White Truffle Dinner - Take 2

2003 Yquem

24 November 2010: Our small group at the white truffle auction dinner bid for a more sensible sized white truffle as our contribution to the charitable cause of Mother's Choice.  Our white diamond weighed 300g and as we were not able to eat it straightaway, we did a swap with Chef Bombana who gave us the exact same weight but made up of 7 smaller pieces.  We also divided the cooking responsibility amongst ourselves.  Charles, the scrambled egg; Frank, the foie gras and risotto; Debra, the buttered pasta and me the coq au vin jaune with morels.  It worked very well - we brought our ingredients to Frank's place and we had a cook-out!  All the dishes turned out really well, with very generous shavings of white truffle.  Anne prepared a delicious orange angel cake with a warm orange sauce - it went so well with our dessert wine! 

For this evening, we did not pair the dishes with Italian wines....instead, we opted for Bordeaux, one white burgundy and one champagne....our wines were:

1997 Haut Brion Blanc: Amber-gold colour. Marmalade, dried apricot, honey, biscuity. Full body and rich.  Good acidity. Excellent with the risotto with foie gras.  Drinking at peak now, if you like this wine with a fair amount of oxidative character. 16/20


1990 Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne: Peach, melon, nutty, mineral, spicy (ginger, pepper), firm acidity. Fresh, rich, complex. Drinking well now, and for next 10+ years. 18/20

1996 Haut Brion: smokey, tobacco, gravel, mineral, blueberry, blackberry, blackcurrant leaf. Elegant, structured, very fine. Soft tannin. Builds weight and complexity in glass.  18/20

1989 Pichon Baron: herbaceous, bell pepper, mineral, tobacco, blueberry, violet, spicy. Grainy tannin. Silky texture, but a little weak in terms of concentration and depth. 17/20

1989 Palmer: much more elegant, showing character of chocolate, cedar, black fruit, but generally quite reticent for the evening.  17.5/20

2003 Yquem: pale golden colour. Complexity of peach, melon, honey, raisin, dried apricot, orange peel, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, brioche, caramel. Full body, fantastically balanced.  Drinking perfectly now, not cloying at all, harmonious and pure.  Just perfect. 20/20

Perfect evening with good friends, great wines and Richard's Coq au Vin Jaune

19 June 2010: Our dear friend Jonny, who moved back to New York in 2007, is in Hong Kong for the weekend to catch up with old friends. So we decided to cook him a simple supper at home, just like the old days and we invited Patrick as well, whom we haven't seen for a while and we had wanted to hear about his account of the visit to the Normandy battle fields.

We opened a 1996 Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill and we tucked into Richard's famous smoked trout pâté, with our favourite toasted Poilâne bread. The 1996 Winston Churchill was quite different from what we remembered from our last tasting which was about 10 months ago. The nose was still complex but much more evolved: brioche, ripe pears, dried apricots, marmalade, dried citrus peel and honey. The acidity level was less pronounced and made the wine taste a little flabby. I wonder if it had suffered from slight madeirisation. 15.5/20

Then came the pièce de résistance: coq au vin jaune with morels and white asparagus. Richard cooked this dish based on a recipe by Chef Jacques Reymond (based in Melbourne). It was a great effort - the chicken was moist, packed with nutty and savoury flavours from the two-step cooking, and the morels well soaked in the vin jaune cream sauce! (See end of this blog for a description on vin jaune.) Apologies for my slightly undercooked white asparagus!

We chose a 1992 Leflaive Chevalier Montrachet to go with the chicken dish. For me, it was the wine of the evening. A glorious mature white burgundy, with a golden robe, immense complexity, concentration, balance and length. A distinct and developed character showing lemon curd, marzipan, ripe pears, grilled macadamia nuts, toasty and honey, over a hint of smokines. Excellent balance between acidity and roundness, with a lingering finish. Superb wine. Drinking perfectly at peak now, and will drink well for another 5 - 6 years - not sure I would want any of its elements to evolve any further. 19/20

Richard believes that no dinner would be complete without a bit of red - although I would be much happier to have my cheese course with white wine! We opened a 1991 Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Vieilles Vignes. A perfumed nose of red fruit, coffee, smoky and sweet spicy character. Very elegant, just about well-balanced. A little drying on the finish. Drinking just past peak perhaps but should drink well for another 3 - 4 years. 17.5/20

Next was a half bottle of 1999 Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny Vieilles Vignes - a much more lively wine, from a vintage with excellent growing conditions. Complex and intense nose, velvety texture of fine tannins, sweet red fruit character with plenty of minerality and a very lengthy finish. Drinking beautifully now, and will continue to evolve over next 6 - 8 years before reaching peak (for 750 ml and bigger size bottlings). 18.5/20

Jonny brought us a "football-shaped" mango mousse cake for dessert, supplemented by some cannelés that I picked up from Monsieur Chatté's shop late afternoon. (I was going to save some cannelés for breakfast but some unwelcomed guests (aka cockroaches) tucked into them while we weren't looking! Rather annoying!)

