Top 100 2005 preview, a Giacosa Lunch at Cru, the 2001s with Angelo Gaja, musings on a 2000 Barolo tasting with RP in Vegas and a Celebrity Death Match at Alto
Ok, this week’s write-up is chock full of recent events, thanks to a trip out to LA (I do a lot of my writing on planes), a holiday weekend, and the increased guilt of missing a couple weeks this month due to my recent Partypoker.com obsession. So let’s get right into it…
21 Vintages of Monfortino with Roberto Conterno and the 12 Angry Men
By the way, that ‘45 Romanee Conti I had the other week was a (99+), for those of you that were wondering. It is my first 99+ point wine; the wine was so good it made me redefine my personal envelope of wine greatness. We will taste two bottles again from the same batch at [...]
A Decade of 1960s Burgundies at Bouley and the Greatest Wine I Have Ever Had
Twenty very serious and fortunate wine aficionados gathered at Bouley in late April for a celebration of 1960’s Burgundies. All wines came directly from the impeccable cellar of Dr. Shelley Rabin, with whom we have been doing dinners for years. Every time we do a dinner featuring wines from Shelley’s cellar, the types of wines [...]
DDB and the place to be…
I shot out to Los Angeles in the middle of the week before our March auction, a rare mid-week trip for me, but L.A. was calling thanks to a very special event put together by the ‘real’ Jef Levy, as his friends like to call him. No slight to the other Jeff Leve out there [...]
La Paulee
After a year off in 2004, Daniel Johnnes of Montrachet restaurant brought the glory of La Paulee back to New York City earlier this month in a weekend of decadence, excess and camaraderie unsurpassed in the wine world. There were more serious collectors in New York than I can ever recall, and everyone seemed to [...]
A Mega 1990 Bordeaux Tasting with Clive Coates (March 2005)
Clive was his usual warm and fuzzy self, semi-recovering from a five hour lunch from which he came straight to our tasting. Clive has so much experience in the world of fine wine, he could probably have done this tasting with his eyes closed. At times, due to the five hour lunch, it seemed as [...]
1955 Bordeaux at Le Bernadin on 24 February, 2005
We kicked off our Spring tasting schedule in style with a spectacular 1955 Bordeaux dinner at Le Bernadin, one of New York’s finest restaurants. I am ashamed to admit it, but it is actually the first time that I have ever eaten at Le Bernadin due to the fact that the cuisine is mainly seafood, [...]
Hanging with Mr. Parker and Mr. Squires in Baltimore and D.C. 11/12th February, 2005
Some last second cancellations got Rudy and I an invitation to a wine weekend in D.C. and Baltimore, spearheaded by Wilfred and his aggressive charity bidding at the last Hospice du Rhône auction, where he won dinner for twelve with Robert Parker at RP’s favorite restaurant in Baltimore (the Charleston), complete with wines out of [...]
The European Grand Jury, Vegas Style 7th January 2005
My first major event of 2005 was in Las Vegas two weekends ago at Picasso, where wine consultant extraordinaire Gil Lempert-Schwartz assembled an esteemed panel of fifteen wine judges to participate in the European Grand Jury’s three city event, the other cities being Venice and Paris, I believe. Besides Gil and myself, some of the [...]
« go back