Bipin Desai, Jean Trimbach et une amie japonaise dans un restaurant de suchis où j’ouvrirai un vin de 1828

cohabitation de Pétrus 1959 et Harlan Estate 1999.

Jeff Leve l’oganisateur de ce repas, à droite sur la photo, semble perplexe…

After the dinner by Jack Falstaff, an American breakfast is a way to come back to life. I walk to see the Golden Gate. In its grey colour, it shows a different aspect which has a great interest too. The sun is shining, so, at the midday break, every piece of grass is taken by people who eat their lunch. Is it a lunch? All these paper bags that everyone has in hand, all these huge sandwiches which collapse as soon as you bite in it, this is a very remarkable aspect of working America.

Now, we are going to enter in my personal dreams. I wanted to meet some solid collectors. I have found one, and we share fantastic wines. In Paris, we had shared Petrus 1947, Lafite 1865 and my oldest Chateau Chalon, a 1864. And, to-night, we will do the same, but in San Francisco.

My friend J. takes me in my hotel and we arrive by Hotel Mandarin Oriental at 4 pm to open the bottles. My friend S., the collector, is already there, and his bottles are standing, plus extra bottles “in case”. I tell him with a smile : “I am sure that all our bottles are bad, so we will obliged to open the security bottles”. Alas, it was not necessary. The liquorous are perfect, the Olivier white 1947 is more a problem. It appears so maderised that I expect bad things. But we do not condemn it. It is the first time in my life that I open a bottle of Mouton with the label drawn by Carlu. I have some in my cellar, and whenever I see them, I admire them. But I had not yet opened one. Now it is made, we will see if the wine will be at the level of the beauty of the Carlu label.

When it is done, J. and me, we go to the Italian quarter, so active when the sun is glorious, and we sit at a terrace. He wants that I try a Syrah Renard ‘Arroyo Vineyard’ 2002 by the glass. The best description that I will give about this wine is that we have left, each of us, three quarters of our glass not drunk. This is, for me, a caricatural wine, probably in a bad shape for this bottle (I hope for the vineyard).

S. was waiting for us in Mandarin Oriental and leads us to the 38^th floor, in a huge “suite”, where the view on San Francisco is impressive, with a big terrace in full air (and wind). We will have our aperitif there, and immediately I notice a familiar champagne in magnum installed in some ice. I have a look : magnum Cristal Roederer 1966. The colour is the one of a yellow fruit burnt by the sun, the nose is intense, and in mouth, a large taste which will become more and more complex as the champagne will open in our glasses and in the bottle.

The chef, Joel Huff, is a promising young chef who is probably going to be celebrated in one of the next issues of the Wine Spectator. Immediately, I see that he is not concerned by wine. Some great chefs are like him : Marc Veyrat and Pierre Gagnaire play in the same field. Wine does not belong to their strategy. But this young chef, who thinks he ameliorates his look by wearing a sport cap turned on the opposite side as rappers do, did not make a cook for the wines but to show his dexterity. The profusion of amuse-bouche of the highest level was not adapted : the blinis of the caviar were too tasty, my lips were bitten by the intensity of the spices, too much pepper in the scallops, the oysters losing their taste in a too marked sauce. But what struck me was the generosity of all that. And the Cristal 1966 was magnificent. Certainly the greatest Cristal for me, up to now.

We go down into the library where our table is installed. We are seven people in this huge room, but the atmosphere is very comfortable. One good point, the chef will come very often to see how things are going. He is serious.

While we are standing, S. gives me a glass of champagne and he asks me : “is this one older ?”. The taste is so similar to the Cristal 66 that I imagine a trick : it could be the same. But, tasting more seriously, I see that the structure of this one is more deep and elegant. It is Cristal Roederer 1949. Amazing. More noble than the 1966, it is quite unreal. It is probably one of my best ever champagnes.

Here is the menu : Santa Cruz baby abalone ceviche , yellowfin sashimi ponzu truffle vinaigrette, feta foam / pan seared foie gras, pineapple rhubarb, mountain berrey tea reduction, kohlrabi soup with mustard emulsion / ocean trout, preserved lemon and bone marrow risotto, edamame puree, sauce bordelaise / cedar wrapped squab, parsnip gnocchi, young grapes, king trumpet, liquorice and squab au jus / Colorado lamb rack, date puree, ramp injected loin / « Snake river » Kobe beef, braised beef ribs, smoked potatoe puree / Harmony blue cheese, Cresci Iowa / chocolate truffles, petifores, delights.

