Ok, I do admit that sometimes I'm very spoilt when it comes to dining and drinking. I have friends with fine tastebuds and thus sometimes the dinner can get a little lavish. So happened that during dinner sometime ago, it also coincides with my sis getting a promotion and it was very kind of my friend to call for a celebration with some wonderful bubblies.
Dom Perignon 2002The Dom needs no introduction. However, the latest release of the 2002 shows that it is capable of drinking well with a very floral bouquet, hints of ripe apricots, passion fruits and peaches on the palate and a finish with a subtle hint of bitterness. It's good to drink now.
Right after we finished sipping our Dom, a lady brought in a plate of strawberries. At the corner of my eyes, I've already spotted a bottle of Cristal, the jewel and tête de cuvée of Champagne Louis Roederer chilling in the champagne bucket. I was squealing with delight but my sis was kinda blur and didn't know I was excited about her favourite champagne.
"If a wine could ever make you want to pull the top down on your '68 Ferrari convertible, rip off the rearview mirror and take off, this is it" as quoted by Wine & Spirits.
And so, the strawberries were meant to go with the Cristal 2002. Wine & Spirits gave this a 100 pointer but it managed to get a 96 from Robert Parker which is the same rating for Dom 2002. Cristal 2002 is brilliant yellow with light amber highlights and has a beautiful mousse with fine cordon of persistent and fine bubblies. The nose is intense and delicate, revealing a clean and well-blended mixture of flavors of honey, cocoa, lightly toasted hazelnuts, candied citrus fruit.It's a harmony of well-blended flavours that is silky and refined.
Right after we finished sipping our Dom, a lady brought in a plate of strawberries. At the corner of my eyes, I've already spotted a bottle of Cristal, the jewel and tête de cuvée of Champagne Louis Roederer chilling in the champagne bucket. I was squealing with delight but my sis was kinda blur and didn't know I was excited about her favourite champagne.
"If a wine could ever make you want to pull the top down on your '68 Ferrari convertible, rip off the rearview mirror and take off, this is it" as quoted by Wine & Spirits.
And so, the strawberries were meant to go with the Cristal 2002. Wine & Spirits gave this a 100 pointer but it managed to get a 96 from Robert Parker which is the same rating for Dom 2002. Cristal 2002 is brilliant yellow with light amber highlights and has a beautiful mousse with fine cordon of persistent and fine bubblies. The nose is intense and delicate, revealing a clean and well-blended mixture of flavors of honey, cocoa, lightly toasted hazelnuts, candied citrus fruit.It's a harmony of well-blended flavours that is silky and refined.
The dishes we had were pretty simple. There's steamed prawns, "seng kua" with pork, bbq pork ribs and also my favourite pork noodles. Ok, almost all the dishes are pork.
And a cigar in between dishes.
Blind tastings of reds
Vega Sicilia Valbuena 2000
This was the vintage of the good wine grower, for much depended on careful work in the vineyard, which has given the wine richness and concentration, with tightly knit fruit and nicely balanced oak, making for a structured but elegant wine.
Powerfull on the nose, some oak, vanilla, tobacco, but well integrated. Good acidity and bitterness. Long and complex finish.
I love the palate of the second bottle, not knowing that it's actually a bottle of the Wirra Wirra Chook Block 2002. Why this wine of Australia is so special, you ask?
From time to time Wirra Wirra produces wines from very small parcels of extremely intense, high quality fruit. Chook Block is a unique wine which is not made except in exceptional vintage like 2002. It is not made to a particular style; winemaking is purely in a custodial sense attempting to reflect in the wine the quality of both the Chook Block Vineyard, and the vintage. The fruit was 100% Hand Picked, with bunch selection by hand to remove any undesired bunches. "There’s no doubting that it’s a deep, profound wine!"
Only 250 cases were made! There's an oriental spices bouquet with an underlying score of licorice. On the palate, it's concentrated, chocolatey with a refined structure of finely balanced acid and fine grained tannin. As this is purely Shiraz, you can expect it to be medium to full bodied and has a savoury complexity and exceptional length in flavour and intensity.
The friend of mine was trying to bluff me and tells me that this is a bottle of YellowTail which until today, I've yet to taste it. I told him, "If this is really a Yellow Tail, I really don't mind drinking this all the time at all!" And then he kept quiet. Oh come on, I'm still not drunk. The 4 of us drank these 4 bottles in one dinner.
And a cigar in between dishes.My friend liked the idea of doing blind tastings as it tells whether we really like the wine as it is or because we knew it was an expensive label. Obviously none of us knew what we were drinking that night until the end of the dinner.
Blind tastings of redsOh I do love blind tastings. It made the whole wine drinking experience so interesting and exciting because you just wanted to know if your tastebuds really do get influenced by the mind after knowing the labels.
The first wine has a very nice nose. It turns out to be one of the wines that I so wanted to drink! it's a Vega Sicilia Valbuena 2000. Vega Sicilia is indisputably one of the great estates of Spain.The one we were having is actually a second wine of the Unico, which is dubbed as Spain's "Chateau La Tour".
Vega Sicilia Valbuena 2000This was the vintage of the good wine grower, for much depended on careful work in the vineyard, which has given the wine richness and concentration, with tightly knit fruit and nicely balanced oak, making for a structured but elegant wine.
Powerfull on the nose, some oak, vanilla, tobacco, but well integrated. Good acidity and bitterness. Long and complex finish.
I love the palate of the second bottle, not knowing that it's actually a bottle of the Wirra Wirra Chook Block 2002. Why this wine of Australia is so special, you ask?
From time to time Wirra Wirra produces wines from very small parcels of extremely intense, high quality fruit. Chook Block is a unique wine which is not made except in exceptional vintage like 2002. It is not made to a particular style; winemaking is purely in a custodial sense attempting to reflect in the wine the quality of both the Chook Block Vineyard, and the vintage. The fruit was 100% Hand Picked, with bunch selection by hand to remove any undesired bunches. "There’s no doubting that it’s a deep, profound wine!"
Only 250 cases were made! There's an oriental spices bouquet with an underlying score of licorice. On the palate, it's concentrated, chocolatey with a refined structure of finely balanced acid and fine grained tannin. As this is purely Shiraz, you can expect it to be medium to full bodied and has a savoury complexity and exceptional length in flavour and intensity.
The friend of mine was trying to bluff me and tells me that this is a bottle of YellowTail which until today, I've yet to taste it. I told him, "If this is really a Yellow Tail, I really don't mind drinking this all the time at all!" And then he kept quiet. Oh come on, I'm still not drunk. The 4 of us drank these 4 bottles in one dinner.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar