On Sep 16, 9:24*am, "Bill S." > wrote:
> Notes from a Commanderie de Bordeaux dinner in Vancouver at the
> Terminal City Club.
>
> Interesting mix of hit and misses, both vinous and gustatory, in this
> tasting of the 1998 vintage of St. Emilion Premier Crus Classe B
> wines. We were fortunate to have Bill Blatch of Vintex over on his
> annual tour and he agreed to speak on these wines dear to his heart.
>
> He was able to relate from personal experience on the spot, the
> conditions that developed in that year. *He said that up to midsummer
> it looked like being another excellent year and talk of another 1982
> was bandied about, but July was cold and damp, followed by a very hot
> August (record temperatures up to 39 C.) and the vines were stressed,
> resulting in small thick skinned grapes, so talk turned to a possible
> 1986.
>
> In September it rained a bit and they got the whites in, decent wines
> but not the best, and a they came up to harvest time for the reds, on
> September 16 they experienced anther heat wave that lasted through the
> 26th. They got all the merlot in during that period, at which point it
> again rained and the cab franc was brought in under various degrees of
> dilution from the rain. *Definitely a right bank vintage that resulted
> in a lot of slightly green Medocs from cabernet picked earlier than
> they would have liked.
>
> We started out with a glass of white with some amuses bouches:
>
> 2006 ‘G’ de Guiraud – quite a tropical fruit nose on this wine that
> showed some colour development – mango, possibly? *Hint of botrytis
> also in the nose, and a smooth palate presence, but I thought it was a
> tad low in acidity and suffered as bordering on the slightly dull as a
> result.
>
> Then we plunged into the wines in flights, with food, which I will
> also describe.
>
> Wild summer mushroom and morel sauté on candied cashew brioche – the
> mushrooms were very good, simply done, but the fact that the plated
> with jus on the bottom and had the brioche toasted and very crisp made
> it seem too much like eating mush on hard toast. *Either putting jus
> on top of the brioche or forgetting about that ‘candied’ affectation
> would have improved the dish. *I give it a C+
>
> Figeac – *this wine had 40% cab, 20% cab franc and only 20% merlot,
> but they did an excellent job with it. *Very nice nose with currant
> spice and good fruit levels on palate. The wine was still a bit tight
> and tannic, and needs more time – Bill expected it to be more ready.
>
> Beausejour Becot – the nose wasn’t quite as extroverted on this wine,
> but it had some depth once you worked at it a bit, and the tannins
> were softer. It is ready for drinking with nice balance, a good
> showing.
>
> Beausejour Duffau Lagarrosse – berry nose, soft on palate, but showed
> a green note I didn’t like and was a tad dilute, I thought.
>
> Trottevielle – not much nose going on this one unless you rooted about
> for it, and found the decent fruit down under. This still has
> significant tannin, and drinks acceptably well, but certainly isn’t up
> to the same standard as the rest of the flight.
>
> The Figeac was the clear winner and certainly (despite cab-rich
> encepagement ) the only typical St. Emilion in this flight. *The Becot
> would be runner up,
>
> Duck consommé with roast hazelnut and duck leg confit in ravioli.
> This course came off very well indeed, and the fact that had I been
> cooking it would have been finished with a hint of sherry or Madeira
> didn’t prevent me giving it an A rating.
>
> Magdaleine – nice spice in this nose, alloyed with vanilla and dark
> fruit and perhaps the barest hint of anise. *Good stuffing but well
> balanced and ready for pleasurable drinking now, a smooth enjoyable
> wine and my best of flight, as well as the only one that showed any
> typicity.
>
> Belair – the bad news was that they only had one good bottle, so we
> had to share two glasses at each table. The good news was that the
> modest amount of wine we had was more than enough to eliminate this
> one from serious consideration. It seemed like it was a decade older
> than it was, and was thin, acidic and tannic all at once, with a nose
> that started out fairly pleasantly but downhill all the way from
> there.
>
> La Gaffeliere – first bottle corked. * We do our own decanting and
> wine service at these events as experience has shown that we can’t
> rely on the restaurants to be competent to handle wines like this.
