TN: Lots of Lagrange, and Issan and Corbin to boot

Saturday night a contingent of geeks and friends gathered at Le Perigord on the East Side for a night of Bordeaux. Mark Golodetz had arranged for Marcel Ducasse of Ch. Lagrange (St. Julien), Emanuel Cruse of Ch. D'Issan (Margaux), and Annabelle Bardinet of Ch. Corbin (St-Emilion) to attend and generously furnish an assortment of their wines for us to try. It was especially nice of Mark to do that as he knew he couldn't attend. Emil Yunaev took over the details, and did a fine job organizing. A week before Emil said there were a few spaces, so I had helped round up a few others. The pianist from Betsy's trio was in town for a chamber music conference, she and her husband attended with us. First we visited them at an outrageous pied-a-terre penthouse where they were staying courtesy of a patron of the arts, then headed east to Le Perigord. Some old and new faces awaited us, we chose a table and the wines began:

Before dinner:

2001 Ch. Corbin Ripe and fat, deep red fruit and already developing a nice cigarbox note on the nose. Good clean finish. B/B+

2001 Ch. d'Issan Medium-weight, perfumed and elegant. Very pretty wine, not a blockbuster. Wine of the flight for drinking now. B+

2001Ch.Lagrange Bigger and more structured than its flightmates, showing more oak tones. Betsy comments on the coffee notes she finds, and then Emil comments on the espresso notes. I go back and find a coffee note there, can't claim I'm not easily influenced! My least favorite of flight for right now, but glad I own a few- wine with a future. B+/A- when considering potential.

2002 Ch. Corbin Fruit forward and pleasant medium-bodied wine, but not a lot of complexity showing. B/B-

2002 Ch. d'Issan At first I thought this was just fruit. A little time led to some development, with nice floral notes. Balanced wine. Wish I could have nursed this longer, but the 2003s were hot on the trail. B/B+

2002 Ch.Lagrange Again, bigger and more structured. A bit tannic, with deep blackcurrant fruit. B+

(warning: I don't know jacks#$t re evaluating barrel samples)

2003 Ch. Corbin (barrel sample) This wasn't showing me much- tannins, red fruit, tannins. Yet others apparently thought it was one of the more interesting wines of the night. Different strokes, etc. B-

2003 Ch. d'Issan (barrel sample) Fruitbomb with big nose of kirsch, both red and black fruit on the palate. B

2003 Ch.Lagrange (barrel sample) Good deep fruit, but fairly tannic and bordering on flabby. Not my style. B-

The first courses started coming out, though we hadn't finished with the young wines. Anne Riives brought over a bottle of the white 2002 Les Arums de Lagrange to each table. I didn't have high expectations of this wine, a previous vintage (and frankly just about every Bordeaux Blanc from a big Medoc estate I've had) hadn't excited me. But this was quite good- a big bundle of pineapple and tropical fruit with a touch of vanilla-y oak, with enough acidity to balance and allow the wine to complement the food. First Bordeaux blanc in a while that I tasted then thought I might go look for. B++ The first courses were extremely good- Betsy had a mussel and fennel (though she felt it tasted more like celeriac) soup that was delicious, I had a delightful vegetable tart (large portion, in fact I would have liked a little better if it was a tad thinner, as I preferred the outer crusty part to the softer middle).

Then we started on the more mature reds as the main courses arrived. I had some really fantastic lamb, with coco beans and a puree of (I'm guessing) carrots and parsnips. Betsy had some very flavorful duck, though while the leg portion was quite nice, the breast was rather drastically overdone. Wine kept flowing:

1998 Ch. Corbin Fat, red, and ready, very tasty medium-to-full-bodied with ripe red Merlot fruit. Still some tannins, but they're fine and ripe and don't interfere with my enjoyment (especially with a lamb chop). B+

1996 Ch. d'Issan From other's comments, I wonder if there was something a little off about our bottle. This seemed to be a room favorite, but at our table there was a very funny nose to this wine. At first I thought I was getting some VA, but Howard felt it more vegetal. I liked better than most at my table- some nice tannic/acidic struture and cassis fruit underneath, but that nose kept poking at me. B/B- (with possibility of a flawed bottle)

1995 Ch. .Lagrange Closed and tight. Tannin and oak dominated my glass, yet another in a fairly long list of '95 Bordeaux that I've had without showing me much. At moment I prefer the '95 Fiefs de Lagrange. This wine has potential, but when will it start to blossom? I sometimes wonder if some of these '95s might end up being like one of those playground basketball legends who never made the pros, people always talking about how much potential they thought they had. B???A-????C????

