Unauthorized

This was another great day of dim sum at Mark’s Duck House. We decided the wines would focus on Spain, and while the Spanish wines were perhaps not as good as southern Rhônes or old style Nebbiolo with this cuisine, they all performed well, disproving once again all the absurd myths about wine and food match-ups. The one Barolo, the 1990 Altare, showed brilliantly. Altare is considered to be a modernist, and his wines are often criticized by the reactionaries of the wine world as being incapable of aging. However, at age 20 this was a great wine of complexity, finesse, and elegance. The one Australian wine, the 2002 Shirvington Shiraz, was one of the top wines of the day. While it is a poster child for modern Australian wine that is often maligned by narrow-minded tasters, this 2002 has not fallen apart. It exhibits great purity along with loads of blackberry and blueberry fruit intermingled with camphor and meat notes. It has another 10-15 years of life ahead of it. Readers are advised to ignore all the doomsday anti-Australian critics who have so rabidly and irresponsibly maligned so many great wines from South Australia. If you like the way these wines taste, be happy; if not, avoid them – seems easy enough.

This was an outstanding showcase for Spanish wines. Some of the older vintages have also fallen victim to irresponsible comments by those who believe that if a wine is not green, mean, weedy, and aged in dirty wood, it has no merit. All of these wines showed well with the exception of the 1983 Pesquera, which seemed to have a bad cork and was oxidized, and the 1995 Remelluri, which was indeed corked. The great old classics, such as the 1970 Vega Sicilia Unico Reserva, were still infants. (To me, the 1970 ranks alongside the 1968 as one of the two greatest vintages I ever tasted from this hallowed producer in Ribera del Duero.) The1995 L’Ermita from Priorato was displaying its strength. Still a youngster at age 15, it has decades of life ahead of it. More mature, but still with plenty of time remaining, the 1992 Clos Erasmus comes from the importer of high class French and Spanish wines, American Eric Solomon and his Spanish winemaker wife, Daphne Glorian. Reminiscent of a modern-styled Châteauneuf du Pape, it offered up notes of kirsch and spice box. It was totally different from the 1995 L’Ermita. Another offering from Vega Sicilia, the beautiful 2002 Valbuena was seemingly fully mature and on a fast evolutionary track.

Other wines included a couple of blockbusters. One was the nearly perfect 2005 Termanthia Toro made and imported by Spanish wine importer deluxe Jorge Ordonez. Exhibiting monumental richness, intensity, and fruit, it should continue to drink well for some time to come. Some big Riojas were on the table, including the 1994 Artadi Grandes Anadas. Fully mature, it revealed plenty of graphite, black currant, cherry, and spice box characteristics, medium to full body, and wonderful freshness. The 1994 Torre Muga was also fully mature, with lots of spice, new oak, tobacco leaf, and black currant notes. One of the top wines from Rioja was the 2004 Muga Aro, a blockbuster of richness, concentration, and intensity. Another was the 2005 El Contador Rioja, which may turn out to be a perfect wine. I have rated it as high as 100 in the past, and again, it was a prodigious wine.

Some wines I had never had before included the 2004 Osmin from Priorato, a beautifully young wine displaying lots of blackberry, black raspberry, and graphite notes, and several other phenomenal 2004s (which, along with 2005, was a great vintage in Spain). The 2004 Elias Moro from Toro was a wine of great intensity and richness with full-bodied power. A modern-styled Spanish wine with 20 years of aging potential, the 2005 Ines from Ribera del Duero performed beautifully, offering abundant notes of blackberries, charcoal, camphor, and spice box. It is full-bodied, intense, opulent, and long. Lastly, I wine that I drank cases of in my earlier days is the Torres 1978 Black Label Coronas. One of the most successful Spanish wines of its era, it has held up fairly well. The color reveals some rust and orange at the rim, but it still possesses some sweet fruit, there is no evidence of new oak, and the finish is round, with a slight amount of sweetness still noticeable.

Of course, the dim sum was top-notch. I have never had better dim sum in the United States, but recent experiences in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai have made me realize what heights great dim sum can reach.