Needless to say that the chef did not choose the simplest way, but it was brilliant, even if not completely adapted to the wines. During the meal, all that was highly enjoyable.

The Vouvray le Haut Lieu, Huet 1959 has an architecture of the most precise definition. It is the well drawn wine, without any shadow, which is brilliant with no complication. The length is great, the personality is sympathetic, and the sweetness is well measured. After that wine, a nice soup was very clever to prepare us to other directions of tastes.

The Chateau Olivier white 1947 had a truly spectacular transformation with the oxygen it got. A wine that I was afraid of finding maderised was a strong young adult in its strength. I have seen many recoveries. This one was spectacular. Great white as Bordeaux can produce, with a subtle complexity.

I am served in first with the Lafite Rothschild 1953, and I am surprised to notice all the table making so great compliments to the wine when I think that the wine is tired. I ask the sommelier to pour for me some drops from the middle of the bottle, and then, I understand why my friends were so happy. I had had the same reaction with the Petrus 1947 when I had the very first drops. So, my Lafite was now brilliant. This wine is extremely elegant. It is a very true Lafite, with all its charm. A great one. By comparison, the Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 1945 that I had brought was very masculine, military, square. A great wine too, but I prefer the charm of the Lafite.

Then, with the Mouton-Rothschild 1926, we climb tens of stairs. This wine will belong certainly to the first circle of my Pantheon. Everything in it is great. The nose is highly expressive, the attack has an enormous charm, announcing the pleasure to come. In the middle of the mouth, the wine is completely convincing, and the final is long as a poem. This wine is perfect. This one belongs to my best ever Mouton, under 1900 but certainly above 1870. It belongs to a group of 1926 that I have adored : Haut-Brion, Montrose, Pichon Comtesse, Pétrus, Mission.

I had been asked to check if the blue cheese was pertinent at 5 pm and I had refused some. But the blue of Iowa pleased me above all. And with the Château Coutet Barsac 1949, it is perfect. A golden colour, an intensity in nose, this wine is the pure joy of life.

It was good that we left the table to go back to the 38^th floor, as the break was good to enjoy properly the Yquem 1935 which I had brought. The colour is lighter that the one of Coutet. There is less power, but the signature of Yquem is so magisterial that I am in love with the Yquem, despite the great performance of Coutet. But I must say that I accept probably more than others lighter Yquem.

My friend had opened a Banyuls 1947 for the chocolates and the cigars. I was so tired that I did not put my lips on this 16.5° wine.

I tried later to make a ranking. It could be different but here it is : 1- Mouton 1926, 2- Cristal 1949, 3- Yquem 1935, 4- Lafite 1953.

I was happy that my friend has adopted a plan for the dinner which was very similar to what I do. He is so generous, so happy when he sees my smile or my astonishment that we have created an atmosphere of pure mutual trust.

So, I imagine already all the mad dinners that we will make, and I wonder already which treasures I will open with him.

The next day, J. had ordered a limousine to drive me to the airport to go to L.A.

This brilliant dinner will belong to my best souvenirs.

Sa délicatesse est exemplaire.

My trip to USA has been organised in a much unexpected way. Bipin Desai organises two meals with wines of two producers, Trimbach and Lynch Bages. I would not necessarily fly 6,000 miles to taste these two wines that I can easily drink if I visit the properties, but as Bipin had been kind enough to invite me for the huge tastings of 38 years of Montrose and 22 years of Pichon Comtesse, I decided to say yes. I announced on the forum of Robert Parker that I would come to California, and immediately I received several proposals for dinners. So, seeing how enthusiast and generous people that I know only on my screen would be, people building very consistent programs, I decided to say yes to some, the only refusals being for my health, as this week will see me drinking a lot of wines.

I will describe my trip more like a diary than like wine tasting notes, but as wine is the main theme, wine will be largely concerned. To determine the wines that I would bring has not been so easy, as I wanted to adapt my wines to the general level of what would be brought, not under, not too above. I took the following wines in my cellar : Grands Echézeaux Domaine de la Romanée Conti 1974, that I wanted to taste with Californian wines of the same age, Pétrus 1959 will be brought for a dinner on which I know nothing, but organised by a man who is known to make great dinners, Potensac 1955 will be a birthday present for a friend born 51 years ago, Yquem 1953, Pichon Comtesse 1945, Yquem 1935 for some dinners. The last wine is a Canarian wine of 1828, is to make a surprise to Bipin, to thank him. I had wanted to bring for friends a Cyprus wine 1845, but due to moves from my cellar to my home, the wax had broken and there was a linkage which obliged me to keep it home. It will no be lost. French amateurs exist.