> Sadly, on this occasion, neither was our wine crew. One of their
> primary jobs is to weed out any bad bottles so that the much
> preferable course of everyone getting a smaller pour of good wine
> occurs. Unfortunately I guess the Nose was tired, because this was the
> first of two bottles that they failed to weed out that were very
> obviously corked, which means that you need to go hat in hand, as it
> were, begging for a taste from a good glass while you should be
> enjoying a few monuments of uninterrupted introspection with the wine,
> assessing and taking notes.
>
> I was able to get a taste of a good one and found a peasant medium
> bodied elegant wine ready to drink.
>
> The next course was chervil and brown butter roast quail with
> “glorious organics celebration greens and smoked plum vinaigrette”. I
> wish the cooks had spent more time on designing and cooking this dish
> than creating effusive and totally unwarranted descriptive puffery, as
> it was ultimately mundane – C rating. *While they were at it they
> might have given us the other half of the quail (or a magnifying glass
> to locate what we were served.
>
> Angelus – some excellent spicy fruit in this nose, fairly ripe, and a
> dry tannic feel in the midpalate. The flavours had good concentration
> with some cocoa/mocha showing through, and the wine had good length.
> Good show!
>
> Canon – this one was also fairly dark, and had a sweet if somewhat
> simple nose and good fruit in the middle. Drinks well now. Not one to
> turn somersaults over, but nonetheless a welcome addition to the
> tasting.
>
> Clos Fourtet – I have always enjoyed this wine, which used to be one
> of the hardest St. Emilions that demanded the most patience in
> cellaring. *I got cherries and anise on the nose, lot of up front
> tannin, but it was ripe tannin and while the wine drinks quite well
> now, it has a long life ahead of it.
>
> The final course (I don’t bother including dessert as I don’t eat them
> and they neither go with nor complement wine) was a ‘duo of milk fed
> veal – braised breast, baby turnips, summer truffle infused loin and
> fava bean fricassee’. *While some plates looked decidedly better than
> mine, I received a truffle infused loin that was both overcooked and
> all fat in the centre, allied with a couple of slices of breast that
> was cold. *I did not venture to assay the veg so can’t comment on
> that. A ‘D’ rating on that course from me, I’m afraid, although it
> could have been a C+ had they given me a good plate at the right
> temperature. *The kitchen was not on form unfortunately, except for
> that lovely soup course.
>
> Pavie – OK, I’ll start off by saying that while many will do nip-ups
> over atypical wines with huge over ripe fruit, and while I have been
> known to enjoy that style from time to time, I do not welcome it in a
> St. Emilion. It is like being presented with a slab of smoking foi
> gras on your breakfast cereal – a miscegenation in terms of the
> expectations. *In other words, this wine was in some ways more like a
> Californian, or (obviously with a different set of organoleptic
> qualities) an Australian wine than a St. Emilion. * It is like hitting
> some new age fruit monster in a Tuscan tasting, right in the middle of
> a flight of traditional sangioveses, and you stop and give a hearty
> WTF??
>
> This dark wine was super ripe with plums and smoke in the nose, had a
> sweet weighty presence on palate and finished with great length.
> Having said all that, it reminded me more of a ripe Californian wine
> than a Bordeaux. *Imagine yourself standing in the car rental lot
> thinking you’ve rented a classic XKE Jaguar and finding out they gave
> you the keys to a Hummer with chrome bumpers the size of a small
> barn. *I can see how people would be impressed with this sort of wine,
> but I find it too out of place to applaud it.
>
> Pavie Macquin – I liked the nose on this better than I had the Pavie –
> blackberries and anise, and I thought it also had better balance, or
> was perhaps just less over ripe. It had exceptional length and if
> given the choice between this and the Pavie, I’d opt for this. *It
> didn’t lack for concentration, but it didn’t throw it in your face
> quite as defiantly either.
>
> Troplong Mondot – another corked bottle and so an abbreviated note.
> Nose more restrained, but that is not saying much in this flight! Some
> decent fruit deep down, a much more elegant wine that was quite good
> and more ready to drink.
>
> An interesting and informative tasting. I am glad to say that I have
> no personal stake in how these wines showed as I didn’t buy 98s, but
> it is always fascinating to see what winemaking and weather can do in
> a vintage. *Off to taste the 2007 barrel samples with Bill today, if I
> can find time. *Again, not a vintage that interests me, but always
> worth a look from an academic perspective.

Thanks for the notes. I loved you assessment of the Pavie...my
thoughts entirely. Too bad about the meal. It sounded like more
misses than hits.