Hello wine.woot!, I survived the trip to Switzerland this past weekend and it was a lot of fun. There was enough to eat and drink for far more than the 40 people in attendance could have eaten and drunk, but we made a heroic effort anyway. There were people there from Switzerland, Germany, Israel, Italy and one Polish-American (me!). I believe that I attained 3 of the 7 Deadly Sins, greed, sloth and gluttony, not a bad night when you can get 3 out the deadly 7. Unfortunately the listing on the website is no longer and given the consumption of wine and lack of notes, I cannot recount exactly what we drank. The highlight of the night was a magnum of 1983 Chateau Latour, not the best year but awfully nice anyway. I think this review from CellarTracker summed it up for me; "This really was rather nice. A great crimson slash of colour in the glass, a sparkling brightness. There is still plenty of structure in here and I believe improvements yet to come (seem to find this in a lot of 1983s). There is some star quality in here, but if I'm being hyper-critical then perhaps this Latour is a little aloof and lacking the extraordinary depth and layered complexity this chateau can produce in a truly great vintage. Having said that it stood out for what it was on the day - a superbly crafted wine from a decent vintage and one of the greatest terroirs on the planet." Unfortunately a magnum only goes so far with 40 people. Sigh. It was definitely an RPM "Aha moment ©" and I will long remember it. There were also a couple of magnums of Mouton Rothschild, the little brother of the pricey Lafite Rothschild, quite nice indeed, probably my second favorite of the night. There was a 5 liter bottle of Chateau Lynch Bages and 1.5, 3, 5, and 6 liter bottles of other nice wines as well. None of them were remotely bad, some just better than others. There was a lot of food, first, blood sausage and liver sausage, next smoked bacon and salt cured bacon with green beans, then bratwurst and fried potatoes, next a nice slab of ham with sauerkraut, then sautéed liver and last but not least a slice of baked apple with cinnamon and sugar and vanilla sauce with a nice white dessert wine. The food was good, not great but then we weren't there for the food. Well enough food to ensure the wine wouldn't go straight to our heads and then some. We had 4 glasses at our seat and all 4 were constantly replenished. We never did get to the 18 liter bottle, that would have been the straw that broke the camels back, or liver or something. I think between 40 people we managed to drink about 45 liters of wine and some folks drank more than others. My friends and I (4 of us) were the last ones out at 2:30 a.m. Considering the dinner started at 7:00 p.m. it was quite a night. I wasn't hung over the next day amazingly enough however our hotel was across the street from a church and at 9:00 a.m. the bells commenced to ring for 15 minutes non-stop. I could have done without that wake-up call! Unfortunately I forgot my camera but my friend took a few photos, I will post them when he emails them to me. I have a feeling Bowtie would have enjoyed himself there, lots of good wine, lots of pork products and attaining several of the Deadly Sins, what's not to like about that!
My dogs like me, that is important.
