Saturday, September 03, 2005
Bordeaux from the 80's - Dinner at the Israel's
Chateau Montrose
Chateau Latour
Chateau Lafite
Porto Barros Colheita
For more than a month, Eitan and I carefully planned the menu to complement this special event.
In order to make the evening more interesting, I've decided to challenge my friends: the wines will be blind tasted. And if that wasn't enough, a 4th non-French wine (Cab Sauv based) was added to the other three without sharing its origin... - they would need to find the "Joker" by the end of the evening...
The results were amuzing...
The "Joker", Semeli, a red wine from Cyprus (!) had the taste, complexity, color and sediment like an old Bordeaux (although it was a 1998 vintage...).
Only one guest, Gemini, hit the jackpot - he guessed the "Joker" and even identified the Chateau Montrose out of the 4 different wines - VERY impressive!!!
When it came to choosing the evening's favorite wine, there were difference of opinion - one surprising fact was that the wine from Cyprus didn't fall back compared to the rest of the supperior wines from Bordeaux.
All Bordeaux were decanted for 7 to 8 hours. I read it once and tried it before and it seems the best way to go with top Bordeuax wines. Trying them earlier (and I did...) will not maximize the complexity and flavors these special wines have to offer.
Some of us voted for the Montrose and some preferred the Latour and the Lafite. The Lafite was relatively young and showed additional cellaring potential - multi layers of berries, leather, minerals and long silky finish.
The Montrose introduced nice flower scent combined with earth. It was medium bodied, smooth, elegant and balanced.
The food came out great... we started the dinner with a knock out - foie gras, sweet bread (no, it has nothing to do with bread, it's an internal part near the throat of the cow) and onion marmalade. To accompany this delicacy, we had the great Hungarian 1999 Royal Tokaji (5 puttonyos) wine – it was a WOW!!!
To battle the “cholesterol attack”, the next dish was a nice green salad with pine nuts, cranberry goat cheese with a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette.
The main course was all about lamb – we had a lamb shank stuffed with Saskatchewan wild rice, Porcini mushrooms, Lebanese truffles and Morrels (what a treat!!!).
Once again the combination Bordeaux-Lamb prooved you can never go wrong with these two...
To finish the evening we had an assorted strong-stinky-cheese plate to complete the amazing nutty, oaky flavour of the old vintage port (thank you Abuelo).
