There are quite a few very good restaurants in Vancouver. Most people
don't know it, but there is one more than they think, and most days it
is just another rather nice unassuming house, occupied by good friends
that have a great passion and interest for cooking and wine. When I
am lucky enough to go there when it becomes one of the top ten places
in Vancouver for fine wine and food (the other nine are commercial
restaurants) I never fail to leave sated and impressed with the care
with which the food was prepared and the thought that went into the
wine matches. I won't identify the friends, but will say that they
are charter members of the WATAPEAS group I founded - the Western All
Terrine and Pate Eaters Society, which has a single event each year.

Dinner chez X recently was as delightful as ever, and I'll describe
the food as wel as the wines.

First, there were not one, but five different hors d'ouvres, all
painstakingly prepared:

Oat cakes with goat cheese and marinated fig Shaggy Parasol
Mushroom soup
Shiitake frittatas Pepperoni cheddar straws Dungeness crab
with watercress

1990 Heidsieck Millesime Brut - a great contrast in the two 1990
Champagnes, with this one having a nicely mature yeasty nose showing
some complexity, a richer style, with good balance and length.

1990 Piper-Heisieck 'Rare' Brut - in complete contrast, this wine was
fresher and had clean acidity, a leaner well structured wine that in
my opinion worked better with the food. What was even more delightful
about these wines was that I have both in my own cellar!

Duck salad with green beans and pine nuts

2002 Zind Humbrecht Gewurztraminer Turkheim - I took a look at this
pairing and my first thought was that the course could have been
swapped with the next one, but I was willing t submit to
experimentation! As it turned out, the wine match was very well
thought out. This ripe Gewurz was medium gold in colour, with a good
varietal nose, and was fairly full in the mouth, with good body and a
touch of residual sugar, although another diner disagreed. let's say
that it was a ripe style, and it went well with the duck salad.

Steelhead trout with creamy pollenta and mushroom jus

1988 Ch. Carbonnieux - colour on this one was heading toward amber and
there was a whiff of oxidation on the nose and a bit more than a whiff
in the mouth. Once no doubt an interesting wine, this one was still OK
with the food, which was excellent, but a fresher vintage would have
been better.

Rack of lamb with assorted veggies and tomato chutney

I was delighted to see that we were going to have 1975 Bordeaux, as I
enjoy these wines a lot while others will not. In fact I had these
same wines in another dinner I arranged in 2000, and here is the
preamble to my notes on that occasion:

The 1975 vintage is not one that people with Speculator or
'Parkerpalates' will enjoy. They are framed in a style in which they
will never intentionally make wine again, so in a sense we were
tasting something that has now become a piece of history. The
wines were made from fruit picked perhaps a little early and the fact
that destemming was not then much utilised only added to the tannin
'load' of the wines (now, they would more exactly measure the point
of
ripeness of the grapes, and would destem to suit the style that they
consciously strive for). The result is big, hard, tannic wines that
have needed at least a quarter of a century to come around - this
would clearly be economic suicide in today's world of instant
gratification. I daresay that if you put a glass of even a great 1975
Bordeaux in front of a Cal-cab drinker, or a fruit-at-all-costs fan,
they just wouldn't know what to make of it.

1975 Ch. Latour - excellent nose showing cedar and black fruit, decent
fruit in the middle, still concealed a bit, I think, by the weighty
tannins. The structure is excellent, and it was slightly drying at the
end on the tip of the tongue, with a hint of astringency. I felt that
this wine was the best, but I also felt that it wasn't showing quite
as well as other times I have had it.

1975 Ch. Mouton Rothschild - while clearly not quite the wine that the
monumental Latour is, this bottle of Mouton acquitted itself very
well, showing a nose that I kept coming back to as it had a bit more
complexity than the Latour, with more open fruit (and a bit of
mustiness that blew off) and complexity was there but you had to work
at it a bit. I was worried about this wine last time I drank it,
wondering if it might be starting to break up, but this bottle was in
fine shape.

Reggiano, Tomme, and Beddis blue cheese with fig sausage and fruit
toats.