A perfect evening with good friends, great wines and a delicious coq au vin jaune!

And here's some basic information on vin jaune:
Vin jaune or "yellow wine" is a specialty from the Jura region of France, made in a method that is similar to that for sherry, except without the fortification. The grape variety is savagnin. Grapes picked at late, at ideal ripeness of 13 - 15% potential alcohol. Fermentation and ageing take place in slightly ullaged casks so that a film of yeast called "voile" forms, quite similar to the flor that is critical for fino sherries. The whole process for the voile to fully develop takes much longer, because of the cold temperatures of the Jura. After full development, the voile fades away and then comes a period of oxidative ageing. The wine is typically bottled into 620 ml clavelin bottles 6 years and 3 months after the harvest. Typical character of vin jaune is savoury, light curry-like spiciness and nutty. Vin jaune should be well aerated before enjoyment, and best matched with chicken cooked in the wine itself or even Comté cheese.

What a disaster!

14 May 2010: We had a few friends round for supper last night.....the excuse was to help Paul and Julie offload some of their wine collection before they move home in a couple of weeks' time. I was a little preoccupied with the cooking....so this is my account of what I tried. We started with a 1990 Ramonet Bienvenue-Bâtard-Montrachet which still had plenty of acidity and a lovely bouquet of butter, honey, brioche, lime blossom, macadamia nuts, with a medium length finish. The 1990 Ramonet Bâtard-Montrachet was sadly madeirised. Then we tried Eric's 2002 Vincent Girardin Le Montrachet. So youthful still, but definitely very promising - I loved the minerality and raciness in a wine of such concentration, structure and depth. Went very well with my gougères! Perhaps a less appropriate match with the foie gras and brioche. I think we opened a 2000 Ramonet Bâtard-Montrachet for that....but I didn't pay much attention to it.

Then came roast chicken, with braised carrots, rosemary potatoes and truffle mâche salad and the red wines. This seemed to be order they were served: 2000 Drouhin Musigny, 2000 des Chezeaux Clos Saint Denis and 2000 Mugnier Musigny. All I recalled was a less attractive Drouhin Musigny and a pretty fruity Clos Saint Denis but seemed to lack concentration and the finish was a little short. The 2000 Mugnier Musigny would appear the best red of the evening - an intellectual wine, with thoughtful balance of raspberries, red cherries, earthy and spicy character, perhaps a little reserved and not so generous. Drinking well now - will continue to evolve over the next 5 - 6 years. I would score it 16.5/20. However, the better wine with food was probably the Clos Saint Denis, much more approachable. I would score it 15.5/20.

Just when everyone was feeling rather happy, Richard took Paul on a tour of the wine room, aka wine cupboard. Not quite sure what actually happened, but what resulted were a few broken bottles, including a 1962 Leroy La Romanée and a half of 1990 La Mission Haut Brion. What disaster! Whether it was out of consolation or rage, he decided to open a 1992 La Tâche and left me out of it as I was busy with the task of picking up the shards of broken glass and mopping up the precious red juice with stacks of kitchen towel. I stole a sip from Debra's glass - thought it was ok but I was in such a livid state to really think much of anything. Didn't think it was a wine to go with the cheese course though.

We discovered a new cow's milk cheese called Couserans from the Ariège mountains in the Pyrénées. It was quite tasty, lightly nutty, earthy, with a very faint creaminess, and a semi-soft pâte. Still preferred the Irish Gubbeen though, just a little richer and spicier. We also had Reblochon and Wensleydale. Sort of my thing now, a mix of English and French cheeses to make it more interesting.

For our simple dessert of berries and cream, we had a 1996 Climens. A lovely bouquet of dried apricots, honey, marmalade and dried citrus peel. Not too rich, just the right amount of sweetness.

At least, everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoy themselves, which was the main thing. Time to impose one new rule at home: pretty good idea what it will be!