Sunday, March 18, 2012

The 2011 futures have started!

After tasting Thursday for lunch at the Domaine de l'A a series of vintages spanning from 2000 to 2011 around a great meal, we started again at home for dinner. Murielle prepared a meal for our friends and journalists who came to discover our 2011 Saint Emilion. We started the evening between us in “small committee” and gaged our wines, we tasted the 2011 Château Fleur Cardinale, Château Croix Cardinale and Secret de Cardinale, Château Sansonnet 2011, Clos du Beau Père 2011, Domaine des Sabines 2011 and the wine from Domaine Virginie Thunevin 2011.

Although I am the anxious type, I believe that many customers will like all these wines and that they will be among the 30% successful cuvees of this heterogeneous vintage. With the journalists, we tasted the 2011 Château Valandraud, Virginie de Valandraud and Clos Badon: ratings and comments will be published in the April issue!

Following, with our meal, we had the first white asparagus of the season paired with our 2011 Valandraud Blanc, with a majority of Sauvignon this year. At the same time, we served Blanc de Valandraud No. 1 and No. 2 2009.

Paired with beef sirloin with shallots confit and flat beans, we served Château Fleur Cardinale 2009, an explosion of fruits and blind Château Valandraud 2005 which, for once, was opened, expressive, almost too good (but we are a bit coo-coo). Indeed, the 2005 vintage is kind of reserved right now (like the 2005 Domaine de l'A), in Pomerol, the château Trotanoy 2005 is actually totally closed when just opened, this aristocrat took time to open up in our glasses. I recommend opening it in at least 5 years to enjoy all the facets of one of our favorite wines with Petrus. We’re lucky to drink on a regular basis. We rarely drank so little, have we become reasonable?

We drank one of Joseph Roty Gevrey Chambertin paired with strawberries and raspberries with sugar. It did suffer from being served after 2 Bordeaux 2005. And tonight we’re at it again...

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