Dinner at Bistro Lepic in Georgetown with BWE friends…

[JimHow]

Two very enthusiastic thumbs up for the food and service, thank you Joel for organizing, it was great to see Joel, Jimmy, Brian, David, Marcs, and Winona. We had our own private room, no corkage fees, I can’t wait to go back there again! Highly recommended.

I’m on the road so I’ll be brief here, we drank: 1989 and 1986 Pichon Lalande, 1967 Haut Brion, 1978 Giscours, 1986 and 1988 Gruaud Larose, 2003 Leoville Barton, 1989 Palmer, 1989 Purple Baron, 2008 Billecart-Salmon Cuvee Elisabeth Salmon, 2017 Dom Laroche Chablis Les Blanchot Reserve de l’Obedience, 2015 Sauzet Bienvenues-Batard-Montrachet, 1999 Billecart Salmon.

I think that’s all of them, I could be missing one or two. Can’t wait to do it again!

[jckba]

A nice range of Bdx so what were everyone’s favorites and in what order were they poured?

[JimHow]

Jimmy uncorked the 1978 Giscours towards the end of the dinner and it was profound on the nose and palate, almost youthful, it was one of my wines of the night. Both the 1989 Pichon Lalande and 1989 Palmer were outstanding, the 1989 Pichon Baron was unfortunately damaged. I’m not sure what to make of the two 1986s, the Lalande was a disappointment again, it has been a while since I’ve had a wowzer bottle of this old favorite. The 1986 Gruaud was nice but I’ve had better bottles, the 1988 Gruaud seemed to be singing and I think I preferred it to the ‘86. Jimmy’s 1967 Haut Brion was just lovely, a beautiful Haut Brion cigar box bouquet, the color was very healthy to the rim, great elegance and class, what a thrill to drink this wine. The 2003 Leoville Barton was young rambunctious and a joy to drink, rich and ripe but nothing over the top, this wine always seems to perform beautifully. The champagnes were gorgeous and there was a lot of love for the white Burgs at the table. After the champagnes and whites we drank the reds in no particular order. A very fun time with outstanding wines and friends in a very friendly restaurant with delicious Bordeaux friendly cuisine, I hope BWE can frequent it more often!

[barsacpinci]

Definitely a fun time and so nice to see you again. So hard to pick a favorite. The ‘86 Gruaud was one of my favorites. If Jim says he has had better bottles, I’ll need to search out more. Of course I loved the Sauzet, it was a beautiful wine. The ‘89 Palmer was also one of my favorites. And both the ‘67 Haut Brion and the ‘78 Giscours were superb. I have a ‘78 some where in my cellar I’m saving for a Giscours vertical. I was so disappointed with the flawed Baron I brought and a funny thing, I opened up my backup wine for Easter and it was excellent - an 2000 Clerc Milon

[Nicklasss]

Seems like a very nice time. Many of the « familiar bottles of BWE « were in attendance, as i can read.

86 and 88 Gruaud Larose, 89 Pichon Lalande.

Me too ithink i will never understand the 86 PichonLalande.

[stefan]

>>
i will never understand the 86 PichonLalande
>>

My experience with the 86 Comtesse has been very good. '78 Giscours and '67 Haut Brion bring back good memories for me. The last few bottles of '86 Gruaud we have drunk have varied from very good to outstanding. For some reason I am insensitive to the Cordier funk even though my tolerance for most brettanomyces is pretty low.

[JimHow]

Yes, the 1986 Pichon Lalande used to be one of my top ten wines, it seems like "the tannins have outraced the fruit" in more recent bottles. Slightly alarmingly, I think the last three bottles of '89 Pichon Baron have been corked.

I really enjoyed the dinner at Bistro Lepic. I vote for having a BWE dinner there each quarter: "Quarterly BWE Dinner at Bistro Lepic." Joel has connections there. 7-10 attendees is about the perfect size. Different themes each quarter. The owners are super nice. We ordered all kinds of appetizers, salads, desserts, entrees, etc., and the bill came out to like $67 per person. NO corkage fee! And the food was delicious. We all left a large tip.

[marcs]

Catching up on this. It was indeed a super enjoyable dinner.

When I was a kid I played Strat-O-Matic baseball. You get performance cards for individual baseball players and roll dice based on the pitcher and batter card to determine the outcome of individual plays. You can recreate either current teams or the great teams of yesteryear. My favorite team to play with was the 1927 Yankees and their famous "murders row" batting order, featuring not just Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig having all-time seasons but lesser known but still superb stars like Bob Meusel, Earle Coombs, and Tony Lazzeri. There were just no weak spots in the lineup. (They also BTW had four starting pitchers who pitched 200+ innings at an ERA of 3.00 or less...amazing).

This was a "murders row" wine lineup. Very few weak spots. The 2015 Sauzet BBM was incredible, somehow simultaneously buttery and rich and tensile and taut. It combined all the strengths of a great white wine into a single package, even though the palate was clearly not yet mature and it had many years to go. The 2017 Laroche Chablis was good but not up to the Sauzet, more stereotypically Chablis with the vivid electricity of Chablis but did not have the extra gear of richness lurking under the surface of the Sauzet.

