H is for Haut Brion

On 10th April, 1663, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: "to the Royal Oak Taverne...And here drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan, tha hath a good and most perticular taste that I never met with."

Now I have a somewhat tenuous association with Samuel Pepys and his diary. We were at the same college albeit at very different times. I think I might have thrown up outside the door to the Pepys Library but worst of all, I could have ruined the original diaries (a national treasure no less) by flooding the bathroom above the library had I not remembered in the nick of time and gone back to turn off the shower.

The wine which Pepys was referring to is of course the first growth Chateau Haut Brion and while one could only guess if the 1661 or 1662 vintage which Pepys had was any good, Haut Brion has a special place in my heart and my liver. You might find it hard to believe it was the first first growth I’ve ever tasted and it was less than five years ago. You never forget your first time.

This was sometime in early 2000. Not far from the site of the Royal Oak Taverne which was located in Lombard Street and served Londoners as a tavern until 1780, my least favourite American lawyer from my favourite American law firm invited me to dinner. I think the occasion was some partner or other visiting London. He ordered the most expensive wine on the list. I swirled, inhaled and gargled.

“1995”, I said as I swallowed. Jaws fell and cutlery clattered onto the table.

“You read the label!” my host declared.

I shook my head and it was true. I said no more on the subject. Everyone was dead impressed and I was not going to give myself away. I could do this for a living I thought and the rest, as they say, is history.

What I had not told anybody at that table was that I had the same wine at the same restaurant the day before with some recruitment agents who were trying to get some work from us. What the lawyers don’t know can’t hurt them and I will say this just one more time. You never forget your first time.

So I had two bottles of the ‘95 in consecutive days and too much of a good thing is wonderful. Parker gave it 96 points but what I like about it is the understated elegance of the wine. If that wine could speak, it would have been eloquent, well-spoken, seductive even. I had not gotten into the habit of wine notes in those days so you’ll just have to make do with Parker who says:

“This wine has been brilliant on every occasion I have tasted it. More accessible and forward than the 1996, it possesses a saturated ruby/purple color, as well as a beautiful, knock-out set of aromatics, consisting of black fruits, vanillin, spice, and wood-fire smoke. Multidimensional and rich, with layers of ripe fruit, and beautifully integrated tannin and acidity, this medium to full-bodied wine is a graceful, seamless, exceptional Haut-Brion that should drink surprisingly well young.”

I’ll just add one comment - has been known to be better than sex.

G is for Gnashing of Teeth

It’s a well known fact that the mark up on wines in restaurants is, at the very least, stratospheric. When it gets a little higher than that, it usually leaves me a little short of breath. Not least from the expending of oxygen required for the fuming that accompanies the expense. I mean, how difficult can it be to open a bottle of wine and to pour it into a couple of glasses at the table?

A fortnight ago, we were at Cantina which does a very good pizza and I thought it would be nice to pick a bottle of wine to go with the food. So I popped into the cellar and chose a modest bottle of Sicilian red. I think it was a Abbazia Santa Anastasia Nero d’Avola 2002 but it could well have been a Azienda Agricola something or other of the same varietal and of the same vintage.

It is an intriguing wine that starts off opening into red fruits and spices before curling up again into smoky acidity. It must have been at least a good twenty minutes before opening up again into plummy sweetness and kept right on going up the saccharine scale at what seemed to be an alarming rate before finally flattening out.

Imagine my surprise and (I must admit) dismay when I discovered the same wine was retailing (yes, that’s right - retail) for Eur 5 in Italy and the rest of Europe (except the UK where it was going for £7). Don’t get me wrong - I really enjoyed the wine and I would probably drink more of it in the months and years to come. I just think my enjoyment was somewhat marred by the fact I paid S$65 for it.

Two nights before that, we went to one of the wine bars at Dempsey after dinner and had a bottle of CVNE Imperial Gran Reserva 1998. In keeping with the history of the place (it used to be an army camp), the owners kept up the barrack exterior and even left the toilet block in use although they did the inside up with wall to wall racks for the wine and comfortable rattan sofas to sit on.