The direct trip is an eleven hours flight. I am sitting next to a man compared to whom George Foreman would be a feather weight. It makes the trip even longer. A film of Harry Potter shows the evidence that there is no limit to stupidity in using wonderful techniques for primitive emotions. To take a plane is a school for serenity. You spend your time in queues, you wait for an improbable progress in your queue, you are considered as if you were the most dangerous gangster on earth, and I must say that Hitchcock is a small kid pretending to create suspense, compared to the unparalleled stress when the rolling luggage provider stops its move when everyone has got his bag except me. The staff in charge of luggage is largely better than Mary Higgins Clark or every other best seller’s authors.

A limousine is waiting for me, which is a sign of civilisation. The Campton Place hotel is nice. This time, no queue on the registration desk. I will sleep with many stops for 16 hours, not knowing at any moment on which time table I am programmed. After a solid XXL breakfast, I go walking in town. On May 1^st, in USA, people work, when in France every pretext is good to stop working. But this day is a day of demonstration about the acceptance of illegal immigration. Some groups are formed, with the obvious pleasure to be together, smiling, singing, dancing sometimes, and delivering messages written in a way that at a small distance you cannot read any. I was in the middle of this small crowd, policemen had closed some streets. When I read the next days what was said about the importance of the demonstration, I was very astonished, because all what I had seen was extremely light when compared to what newspapers mentioned. What amazes me is the variety of faces, of people, of poverty in the streets of American cities. Paris was known for its “clochards”. I have seen today many more than in one year in Paris. One young thirty years white broke was scratching his leg of a very gray colour which has certainly never been in contact with water for the last decade. I find a café in a pedestrian street where I eat on a table outside. A woman indefinitely lifted comes with a dark dog with pink ribbons around the ears. She is exactly how American women of an indeterminated age are caricatured. The man who plays accordion goes from the Beatles to the Third Man, and from Edith Piaf to Freddy Mercury with the same constructed smile.

Ken comes to take me to Jack Falstaff, a restaurant with an external decoration of a building made of concrete after the Armageddon attack. We are not far from the Giants Stadium, and as our room is in open air inside the building, the noise of traffic could be disturbing. But in fact, passionate as we were, we will listen to nothing. I begin to open some bottles by 4 pm, as many have already been brought. I open some of them and I receive a major help by Mark, who will open a lot of them. We put all the bottles in a row, with the corks and capsules associated to them. Very frightened, I see many people coming with more than twice as many bottles as we are. Many of them bring their Riedels.

Ken is so happy with this event that he opens a half Krug Grande Cuvée, very agreeable as we work so hard to open all the bottles. Everybody is there and by 7 pm precisely, Christine, who organised everything so well declare that the tasting is opened. I say a few words to thank everyone for their generosity and I give advice on the way to approach old wines which are not familiar with many members of our group. I sit at my place, and Paul will make a very long speech to present his fabulous bottle, the Martin Ray 1953 from Saratoga, Cabernet Sauvignon. Then, when his speech is over, the glasses in front of me are poured by an army of friends wanting that I try this and that. And I think that I will never be able to remember all what is poured to me. But I am not the only one to be so generously provided with wines. All around me everyone exchanges their wines with the others. The atmosphere is highly friendly. I say to Christine that I am afraid that so many wines are drunk when the dinner has not yet begun. And I am right, as a soup will help a lot the wines, mainly the whites, to become greater. So many wines are poured in my glasses that I am unable to say which one it is and when someone asks me : “did you like it”, I say yes, not knowing which one it was. But of course, I remember some of them.

Some whites have aged very differently. A Chardonnay 1977 Stony Hill Napa Valley pleases me a lot, with a nice Burgundy smell, sweeter in mouth than Burgundy.

In all the wines that we have drunk, I do not see a real difference of aging between French and Californian wines. The proportion seems to be the same of tired wines. The Gamay 1970 Joseph Swan has surprised everyone as it was extremely young and expressive. I did not notice corked wines, and the ones who were slightly corked did not show it in mouth.

The wines that I have particularly appreciated are : Heitz cellar 1968, Ridge Montebello 1970, Beaulieu 1966, Inglenook 1965.

