Hong Kong Wine Society Annual Dinner Wines 2014
Champagne Pierre Moncult NV from Oger showed some of the best of the grape and terroir characteristics, recalling a lot of my edgy ex-import Gonet. That is the kind of Champ I would like to drink with eateries.
The more serious whites flight started with a slightly maderiized Joseph Drouhin 2005 Grand Cru Vaudesir. The correct bottle showed charming and mild floral and fruit form which eventually focused us to an intense minerality on nose and palate. Not bad as a Grand Cru, but surely all my friends should have seen better. This Vaudesir from a respected maker also served as a contrast and lesson to lean from the big, creamy Seasmoke Southing 2004 using some of the best clones on French yeast, significantly malolactic fermentation with extended oak ageing, handpicked techniques, building from scratch with utmost care and love etc and etc, …the result is a real Gourmet type of wine with admirable high scores, big but never stomach-filling.
San Leonardo IGT 2004 is almost Bordeaux like: elegances, acidity, tannins and structure. Dark crimson, very interesting, complex, rather lush amalgam of tar and super-ripe black fruit. Lovely velvety texture and not at all unlike a first-class Bordeaux with a smart palate. Yum yum.
Grange 2004 may have been best put to lay for another 3 to 4 years. Purple, dark red in colour. Sweet, malted coconut oak, interwoven with really bright red fruit, like a raspberry bounty & just a smidgen of (classic for Grange) VA. Cocoa. Black fruit eventually. Impossibly youthful and velvety. Can’t say much with this foursquare (in the good sense) and reliable wine form an excellent vintage.
Lafite 1994. Structured with the Lafite elegance. Rigid to Some extent, it still stand, unyielding. Yes, it’s Lafite.
Two interesting sweet wines, more for gourmet purpose rather for connaisseurs. Chateau Tirecul la Gravaiere 2004, from Monbaizillac as I was told. Madame Nay next to me nodded and seemed to approve this hearsay. That wine did not the white fungus and tones associated with Botrytis from most cooler Sauternes. Not had Chateau Tirecul la Gravaiere 2004 got the tropical elements. An excellent sweet with fresh acidity ideal for the not-so-sweet cakes and sweets. Smart choice. Lastly, Port Churchill 1994 probably is a weaker port. But I like the sort of elegance which guided us gently and prepare our leaving. Cool.