The beauty of the place is that you pay retail prices and they slap on a small surcharge if you drink it there. So it was something like $60 and $10 which is pretty good given the retail price was about the same as London prices and the surcharge was certainly less than in any restaurant anywhere in the world. With the one possible exception of the old Tate Gallery in London.

Anyway, the wine was excellent. Concentrated, complex and surprisingly New World in its outlook with a fair bit of new leather in the nose. Much more fruit than should have been expected given the vintage. Opened nicely into a bit of herb, a bit of spice and a bit of cedar and sandalwood. Felt a little less acidic than what I would expect of the Tempranillo but good structure with plenty of mouth-coating glycerol which should do well with a couple more years of cellaring. Certainly wins my wine of the week award.

Rounding off the week, I took along a bottle of Pio Cesare Barbera d’Alba 2000 to a little soiree on Saturday evening and not without some trepidation. The Pope may have declared the millennial year a Jubilee year and made the guys in Rome clean all the buildings and public statues but in the Piedmont, it just rained. So it was a pleasant surprise to find a wine that came with a good floral and strawberry nose, more red fruit in the mouth in what I can only describe as preserved fruit way.

Given the rain, it was no surprise the wine was a little lacking in concentration but while it was thin, it also tasted fairly old. It was pale and thin so if I had been the given the Rioja at the same time, would probably have mistaken this for the older wine. Still it was suave, sophisticated and a bit of a bargain at $34 from the Christmas sales.

Isn't it strange that you never get a sale at a restaurant?

C (still?) is for Comtesse

After the heroics of Christmas Eve, I’d like to think the week following Christmas (apart from one evening’s lapse) was characterised by uncharacteristic restraint and moderation. Apart from that one evening’s lapse when I had to ask a friend to drive my car but that’s another story.

The reward for all this restraint and moderation was swift in appearing - a superb example of a second wine from a Super Second Growth estate (though the snobs amongst us might still say once a “tutu” always a “tutu”).

Now second wines from Bordeaux estates have had fairly mixed press for a long time and probably rightly so. Second wines, even those from First Growth estates, are made from grapes which for one reason or another cannot be put into the best wines. Often the reasons are fairly benign - if a winemaker is only going to put 30 per cent of the crop of Merlot grapes into the first wine, the rest of the Merlot is hardly going to be thrown away or even sold off.

Which means in the above case, the second wine may have a much higher percentage of a grape which may figure much less significantly in the fist wine. Then again, say a prolonged thunderstorm hits in the middle of the harvest, no prizes for guessing where the sodden fruit is going to end up. So, by and large, it is probably safe to assume that the first wine is not going to be reflective of what the second is like.

Back to the wine under discussion - the Reserve de la Comtesse 1997 is the second wine of Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande (to name it in its full glory). Of all the Second Growth estates, that have aspired to follow the elevation of Mouton Rothschild into the heady heights, Pichon Lalande probably has the best and most valid claim - hence the tag of a Super Second.

Now the bad news. 1997 was not a good year. It rained. In May and June which affected the flowering. It was so bad that Parker neglected to rate some of the classed growth wines that year. In all probability, he thought you should say nothing if you can’t say anything nice.

In spite of all this, I think the Reserve is rather good. It has managed to retain all the positive attributes of a Pichon Lalande - the smoothness and the subtlety which distinguishes it from the other top Paulliacs which I think have harsher tannins and more structural rigidity. It started off a little closed - opening up only after about a quarter of an hour in the decanter and continuing to do so in the glass. A surprising amount of fruit with mainly plum and blackcurrant accents plus a little bit of tobacco. Quite a bit of glycerol in the middle and a medium finish with a slight touch of spice at the end.

There was a rumour going round that when the Reserve was first presented, the experts thought that it was better than the first wine but of course they were not allowed to say that otherwise no one would pay double the price of the second for the first. Then the rumour gets more interesting in that the experts either thought or were told that the 97 Reserve would not last much beyond 2004 - which may be why Bibendum reduced prices to about £13 in London before Christmas and why Carrefour were selling them for just under S$50 in Singapore before the New Year.

I’m just happy ‘cos I still have five bottles.