Some interesting wines

Dinner at the Kimberley Chinese Restaurant (君怡閣),where I brought most of the wines and was introduced to the Kimberley Pig for the first time.

We started with 2 bottles of Californian white, because there was a request for "interesting white wine." They were already slightly chilled when I arrived at the restaurant, but were stuck into ice buckets (against my better judgement). The first wine was the 1998 Sine Qua Non Backward and Forward, which is an interesting blend of 40% Chardonnay, 30% Roussanne, and 30% Viognier. During our last gathering (a more intimate dinner for 4 instead of 9 tonight) a fellow diner had thoroughly enjoyed the 1996 Sine Qua Non Omadhaun & Poltron. She loved the funky label as well as the interesting blend of Roussanne and Chardonnay. So I figured the Backward and Forward would also be a hit. I wasn't wrong. Everyone thought the wine was very interesting, although it needed some time to warm up before the nose really developed in the glass. The nose was pretty buttery and nice, and typically Viognier.

2003 Kongsgaard Viognier/Roussanne - a blend of 55% Viognier and 45% Roussanne. This was amazing and actually more popular than the first wine, due to its explosive nose of tropical fruits and floral notes. Lots of pineapple, lychee, coconut notes. Wonderful.

1998 Sine Qua Non Veiled - this is a Pinot Noir from Oregon and was pretty well received. A few people were surprised that an American Pinot could have such a pleasant nose. But most people were more interested in the labels, where the front label depicted a pair of eyes peeking through a chador, and the back label had Arabic translations to the English text.

1999 Sylvain Cathiard Vosne-Romanee Les Malconsorts - expectations were high for this wine as it comes from both a stellar vintage and a vineyard situated next to DRC's famed La Tâche. Unfortunately as we suspected, the wine was very closed - a condition quite a number of Burgundies from '99 suffer from.

1998 Dominio Pingus - this was meant to be the highlight of the evening. Most people at the table had never tasted this wine, with the exception of two of us (since I held a '98 Spanish tasting in 2003). The wine was opened at 7pm, stoppered until 8pm, and we started serving it around 10pm. However, it was never decanted and arguably was served in the wrong glass. So it was not surprising that the nose was fairly muted and hence a disappointment to me (as well as others). It eventually opened up in the glass around 11pm, just before we called it a night.

1995 Egon Muller Riesling Auslese Scharzhofberger - a request for a German sweet wine. This was my only bottle which fit the request, so I brought it despite the slightly protruding cork indicating a bit of heat damage. The nose was very nice, showing floral and lychee notes. But the acidity was higher than I expected, and it was clear that the wines was going downhill.

Full post on dinner is here.