For the well-heeled Burg lover

Tom asks: "What would be your _ultimate_ fantasy tasting? Limit it to _one_ evening (with dinner of your choice) and a dozen or so wines."

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With the list of wines below, who would even bother to pay any attention to the meal. I would gladly eat a tough old boiled hen to taste these wines at one event.

Romanee-Conti 1945; Musigny Vielles Vignes 1949, de Vogue; Mouton 1945; Latour 1945; Cheval-Blanc 1947; Tokaji Essencia 1811, Bretzenheim Cellar; Quinta do Noval Vintage Port 1931; Constantia 1791,1809,etc; Margaux 1900; Yquem 1921; Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling TBA 1971, J J Prum; Bastardo Vintage Madeira 1875, Cossart Gordon

Even without food, the cost of this event would have to be thousands of US$ per person. Even the relatively recent1985 Romanee Conti goes for around $US 5000 per bottle, and heaven knows what you would have to pay for some of the wines listed above, if you could find them at all. I guess this would be a dinner for billionaires.

"Mark Lipton" in message news: snipped-for-privacy@eudrup.ude...

My own experience is that Allen Meadows is an entirely down-to-earth wine enthusiast (he helped some people review far more modest and approachable wines not long ago) and I have noticed to date none of the fawning clueless fan-club attention visible with another US wine critic (will they someday follow the example described by the Sterns in ISBN 0060164700 of inflatable, life-size, naked Wayne Newton dolls sold in Las Vegas?). Finally this tasting is evidence for anyone who is a number-following buyer of numerically-rated first-growth Bordeaux that Burgundies are better avoided, they are all about high prices, evidently, and hard for anglophones to pronounce, besides.

I wouldn't pay tht much for a dinner, just couldn't feel comfortable for evening -I'd be obsessing re the cost all night. We recently had a similar discussion re Masa in NYC- the only way to go is omakase, which starts at $350 (before drinks, tax, and tip!). I just couldn't do it.

That being said, I don't think it's particularly unreasonable. A pretty serious list of some of the most serious producers in RSV (no Drouhin, though, think their RSV is supposed to be good) from good vintages. The dinner wines are no slouches, either, the Beaux Monts is considered one of Leroy's top wines.

And from what I've heard re tastings led by the Burghound, if one is into Burgundy they are incredibly informative. I once met him (at a Bordeaux dinner of all things!) and he is a truly nice guy, to boot.

If I'm looking at a list of wines (say on Zachy's site), a Rovani or WWS (Mansson?) review makes me yawn. A Clive Coates or Tanzer review might spark my attention a little. A Burghound review makes me look very carefully - for my tastes he's the best palate in Burgundy [these are of course assuming positive reviews, but stores usually only post those). Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

I know Allen and have been to tastings with him. He's a really terrific guy and very dedicated to Burgundy. HIs Burghound.com site is one of the most comprehensive reports that I've seen. Bi!!

Bill, Dale and Max: Just to clarify, I am in no way criticizing either Mr. Meadows or the event. In fact, if my net worth were an order of magnitude greater than it is, I might very well be among the participants. From what I've heard, burghound.com is certainly among the best sources of information on Burgundy available. This is actually one of my biggest weaknesses: because of the price of top Burgundy in the US, I still remain relatively ignorant of its potential for greatness. But, thanks to the insight gained from this forum, I've been making slow inroads... :-)

Mark Lipton

LOL! Given that the youngest wine on your list is now 57 years old, boiled hen might be the most appropriate backdrop for these wines anyway (though the sweet wines could probably use a good cheese).

Most likely true. It sounds like the sort of event a Hardy Rodenstock could possibly stage, or else we wait for another Glammis Castle-type auction preview at Christie's or Sotheby's... ;-)

Mark Lipton

Salut/Hi Mark Lipton,

le/on Sat, 24 Apr 2004 22:56:32 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Hey, I think that with the current low price of air fares from the States, I could put on a similar tasting here for the same price (including return air fare from the NYC area) AND make a tidy profit.

Seriously. I'd not look to St Vivant, but say the entire range of DRC wines from two successive years, preceded by the range of Lafon wines (with one of the DRCs), and finishing with three different '95 top class monbazillacs. That's about the same number of wines.

Hmm. Have to take over the Roche de Vic. At 10 glasses per bottle for this number of wines, that would be 5 bottles of each wine.

"Mark Lipton" in news: snipped-for-privacy@eudrup.ude:

To put too fine a point on it, I cannot speak for others of course, but I was just adding sincere praise to Mr. Meadows, I did not see read any criticism of him in the original.

Yes the price is an obstacle, although the breadth of producers and subregions leaves remarkable items at moderate price for the patient fan who will steadily try promising examples as they appear, and buy and hold the ones that "speak." (I am not making this up.)

I'll assume that was a question. :^/

I'd much prefer that the Burgundians _all_ do a better job of stewardship of their magical land! Why is such bad winemaking permitted there by the French? That's not the norm in any of the other French viticultural regions. You can close your eyes, grab any bottle of Bordeaux and it'll likely be decently drinkable, at _minimum_! Spend 3x the ? in Burgundy and at least half the time you'll be very disappointed. >:^(

Tom S

"Tom S" in news:ZC0jc.1469$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com

I'll see your asumption and raise you. ;-)

I may have come to the present moment through a very different path in the world of wine. (I have always enjoyed good Bordeaux too, by the way, and even occasionally still buy them -- my complaints there are along a different axis: the shift over the last 20 years in the way the public has dealt with Bordeaux, as a new public has come to the wines of Bordeaux, in a new way; effects on prices, and even on winemaking.)

But I genuinely do not understand this interest in bad wines. I (with like-minded enthusiasts, merchants, etc.) sample new Burgundies that come on the market, known by experience or suspicion of merit. We buy the wines we like, young, and put them away. We see a varied cavalcade of good wines this way. Some years you find more good ones than others (2000 was spotty; in the US, 2000 and 2001 also suffer from a fast exchange-rate shift and other financial factors.) But I believe I already detailed on this forum 15 or 20 outstanding red Burgundy labels at $10-20 US a bottle that I scored in the last decade this way. (Not counting some good Beaujolais.) These prices encourage quantity purchase. A few of them brought people to tears (after proper aging of course). I recommended the same procedure 15 years ago here, in a Usenet article on moderate-priced wines. (I have also stressed that this is an _ongoing_ process, not something you go out and do one-shot; that is not, of course, what some newbies want to hear.) But in this light it is difficult to see why someone would even rhetorically imagine grabbing bottles at random, or emphasize poor value which can certainly be found if you want to, or compare statistics. That isn't, at least in my experience, how Burgundy "works."