I have found my Grands Echézeaux Domaine de la Romanée Conti 1974 to be rather tired after the travel and the heat in different steps of the trip. But its cork was largely tired when I found unusually young the cork of the “old” Californian wines, nearly not wet with wine, just a small circle being highly invaded by an heavy sediment of a black colour.

I have loved the Yquem 1953, a very nice, subtle and elegant Yquem (I saw that many friends having not the same perspective on Yquem did not probably approach it as I did), and I saw that my American friends are real kids. While I was sipping with pleasure the Yquem, served at last, to be the last perfume of the night, I saw many of them coming back to the reds!!!!

Within the group, I saw a man whose face was known to me. He had attended already two of my dinners !

Everyone has been aware that Californian wines can age and that the slow oxygenation helped a lot the wines to perform precisely.

For me the two stars of the night are the two oldest, which will not surprise anyone : the Martin Ray 1953 was for me the most impressive red of the dinner, and the Yquem 1953 is a Yquem which is in the direct line of what Yquem should be.

The food has been extremely adequate; the service of the staff of Falstaff was highly efficient. I have really enjoyed being the excuse for this meeting and to help to see that Californian wines age well when one is prepared to drink them as they are.

And when I see their potential to age, I would really think that it is probably not necessary to push the young wines to their limits in taste, as there is a certainty that they will age wonderfully, keeping a significant harmony and subtlety.

Thanks to all for their generosity, thanks to Christine to have so well managed the event, and thanks to all the friends for their so passionate attitude towards nice wines.

One day, someone asked me to make a dinner with Jacques Le Divellec one of the greatest chef for fish, and we studied what to do with my list of wine. Jacques invited me to put everything in form, and I was happy with the cooperation.

The man who ordered the dinner had a familial problem and asked me to postpone the dinner.

Time went on, and meanwhile, we created friendly relationship with Jacques.

I kept in mind the dinner which was postponed, but the wish to do something together was still there. As I had no news from the man who had ordered a dinner, I decided that one of my next dinners would be with Jacques. He wanted that we work on a new wine list that I had prepared. So I said : you have been so nice to me, if we have lunch together, I will bring wine.

We met with his wife Marguerite for a lunch for three. As I arrived just for lunch time, none of my wines had the necessary oxygen.

What did I bring? The first bottle is Frederic Lung Royal Kebir Algerian wine 1945 that I had bought recently as a cat in a bag. Perfect fill in the neck for a bottle coming from an original case that I opened myself. The cork stuck to the glass so I had to tear the cork into pieces to pull it out.

The second bottle came from a friend whom I appreciate, who is in the wine business, who asked : could you buy some of my wines as I am short of money. He proposed a La Tache 1960 with a low fill, saying : it should be good. The cork went out very easily, and the acidic smell did not hurt me.

We began with some crevettes, some amuse-bouche on a Puligny-Montrachet les Pucelles Domaine Leflaive 2000. Very drinkable, powerful, it is very pleasant, but I must say that it is more charming than elegant. No mistake, but no thrill. Then, on a plate, I had two huge belons oysters number 0000 (four times zero), which are enormous. What a taste! Amazing. And on a Besserat de Bellefon which is an average champagne, the oysters put the champagne on a trampoline. It gained some personality. The spéciales number two were nice, but not at the level of complexity of the belons.

Then I tried “violets”. I am 63 years old. It was the first time that I tried this animal. It is so ugly that the aesthetical disturbance prevented me to try it up to now. Jacques wanted to see my reaction on the violet plus champagne. It was fantastic.

We had some crude turbot, fantastic meat. The Puligny was not appropriate, too strong, but the wine of my dinner will be.

We had some sea fruits with complicated names (I have not my dictionary), like moules, palourdes, young calamars. The recipe should be changed, but it will match perfectly the Krug Clos du Mesnil that I intend to open.

Then we had two huge langoustines with foie gras, and the Royal Kebir 1945 was fantastic. This wine appears like a burnt wine. It makes you think of Port wine, of Maury, it is torrefied. But when you look behind the curtain, it is an emotional wine that you could take for a Chambertin. All in this wine is balanced. I felt liquorice in it. It is as if a Chambertin would have grown up in Lebanon. The more it developed, the more its complex structure was brilliant.

And I must say : it is strange, but it is a great wine.

