Unauthorized

This is a superb Cantonese restaurant in Shanghai, in the Shangri-La Hotel. It was packed with what appeared to be native Chinese food and wine lovers. I suspect it’s the real deal. Certainly the food was extraordinary. Again, freshness, purity of ingredients, and overall great balance led to wine and food matchups that worked fabulously well. An atypical but very ripe, concentrated white Burgundy with bubbles would be what I’d call the 2003 by Bollinger. It’s a beauty, but I would drink it over the next 5-6 years, given those vintage conditions. The J. J. Prüm 2004 Graacher Himmelreich worked great with the hot and sour seafood soup and the wonderfully delicate, crisp, very flavorful sauteed river shrimp, as well as the fried celery with lily bulbs. We then moved into a brilliant showing by the 1996 Cos d’Estournel, only to be marred by a very corked bottle of 1986 Cos d’Estournel. However, things were redeemed with a stunning bottle (much better than I remember it) of 2000 Guigal La Mouline. Not exactly a top-flight vintage in northern Rhône, but this wine was hitting its peak of full maturity, where it should stay for another 5-8 years.