Two New World Syrahs

Dinner at Le Platane in Shanghai with Dr. Poon.

The first bottle we drank was a house Australian Syrah made for the restaurant. Incredibly, it tasted so much like a Côte-Rôtie I would never have guessed it was Aussie! The wine was drinking beautifully and I am sure that it would not have cost an arm and a leg.

The second bottle of the night was the 1999 Sine Qua Non The Marauder, which was part of the case that I shared with Dr. Poon. The wine had obviously softened quite a bit since I last drank it a few years ago, but it still packed a wallop of minerals (to me the nose is still full of iron and hence reminds me of blood...)

Full post on dinner is here.

Lynch-Bages dinner in Shanghai

Dinner at Allure, organized by the Commanderie du Bordeaux.  Sylvie Cazes was in attendance.

The pre-dinner tasting consisted of the lower-end wines made by the Cazes family, such as Villa Bel-Air in Graves and L'Ostal Cazes in Minervois. Interesting to taste but not exactly the reason why we were there.

The wines served for dinner were the 2005 Blanc de Lynch-Bages (always an excellent dry white), the 2004 Cordeillan-Bages (glad to have finally drunk this wine), the 2003 Ormes de Pez (not a bad effort), and finally the 2001 Lynch-Bages and the 1996 Lynch-Bages. The 2001 was still a bit tight, but the 1996 was just beautiful to drink now and is a classic Pauillac.

Full post on dinner is here.

1940 Haut-Brion

Dinner at Paris 1930 in Taipei to celebrate dad's birthday.

1940 Haut-Brion - the nose was reminiscent of the last bottle that we drank, and of the other older wines from similar era. The fruit was still there, but this time the preserved plums was very evident. Mom loved this wine. I have never seen her so eager to drink anything with alcohol as she did tonight. She commented that this was "her type of wine" because she liked the acidity and the maturity. Since we drank the wine without decanting (for fear of the wine collapsing in the decanter), the wine was fairly acidic on the palate at the beginning. Of course we knew she really, really liked all types of Chinese preserved plums (酸梅湯) so this is definitely up her alley. As aeration occurred in the bottle, the tannins gathered strengh and the acidity faded on the palate. This, of course, meant that mom enjoyed the wine less as time went on.

Since the wine had been knocked around a bit and we didn't decant it (hence no chance to run it thru the usual coffee filter), it was fairly cloudy. As we neared the bottom, I stopped pouring because we were obviously going to get the sediement. Wouldn't you believe it, mom insisted on emptying the bottle! She waited until the sediment had time to settle in the glass, then drank the clear (if you can call it that) wine in one quick swoop before the sediment had time to move.

Full post on dinner is here.