GUD BLOG: SINGLE POST

Next, we tried a 1998 Chinon “Beaumont” from Catherine & Pierre Breton, a favorite producer of Loire Valley cab franc of those of us at Swigs — and certainly a favorite of our host for the evening. So I brought this along, hoping it’d meet our expectations, which were quite lofty given the wine’s age and our mutual adoration. It was, I thought, a marvel. How many twenty-something dollar cab francs retain fruit for 11 years? The nose was leathery and acidic at the same time — Steve’s wife thought it had an aroma of olives — and it was loaded with fruit, rough leather, and freshy acidity.

A 2002 Chassagne-Montrachet “Clos de la Boudriotte” VV from Vincent Girardin clearly had some brettanomyces, though this was an interesting experiment in how different people perceive different aromas and flavors. Last year, Todd, Steve, another friend, and I were drinking a beaujolais. Steve and our friend thought it reeked of sewage and animale and tasted similarly, thus rendering it undrinkable, but Todd and I thought it smelled like bubblegum and was overly sweet. This Giradin was no different: While I agreed with Steve that there was brett on the nose and palate, I was tasting more cherry and fruit and he was getting more of the barnyard qualities.

The highlight of the evening had to be Henri Gouges’ 1995 Nuits St. Georges “Les St. Georges”, a masculine but nuanced glass of wine with a lot of angularity and smoke to accent a rich, dark cherry core.

We finished the evening with a 2006 Cotes du Rosa Rhone-style blend from Joseph Swan and a 2002 Volnay from J.M. Boillot. The former was opened at the wrong time and place — it just couldn’t follow all that burgundy — but once our palates were cleaned up a bit, it was a sweet, flowery, well-balanced wine that I think would have easily belonged on the table at the right point in the evening. The Volnay was a bit weighted down with Brett as well, but otherwise was a bit of a relative — a really small-time younger cousin — to the Gouges.

Paired with good company and some braised lamb, these were part of a Wednesday night that I couldn’t have imagined to be better.