1975 Ch. Montrose - last time I had this it was just getting into
drinking plateau (which with this vintage means that the tannin has
abated while there is still enough fruit to enjoy the wine). This time
around it showed a nose that was positively Rhonish with a funky
barnyard thing going on, and this never transformed into the more
orthodox cedar and fruit nose that had been typical of this wine in
the past. Big, tannic, weighty, but based on this bottle I wouldn't
think it would get any better. When last tasted the tannin seemed
lower but I expect that the fruit was just more forward in that
bottle.

It is worth restating that it would be a big mistake for anyone to
generalize from notes like these. With wines of this sort of age you
simply cannot take one data point and expect the rest of the bottles
of that wine to toe the line. Cellaring history and bottle variation
have a great effect on wines like this. One tired bottle may just be
that - a single non-characteristic showing. When you see three or four
similar notes then it is fair to deduce a trend.

Finally, Bramley Apple cake with crackly meringue and vanilla bean ice
cream

1988 Ch. Doisy Daene - along with Doisy Vedrines, these are the twin
Doisy sisters one commonly sees - the other, Doisy Dubroca, seems to
be exceedingly rare. Medium colour, a nose that was pleasant but
devoid of Botrytis, pretty good mouth feel, sweet entry, and my first
impression was that the acidity was too low, but after tasting awhile
it seemed OK, so maybe it was alright in the first place. decent but
nothing special.

On Nov 24, 11:44 am, "Bill S." > wrote:

> 1975 Ch. Mouton Rothschild - while clearly not quite the wine that the
> monumental Latour is, this bottle of Mouton acquitted itself very
> well, showing a nose that I kept coming back to as it had a bit more
> complexity than the Latour, with more open fruit (and a bit of
> mustiness that blew off) and complexity was there but you had to work
> at it a bit. I was worried about this wine last time I drank it,
> wondering if it might be starting to break up, but this bottle was in
> fine shape.

The Andy Warhol label wine. I was glad to see your notes on this. I
bought a case of it on release, and 11 bottles remain. I tried a
single bottle a few years ago, but I did not consider it ready then.
Likely it is nearly time to try another bottle. I think I need to
drink my remaining 1970 Mouton before I drink much of the 1975, based
on my tastings. Both the 1970 and and 1975 Mouton generated quite
mixed reactions from the critics. Nearly all agreed that it was
unready for many years. I have seen some estimates that it might hold
well until 2020. Others think you might as well drink it soon. Quality
wise, the 1975 is decent and at least above average. However it is no
match for the top Mouton vintages in modern times.

>
> Reggiano, Tomme, and Beddis blue cheese with fig sausage and fruit
> toats.
>
> 1975 Ch. Montrose - last time I had this it was just getting into
> drinking plateau (which with this vintage means that the tannin has
> abated while there is still enough fruit to enjoy the wine). This time
> around it showed a nose that was positively Rhonish with a funky
> barnyard thing going on, and this never transformed into the more
> orthodox cedar and fruit nose that had been typical of this wine in
> the past. Big, tannic, weighty, but based on this bottle I wouldn't
> think it would get any better. When last tasted the tannin seemed
> lower but I expect that the fruit was just more forward in that
> bottle.

Again I was glad to see your notes for this wine. I only bought 3
bottles of Montrose 1975 on release and have not opened one yet. I
remember estimates that it might drink well until 2030.

> It is worth restating that it would be a big mistake for anyone to
> generalize from notes like these. With wines of this sort of age you
> simply cannot take one data point and expect the rest of the bottles
> of that wine to toe the line. Cellaring history and bottle variation
> have a great effect on wines like this. One tired bottle may just be
> that - a single non-characteristic showing. When you see three or four
> similar notes then it is fair to deduce a trend.

The 1975s likely are only a mild example of how tannic and acid some
top wines could be in the past. One of the extremes must have been the
1870 first growths, many of which are still drinking well if from cold
cellars and well stored. These wines were so undrinkable when young,
that many of the people who cellared them never drank them and some
were not ready in the lifetime of their children either. This likely
is the reason that some were still left and turned up at auction in
modern times after they finally matured after many decades.