Bordeaux Dinners: Cheval Blanc & Brown
One of the benefits of spending a few days in Bordeaux for the primeurs is the opportunity to spend a little time not tasting but drinking, and not looking at the wines in isolation, but as they were intended to be consumed, along with food. I don’t tend to partake in the very generous multi-vintage verticals and grand dinners that some châteaux organise, partly because I have no wish to party every night away in a fit of Bacchanalian excess that would see me incapable of tasting and concentrating the following morning, and partly because such events lean more towards tasting (multiple vintages) again, rather than the synthesis of a handful wines with food in a relaxed atmosphere.
No, after a day featuring an endless litany of young barrel samples I much prefer a small-scale and relaxing dinner in the evening, especially when said dinner comes with some good company, and also a glass or two of some mature vintages, hopefully displaying a more harmonious integration than the tannic embryo-wines that I will have been tasting during the day. During the 2011 primeurs campaign I attended two such dinners, and I provide a brief report on them here.
Château Brown at Au Bonheur du Palais
The first was at Au Bonheur du Palais, surely one of Europe’s most remarkable Oriental dining destinations. Proprietor Tommy Shan blends Szechuan and Cantonese styles, with the spices toned down to allow the wines to shine. The list features Bordeaux naturally, but also many wines from further afield, including – for the Loire fans – several options from Clos Rougeard which now look like bargains when contrasted against current retail prices, which have rocketed in recent years. The wines that were of most interest on this visit, however, were those of Jean-Christophe Mau, who was hosting the dinner. These included Château Brown Blanc from the 2009 vintage, with two bottles poured, one sealed with natural cork, one with a synthetic, as a closure experiment run by Jean-Christophe. I found the results to be predictable, but that is not so important perhaps. The real value here is in seeing yet another example of experimentation in Bordeaux, a region still widely regarded as being stuffy and inward looking.
