Another Thursday night in Walla Walla was pretty standard at Corliss Estates (see Eric’s write-up) until Ferdinando Frescobaldi came along. On this particular night some significant winos of Washington joined Ferdinando and Andrae Bopp in a celebration of wine, food, and salmon. Perhaps I should have known prior to arrival that some decent wines would be poured, but I was reassured when I noticed the wine pairing on the third course was 1999 Ornellaia.
The Man Himself
Ornellaia aside, potentially the wine of the night turned out to be a Jeroboam (3 Liter) of 1988 Pol Roger Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill Champagne. It’s absolute insanity how fresh tasting a 22 year old Champagne can be, but this also had plenty of toast to bring to the table as well. As much as I’d like to make a mimosa out of this to eat with bacon-wrapped-pigs-in-a-blanket, the wine is too damn delicious to ruin with a dose of Florida citrus. After experiencing this, the potential exists to never again enjoy a nice glass of Andre, unless taken straight from a beer bong at a sorority party.
Fortunately, just as the Champagne was nearly empty, Paul Gregutt and company emerged from the white room with black curtains with five Italian wines in hand. They were placed atop the bar alongside some of Walla Walla’s finest, and it was interesting how much more tannic the Italian wines were than their Washington counterparts. Has American taste gone too softy? I’ve thought this before, but I know for sure which two wines I’d love to try again in 15 years. That would be the 2007 Ornellaia, which is amazingly layered and ridiculously concentrated, and the 2006 Mormoreto IGT. The second of these is a newer “super-tuscan” made with 4 of the Bordeaux varieties (sorry Malbec), and potentially one of the most tannic wines I’ve ever swallowed. It’s $64 price tag is a bit steep for my budget, but I’m going to keep an eye out for this one in the future.
Small Glass, Big Bottle
After too many great wines and foods to mention, Andrae brought out the salmon. Never before in my life had I realized the full potential of salmon; while I had always enjoyed it this meal brings it to a new level. It literally melted in my mouth and slid effortlessly down my throat, all the while being accompanied by the 1999 Ornellaia, and neither the wine nor the food proved overpowering. The ’99 was poured out of a 3 liter bottle and was still as young as can be, making me believe the common theory that large formats age slower than their 750 ml counterparts.
Of course one cannot indulge in such extravagances without a worthwhile dessert wine to end the night. Although it wasn’t until the next morning that I found out the 1995 Chateau la Graviere Tirecul Cuvee Madame Monbazillac was a 100 point Parker wine, it was unbiasedly enjoyed. Monbazillac is near Bergerac, quite a distance from Sauternes, but this botrytised dessert wine brought back memories of the 1983 Chateau d’Yquem enjoyed earlier this year (see A Dinner which did not Suck). This dinner might have sucked even less than the first, but both are zeros on the 100 point suckage scale, and I’m one to avoid end-use.
Posted by stevenwashuta 
