A local fine dining establishment (which I can vouch for as being excellent, but typical meals there cost about $125-150 for 4 courses) in conjunction with our government-liquor board is hosting a Chateau Mouton Rothschild tasting event.
Structured Tasting
Château d’Armailhac 2003
Domaine de Baron’Arques 2003
Château d’Armailhac 2002
Château Mouton Rothschild 2003
Château Mouton Rothschild 2001
Château Mouton Rothschild 1996
Dinner
Aîle d’Argent 2003 (rare white wine of Mouton Rothschild)
Domaine de Baron’Arques 2003
Château Clerc Milon 1993
Château Mouton Rothschild 1988
Château Mouton Rothschild 1990
Château Coutet 1997
First off, anyone happen to know what the ‘structured tasting’ part generally consists of? Its not possible to drink that much wine. But for the price, I can’t quite imagine thimbles being passed around either. Now I assume with the dinner there will be full glasses, but dunno about the ‘tasting’.
I digress, I’m interested in learning more about Bordeaux, and this seems like a great opportunity. I don’t recall having paid $700 (slightly less if you convert from canadian dollars) for a dinner before but theres a first time for everything.
For a gourmet food, and the aforementioned wines, is the amount of money they’re asking reasonably justifiable?
The wine won’t be thimbles but it probably won’t be full-sized glasses either maybe even for the meal. They are often presented in a style called a tasting flight that is arranged to take you on some type of sensory and learning journey.
It’s justified. Those are some classic wines, both for the tasting and for the dinner. If I had the money, I’d do it, and this is from someone who has vowed to avoid French wines whenever possible.
I agree with silenus, regarding probable retail prices for the listed wines, it is justified.
You’d probably hard pressed to find some of the older ones anywhere to buy.
However, I would not do it. IMHO they are concentrating on too few (one?) chateaus, to offer a good introduction to Bordeaux.
And of course, they have only big known chts. on their list.
The whole event seems to be addressed to people who know already or think they do.
If you would like to learn more about Bordeaux wines, I would suggest,
find a good (*) sorted liquor store
buy 10-15 bottles from different chts.
cover the price range from 20 to 80 $ per bottle (**); try to stay with comparable vintages.
try them at home, preferably together with a decent meal (even better just with some hard cheese and bread), best together with some friends, so you can discuss your impressions;
don’t be shy! open all bottles at once, you need to compare! (***)
Let your taste be the ultimate judge, not Mr. Parker and not the price tag on the bottle.
Continue later with other Appellations, then compare Appellations, and after you know a good wine, then try the “flute” with it.
(*) Does it have 50 different Bordeaux in our price range? Does the shop owner know his wines and can he give tell you about them?
(**) There are some positive surprises to be made at the lower end. A couple of years ago a German newspaper did a blind (!) testing with professionals. They covered a price range from 20 to 140 Mark. The top three in price did not make it under the first 5, only one of them was in the first 10. #1 was just under 100 Mark, #2 was 40 (as far as I remember).
Regarding the upper end, you should not waste (yes, waste) your money on expensive bottles of wine until you know they will be worth it for you (and not Mr. Parker).
(***) Drink the best ones that evening. The others can be drunk over the next days. Recorked, dark and cool, 9 out of 10 bottles wine will not go stale for a week – contrary what almost everyone will try you make believe.
Yes, there are some, which will fall apart over night. But they have probably been close to or even over their peak. A good liquor store owner should be able to identify those for you.
I have to restrain myself not to go on and on.
I learned my basics at the CIA.
The structured tasting will simply be a tasting or flight of the wines listed. They should be tasted from the lightest style to the heaviest, and will most likely be something like 2 oz. pours, so you don’t have to worry about drinking ‘that much wine.’ Many folks will probably spit anyway.
Dinner might be 4 or 6 oz. pours, but glasses will not be full, and should never be more than 1/3 - 1/2 full to allow for swirling.
It does look like a great opportunity, not necessarily to learn about Bordeaux, but to taste the wines of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild.
If you’ve got the $700 and it won’t put a hurt on the rest of your life financially then by all means go for it. That’s a really cool oppertunity to try some really great wine. It’ll be especially fun if you watch the auction prices on those vintages a few years down the road. If you wait 10 years $700 might not even be enough to get you the spit in the tasting bucket, you know?
Lotsa great info here…I’d definitely like to pursue some of those sommolier courses down the road, I imagine they wouldn’t be as much fun as this dinner, but certainly more educational.
Quartz is probably right, it looks very much like a sales event (government wine board that sells all the booze in the country is putting on the event, a high level exec from the company is running the show etc), but I don’t think that really impacts on the enjoyment for the evening.
I think I’ll buy one of the last two tickets tommorow.
I’d only fork over that kind of dough if Pat Rafter was personally serving the wine to me. In bed.
I’ll pay big money for entertainment. I won’t pay over a certain dollar amount for clothes or food. After that you’re just lining some marketing genius’ pocket.
