Nite of Chateaus

On a Friday evening, I received a surprise call from Big E asking me to join her for dinner. So I asked, what's the ocassion and the reply was "must there be an ocassion to dine?" Haha.. and so I made my way through the Friday-after-work- traffic-jam to KL for dinner. To my surprise, all my usual wine suspects are there except one.

I was told that we were to have some recessionary wines and food that night since we have to save up for the rainy days. I walked over to the table where all the wines were decantered and where the bottle of champagne has been chilled in the bucket of ice and to my surprise, there wasn't even a label that spelled "recessionary". Maybe I misread the labels or maybe my friends have strike a lottery to call these bottles a recessionary drink. I shall show you what I saw.

Anyone whom can read would know that this is a Dom Perignon 1999 Vintage. Must I say more?!!

After that, we start with a glass of Château Ausone 1993. On the nose, it has very strong tobacco/cigar notes and also licorice. On the palate, it has got delicate tannins and hints of plum. Robert Parker gave this bottle a 85.

Château Ausone is a bordeaux wine on the right bank and of Saint Emilion appllation. It is only one of the two wines, besides Château Cheval Blanc to be classified as Premier Cru Classe (A) in the classification of Saint Emilion wines.

They say, the most beautiful and must visit vineyard shall be the Château Ausone. The 17 acres of Château Ausone is located on Saint Emilion's limestone plateau, just a few metres from the medieval village. I have viewed pictures of the chateau in the net and it was really picturesque.

The second bottle that we tried was the Château Haut-Brion 1993. Château Haut-Brion is one of the closest chateau to Bordeaux in the Pessac-Léognan appellation. During the 17th century, this wine had a huge success in London. It was classified as a first growth of the Gironde in 1855. It is the only first growth or “Premier Cru Classé” of the Graves area. Robert Parker gave this a 92 pointer wine. On the palate, both Ausone and Haut-Brion is almost similar I would say but the nose of Ausone is definitely better.

The last wine for the night would be the Château Montrose 2003. They wanted to keep this bottle for the last so that a comparison could be made between the 3 bottles of which the first two bottle are more superior and how would the third bottle fare among them. Château Montrose is a second classe growth from Saint-Estephe. What was so special about the Montrose is that Robert Parker gave it a 100 points from 97 when he revisited the wine.

It boasts a dense black/purple color in addition to an extraordinary bouquet of scorched earth, blackberries, fabulous purity, and substantial tannin in the finish. This superb, huge, ripe wine is one of the vintage’s most prodigious offerings. It's maturity was said to be somewhere between 2010-2035 but it's also drinking very well now!

Chateau Montrose 2003

My choice of the night would definitely be this bottle of Château Montrose 2003. It superceeds my expectations when compared with the first two bottle of Premier Crus. What I can conclude here is that big labels, big price tags do not mean big wines. A humble bottle like Montrose, given a 100 pointer by RP has just proven that "taste over price and labels" anytime. The Ausone and Haut-Brion 1993 is worth over a thousand ringgit today but this Montrose is just around RM800?

I was glad that we did the bottles side by side to compare the nose and the palate. Although the food is a little bit different from what we usually had, it was good! That night we had some steamed eggs, minced pork, pigeons and chicken soup as opposed to sharks fin and abalone! This is definitely one helluva great "recessionary" dinner I had. I wonder what should I call my dinner that consists of a plate of char kuey teow and teh-o-ais?!!