Hello, Yesterday we had dinner with our good and wine interested friends Catarina and Jan-Olof. Theme was white Burgundies, three were opened and paired with steamed mussles, a creamy soup with vegetables, and potatoes fried in the oven (quartered, dabbed with olive oil, sprinkled with coarse salt, run under the grill with the fan running). The two first bottles had been purchased at the same event - a great tasting in the cellar of Coche-Bizouard (I have repeated this so often thant most likely I am under suspicion of having a mercantile vetnure running with M. Coche). They were, however, both too young - particularly the Meursault "Limozin", but also the Auxey-Duresse (both 2004 vintage). The third one, I had picked more or less because I stumbled over it in the cellar, and had little hope for it. It was a St Romain 2003, from a guy named Rapet, who had one of the most cluttered and dirty cellars I have ever had the bad luck of encountering. Funny, this: It was the wine of the evening. Perfect white Bourg nose, with hazelnuts, butter, very slight oxidative notes, body quite full with apples and violets, rather good length - we believe it to be at its peak right now, and with little prospect of getting better. I may certainly be wrong. My thoughts, before opening it, was more on the lines of "well, we should have used this to steam the mussles in". It would pair a humble pie perfectly.
The dessert, now. Once more, I had made something from a French cook book - a creme patissiere aromatised with tea leaves - according to the recipe, Orange Jaïpur which is not obtainable, but something with orange zest in it at least - and orange juice, that was layered between phyllo sheets that had been dabbed with butter and sugar, then baked to a golden brown.
This taxed our cellar for an accompaniment. We went for Alsace Riesling, Vendange Tardive, and it was no good. There is a certain biterness from the tea, and the orange gives an acidity that made the Riesling feel dumb and unresponsive.
Perhaps this is a dessert that simply has no natural wine accompaniment. Any thoughts?
Cheers
Nils