It was rich, honey/nutty, and developed—still with good acidity and clean fruit. Mark and I both agreed that this bottle was even better than the bottle that we had enjoyed with Vincent Caille back in March. Simply ambrosia.

And finally we drank the half bottle of 2002 Chateau d’Yquem I’d brought to share with the boys. It was also stellar. Like tasting every fruit in the world all at the same time. What surprised me most was its profound oakiness/spiciness that was obvious but so well integrated and flush. One of the best I’ve had this year. Perfect for a 90 degree night.

We finished at my house with a 2004 Veuve Clicquot Brut. It was meaty, yeasty, and Pinot-driven.

Date Night

2010 ‘Sketch Albarino’ by Raul Perez—This Albarino is particulary nifty not only because it is a single vineyard Albarino from a top notch, small production producer in Rias Baixas, but because it is bottle-aged for 60 days, 90 feet UNDERWATER. Yup, after fermentation in concrete eggs and a year of barrel aging, this wine is bottled, stacked into a cage and sunk into the Atlantic Ocean where it is allowed to incorporate a touch of brininess that its cork breathes into the bottle.

The result is a true testament to the quality of Albarino. The evolution of this wine from the pop of the cork to the very last sip (after a few hours of air) was also nothing short of incredible. At first whiff, this wine showed off particularly rich dried fruit aromas of apricots, peaches, pairs, quince, and even a touch of a raisony quality that was brilliantly punctuated by that faint but unmistakable aroma of the ocean—seawater.

Damn—I thought—this can’t get any better. But it did. After an hour, the flamboyant orchard fruit that was once so dominant faded into the background and the ‘Sketch’ started tasting more like a young White Burgundy than an Albarino. Flinty minerality, and a soft lemony limey creaminess suggested Meursault more than Rias Baixas—all the while, maintaining the marine saltiness that makes it so distinct. In the third hour, it changed again almost reverting to its original state, although perhaps a bit tempered. A distinct sweet spice now punctuated its ripe tree fruit and we quaffed it down with dessert on the way. An experience for sure.

After the ‘Sketch’ we opened the most recent disgorgement of the Krug Grand Cuvee—which was rich, decadent, endlessly complex, and perfectly balanced—as it always is. This is incredible Champagne. I’ve been told that this wine is composed of upwards of 180 base wines—and it shows through in the divine complexity of this wine. A magnificent result of Krug’s artful and iconic blending. 

2010 Heitz Grignolino

This wine is produced from a small planting of Grignolino owned by Heitz in Napa Valley. According to Heitz; “The Heitz family’s love affair with Grignolino began in 1961 when Joe and Alice purchased their first 8-acre vineyard. Previous owner Leon Brendel christened the property “The One & Only”, an homage to the only varietal he planted—the zesty Grignolino often referred to as ‘the little strawberry’ in its native Italy.”

Mostly planted in Piedmont, this might be the only varietal Grignolino produced in the United States. According to Jancis Robinson et al., “In California, Heitz of the Napa Valley persist with their Grignolino plantings, making a rose’ and sometimes a port-style wine from them.”

The 2010 Heitz Grignolino is pale in color—bringing fourth a slightly tart strawberry/raspberry fruit accompanied by a spicy nutmeg, clove, and a slight phenolic bitterness that will be well tempered by food. This is a fairly lean wine that is soft on tannins and high in acidity and one that will be beautiful beside Bolognese and curried salmon alike.

Microsoft Word, 'Heitz' and 'Grignolino' are legit--add to dictionary. #sommelierproblems