Hello; Hail, hail the gang´s all here - or were, last Saturday - the AAB gang, that is. Meeting place was our house, theme red Bourgs. Bring what you like. Claes and Inga-Lisa take the hors d´oeuvres, we do the main course, etc. We welcomed our guests with the first mistake - Kir made from Creme de Mûres, black berry liqueur and ALigoté (Drouhin). Tasted good but - laid out the tastebuds completely. Not good. Four reds were then poured, blindly, and chicken liver mousse was served (good one, at that). Here we were looking down into four almost identical glasses -maybe 2 and four were darker red? Maybe a hint of brick in number 4? So. Let´s compare our impressions of the nose of the various drinkables! One word - nothing. Noone feels _anything_. The glasses are olfactorically mute (sorry, but there is no appropriate word...). Here was mistake number two. None of the wines had been aerated, except for a short while in the glass. Only after a goodly while did shy aromas of leather, raspberries, strawberries, and cherries emanate, particulary from 2 and 4. Chicken liver devoured, enters the main dish. Mistake number three. I had had some sort of idea of keeping the tasting in a Bourgogne atmosphere, and so I made Boeuf Bourgignonne. I have never quite realised this but - that dish, with smooth silky red Burgs, is murder! They do not suit each other at all! Day after, while contemplating the catastrophe, we were in perfect agreement that a Cote du Rhone would have been a much better pairing with this admittedly delicious dish. We then tried to say soemthing appropriate about tastes, but, apart from a hesitant agreement that 2 and 4 were the best, loud praise completely failed to emanate for any of the wines. Kitty who is frank and fearless said that none of the wines did anything for her, and that this was the least interesting tasting we´ve had so far, and I have to agree ... after some discussion, for a comparison, a bottle of Errazuriz Estate Pinot Noir 2003 (from CHile) was opened and acclaimed the best bottle of the evening so far. To my mind, it was too jammy, to sweetish, and too short (nasty, sweetish and short, right?) but that is a matter of opinion. I then opened a further bottle, this one a Savigny-le-Beaune 1999 from Lucien Jacob, which was everything you´d hope of an entry level wine from that commune - exuberant of raspberries, slight whiff of autumn leaves, refreshing acidity and very acceptable length (SEK 65 at the producer in 2001), and this then dethroned the Chilean. So what had been in the 4 original glasses?
1 Santenay 1998 Chartron et Trebuchet. Possibly two mistakes rolled into one. Santenay is not known for very good wines, and C&T are mainly into whites so ...
2 Nuits-St-Georges 1er Cru "Les Rues de Chaux" 1999 Chicotot. Too young by far I´d say. Let it sleep in the cellar for several years.
3 La Vignée Pinot Noir 2001 Bouchard Père & Fils. Bouchard apparently makes some good wines but they sell their worst stuff to Sweden, since it is well known that Swedes will drink anything. This was not bad, just uninteresting. Treated better, and with some prior rest, it may have been better.
4 Pommard Chanlains 1er Cru Dom Bernard Delagrange. This could very well, with decent treatment, have been the star of the evening. It felt fairly closed, and with little hints of age for a wine 12 years old.
I will contemplate my mistakes (for they were mine, mostly) and redeem myself at the next AAB in our home. Meanwhile, read and take warning, good sirs and gentles all ...
Cheers
Nils Gustaf