1989 Ch. d'Issan Medium-bodied, and maybe a little bit flabby. Interesting nose with merde and earth, but a bit more brawn and acid wouldn't have hurt. B

1990 Ch.Lagrange My WOTN by a good margin. Ripe, rich, with intense flavors of cassis and cigarbox. There's earth, mineral, smoke, and tobacco over the deep blackcurrant and blackberry fruit. Enough fruit to please the California-lovers, yet clear Bordeaux earthiness. I thought this wine was very good a few years ago, but this bottle is singing. A/A-

A cheese course with brie, pont l'eveque, chimay, a chevre, and one other cheese I can't remember. With the chevre and brie I revisted the Arums (still very good) , then with the harder cheeses tried a couple of '88 reds:

1988 Ch. d'Issan Medium-bodied, fragrant and pleasant but lacking some oomph. B-

1988 Ch.Lagrange This more like it. Bigger, still tannic, but with nice underlying black plum and blackberry fruit. A little herby note on the nose. Nice. B+

Nice night, nice people. We were wedged in a round corner banquette, which made circulating difficult. My biggest problem of the night was the heat in the corner, complicated by the fact that it was halfway through dinner (after 4 requests) that water made it to our table. Nice presentations by the winemakers, who also circulated (though they couldn't make it back to my corner- bad seat choice, Dale!). As dessert (an assortment plate with floating island, chocolate mousse, etc.) came around, the formal tasting was over and we broke out our dessert wines as people did a little table-hopping.

A few of the dessert wines:

2001 Ch. de Myrat (Sauternes) I brought because it was one of the few Sauternes I had in 750, rich and deep with tropical fruit and apricot. Good acidity to balance the powerful sweetness. A-/B+

I had also brought a bottle of a '97 Haut-Montravel. Discretion leads me not to name producer, because the most interesting thing about this wine was that it was probably made with rogue grapes. A producer who discovered some of his Semillon wasn't Semillon didn't know what to do with it, and then it developed botrytis. He made a sticky, and gave some to someone who then gave to me. A rarity to share with geeks, but not a good idea to repay the grower's generosity by outing in a public forum. Indeed there's a very botrytis-y nose of honied pineapple and apricot. Quite sweet, and a bit hot. Somewhat clipped on the finish. B

Others brought:

1999 Rieussec (375) My initial impression is sweet and simple, but a little air fleshed it out a bit. Canned peaches and caramel flavors, decent acidity. Young, simple, but maybe could age into something more complex. Probably best '99 Sauternes I've had (faint praise). B/B+

2001 Lafaurie-Peyraugey Yippee yi yo. Tons of sugar but not cloying at all- zippy acidity balancing the sweet. Big big botrytis nose, lovely flavors of orange marmalade, pineapple, mango, and apricot. Long honied finish.A.

Emil was asking folks to take wine home with them, we were looking for a cork. Found a Cline cork. Cline? Does Cline make a dessert wine? Why yes, here's an almost-empty bottle of Cline Late-Harvest Mouvedre. Let's try it. Note to self- please remember from now on that you really don't like sweet reds (excluding port). Howard exclaims in horror "but the bottle's almost empty- people drank that." Luckily, we pointed out every table had dump buckets.

Nice evening. I enjoying being pedantic with my non-geek friends, yet had Howard close enough to consult if I had a serious question. I enjoyed the circulating at the end, seeing old friends and meeting new people.

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

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Dale Williams
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Hey, you native or fluent French speakers. I was struggling with this while writing up notes. If one doesn't say "Chateau", do you drop the D? Grammatically that seems correct, yet I've never heard anyone refer to Issan.

Reply to
DaleW

"DaleW" wrote in news:1105974750.908326.294700 @z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

Unless yo' is dissin' you "should" say Issan. (but they don't actually rhyme) of course try to tell that to the hundreds of thousands who flock to the Museum lovingly called "The d'Orsay"

Reply to
jcoulter

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