The 1967 Haut Brion felt somewhat damaged / funky / dried out on the pop and pour but gradually evened out to attain a classy sort of balance and elegance but not much depth. I will differ from others in saying I didn't feel like this was a great wine and felt past it's prime despite it being my birth year (hmmm, actually makes sense to be past it's prime if it's my birth year ). I really loved both the 1986 and 1988 Gruaud. I haven't had the 1986 in a long time (only my second bottle ever) and I thought this one was tremendous, great fruit depth and balance and combined a basically clean flavor with all kinds of exotic spice hints. The 1988 was more acidic and lifted. The 1989 Palmer was terrific in a fruity rich Palmer-esque sort of way and I enjoyed it more than the one at BWE DC two years ago -- it was hedonistic without quite tipping over the edge into being plummy like the earlier one was. However, the 1986 Gruaud had a greater and more unusual range of flavors and more interest to me. The 1978 Giscours was opened at the very end of the dinner and I was prepared to dismiss it having used up a lot of my wine appreciation sensory capacity on earlier bottles, but it quickly became evident that this wine too was a monument -- rich deep charcoal and black coffee flavors, a formidable and imposing classic Bordeaux. But I preferred the 1986 Gruaud by a hair, as the exotic spices were more seductive to me.

My two WOTNs were the 2015 Sauzet and the 1986 Gruaud. I looked up the 2015 Sauzet BBM thinking I might purchase it and after seeing the price can only say THANK YOU BRIAN FOR BRINGING THIS WINE!

[marcs]

Another special thing about this dinner was that Winona told a long story about rats entering his wine cellar, chewing off the capsule of his 1986 Mouton Rothschild, chewing through the cork, and then guzzling like half the bottle of 1986 Mouton. This would be a worthy sequel to Ratatouille should Disney ever wish to pursue it. I however do not believe a rat has either the ability or the taste to access a bottle of 1986 Mouton like this and expressed doubt about the story. But Winona insisted it was true. What do you think?

[JimHow]

lol, by the end of the night Winona was telling us that the rat had developed a taste for Pichon Lalande….

My brothers and I had those very same strato sets, including the ‘27 Yankees. The 1978 Giscours was the Jumpin Joe Dugan of the night for me.

It was great to see you and everyone else Marcs!

[stefan]

40+ years ago I stored a few cases of wine for a couple of years in my brother's underground cellar. At some point he discovered that wine loving rats lived there. They had chewed off capsules on many bottles and begun to chew through corks. Fortunately, they were exterminated before they got completely through any cork. So, yes, I believe Chris's story.

[marcs]

OMG the rat thing is true:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2010- ... ks/6203336

Nightmare fuel! And yet another thing to worry about in my wine life

[Winona Chief]

Yes, it’s true about the rats except the Mouton was 1981 not 1986 (and they did drain a significant portion of the bottle). They chewed the capsules off a several bottles of Pichon Lalande but I think they got far enough into the cork to get at the wine in couple bottles of 1988 and one 1987. Another bottle wrecked by rats was a 2001 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese Goldcap. I do have pictures of some of these but I don’t know how to post pictures.

Chris Bublitz

[JimHow]

The occasional field mouse seems to make its way into my cellar, those little pricks can nibble at shit impressively as well but my Pichon Lalandes seem to be safe and sound. Those 22 bottles of 2016 Lafite on the other hand, I'm going to take a closer look....

[barsacpinci]

My two WOTNs were the 2015 Sauzet and the 1986 Gruaud. I looked up the 2015 Sauzet BBM thinking I might purchase it and after seeing the price can only say THANK YOU BRIAN FOR BRINGING THIS WINE!

My pleasure! It certainly didn't cost that much when I bought it. White Burgundy prices have skyrocketed. And so very hard to find Sauzet wines. I used to find them actually in a small shop in Ocean City MD! I see Bassin's has the 2020 Batard for $999 - pass.

[JimHow]

1986 Gruaud Larose is one of the ultimate BWE wines, Stefan brought two bottles to the very first convention in Chicago in 2001. It was memorable then, and memorable now. The 1982 and 1986 Gruauds are both in my top ten favorite Bordeaux wines ever.

[stefan]

Yeah, 1986 Gruaud has been really good since the mid 1990s. Different now, of course, but still excellent. I think it was about $150 the last time I bought it (pre-pandemic). The lowest price I see now is $200 and it pushes close to $300 at some famous stores.

[JimHow]

I can't impress enough, and I'm going to press this issue, I'd really like to see us do a BWE dinner at this venue at least every quarter. I thought the food was excellent but more importantly the restaurant ownership was so sweet, they were as nice as I've dealt with in my quarter century fine dining experience as the legendary, yet kind and benevolent, dictator of BWE.... And I've dealt with MANY nice people in the very difficult restaurant industry over the past 25 years.

Joel has connections there, let's shoot for another dinner of 7-10 BWEers in that back room in late May/early June, I'll come down.