We had then lamproie, which is one of the oldest fishes living in France, created some million years before our time. The meat tastes like earth, so I thought that La Tache 1960 would be great. But, I should never trust friends. I try to emphasize a wine which was largely over the hill. No hope despite some flashes.

I tried it on a cheese and at one moment I had some memories of a good La Tache.

But the final test was definitive : on a chocolate mousse, the Royal Kebir 1945 was magnificent, and the La Tache was like a lost sponge.

We have prepared the menu for a dinner to come in May (paying), and there will be in the menu three completely forbidden animals whose hunting is forbidden. Jacques, who is 73 years old, thinks that with me he can make mad things that he would never do with other people.

Lorsque j’ai annoncé l’arrivée de Londres de la bouteille de Lafite 1865, voici ce qu’a écrit Robert Parker sur son forum :

Well a magnum of 1864 Lafite from the Glamis castle …original cork…served at the unforgettable Robuchon dinner in Tokyo in December,2004, brought me to tears….and I don’t cry easily… not with respect to wine…..I think Broadbent had called it the "greatest wine of the 19th century’…..but he couldn’t have tasted every wine made that century….as I recall…even Robuchon was misty-eyed over this amazing wine……hope your bottle is as memorable…

ça fait plaisir !

Il y a des jours où l’on se précipite dans la gueule du lion en faisant tout pour cela. Je vais livrer les vins pour deux prochains repas. Je passe au restaurant Ledoyen où Patrick Simian m’accueille. Nous avons discuté du menu, aussi je goûte la fourme, que je trouve trop forte pour un Sainte-Croix du Mont 1927, et j’essaie le dessert au pamplemousse. Patrick me dit qu’il a été fait spécialement pour Pierre Lurton pour accompagner Yquem. Malgré ce brevet, je demande qu’on supprime le sorbet qui raccourcit la bouche et qu’on augmente le volume de chair rose. Nous décidons de simplifier la recette des langoustines. Le cœur rassuré sans avoir eu la moindre crainte, je vais au restaurant Laurent où Patrick Lair reçoit les bouteilles d’un futur immense dîner, et la gueule du lion s’ouvre : « vous ne voulez pas manger un petit morceau ? ». Je savais qu’on me le demanderait. Et je savais que je cèderais. Mon épouse est encore dans le Sud. La perspective d’une carotte râpée devant un Sudoku est moins attirante que les ors et les stucs de cet élégant palais. Patrick me propose d’ouvrir pour moi un Château Margaux 1937 bouteille qui est en cave depuis toujours et dont j’ai déjà asséché quelques congénères avec des fortunes diverses. Va pour le Margaux. A une table voisine un ami amateur de vin célèbre l’anniversaire de sa fille de 12 ans. J’irai lui porter un verre du 1937 pour lequel nous aurons la même analyse.

Mon repas commence par des cuisses de grenouille dont l’accompagnement est infiniment trop épicé et typé. Je m’en ouvre à Patrick qui réagit instantanément : quelques minutes plus tard, une assiette de cuisses justes poêlées, aillées, avec un court jus de viande constitue un plat divin, à cent coudées au dessus de la précédente version.

Le Château Margaux 1937 a un nez convenable et une jolie couleur grenat qui ne trahit pas son âge. Mais le vin semble engoncé dans un habit de poussière. En bouche, c’est du savon et de la poussière qui masquent le message. Mais, par un de ces caprices irrationnels, sur la deuxième préparation des cuisses de grenouille, comme s’il avait compris mon enthousiasme, le vin s’est mis à devenir brillant, un vrai et beau Margaux.

Puis, estimant son effort suffisant, malgré le délicieux pied de porc, il retourne dans ses saveurs de grenier. Mon ami confirmera : poussiéreux, mais une lueur, l’espace d’un instant. Il est certain que le résultat eût été tout autre avec quatre heures d’oxygène de plus, tant cet adjuvant fait des miracles.

Pendant ce temps, Patrick faisait mes relations publiques auprès de Philippins qui organisent des événements d’exception. Je ne me fis pas prier quand on me demanda d’être photographié auprès d’une ravissante femme au visage de pure perfection qui semblait boire mes paroles lorsque je racontais les vins de mes dîners.

Le dessert dut pris à la table de mes amis au moment où les cadeaux se distribuaient. Un vin liquoreux allemand de 2004, perlant comme un vin de la veille est franchement trop jeune pour mon palais.

Ce Margaux 1937 ne marquera pas ma mémoire, mais la gentillesse de ce restaurant, oui.