Wine Dinner at A.C.’s - 1/11/13

Clos Ste. Hune – 2000

Trimbach’s finest. Advanced colour. The bouquet is diesel and citrus, not quite the sharpness of grapefruit, but a dry, pithy lemon like Buddha’s Fingers. Very fine acidity. It feels much younger in the mouth; the bouquet races ahead, becoming increasingly lush as the evening progresses; pineapples, honey, beeswax, cashews. Massive depth, still wants time.

94/100

Graacher Domprobst – Willi Schaefer – Auslese – 2004

From a half, but still young, fresh and tight. Golden sultanas. Bright acidity, no smoky profile at all. 

93/100

  

Dönnhoff – Schlossböckelheimer – Felsenberg – 2009

Young, green fruit – greengages and lime. Precise, long, nicely balanced, as it opens it becomes increasingly creamy with a touch of pepper and nuts on the finish. But these are still traces; the overall feel is of a wine still closed and frustratingly young. 

90/100

Château Cissac – 1986

Cru Bourgeois from Moulis-en-Médoc. Tasted blind, it was fairly obvious as a left-banker. Thin, cigar box claret with a few definite beefy-bovril aging-left-bank notes pushing through. Light, essentially resolved tannins. I would probably have preferred a little more heft, but this is apparently the house style. N1 summed it up as “fragile but with interesting secondaries”, which I think captures it nicely.

85/100

Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste – 1996

The sweetness in the fruit led me to guess this was from the right bank, rather than a fifth-growth Pauillac. Initial sweetness and delicacy soon swept off its feet by the cedar and fast-growing savoury character that reminded me (God forbid) of hamster cage. I think a rather more tasteful interpretation of the same note was sandalwood. Massively attractive, very classy, still young – red wine of the evening for me. 

94/100

Château Liversan – 1988

Cr Bourgeois from the Haut-Médoc. Well aged, but still very much characterised by oak spice, a blend of vanilla, cloves and cinnamon. Inasmuch as there is fruit left, it comes across as orange. Pleasurable; showing very well for its age and pedigree. I didn’t previously know the Château, but a multiplicity of reviews online suggest it may have been performing less well recently. 

89/100

Dominus – 1994

We knew there was a ringer at the table, and there seemed to be no question that this was it; tasted among a cohort of mature and maturing Bordeaux, the level of extraction suggested a wine that had to be from Australia. In fact, of course, this is a Californian classic Bordeaux blend. High alcohol, sweet, and gluey, like an already powerful Portuguese red that has done body-building. Not cedar or cigar box, but rather cassis, spice, licquorice and tar. Powerful and very New Worldy.   

92/100

Château Barde-Haut – 2001

St. Émilion Grand Cru. Dry, hot and oak driven. Gingerbread spice. The primary fruit has calmed down but it still feels rather unevolved – I anticipate a lot of big secondary flavours coming to the fore in the next decade. 

90/100

Tenuto di Trinoro – 2007

A second Bordeaux blend ringer slipped into the tasting – Super Tuscan. The intense purity of the cassis note makes it fairly unmistakeably as Cabernet. Extremely leafy blackcurrant, smoky, very smooth tannins and rather alcoholic. Intense stuff that wants a lot of aging. 

93/100