This luncheon at Mark’s Duck House was to host American and Bordeaux wine broker Jeffrey Davies, who was making a swing through the United States, and also served as a welcome to Bulletin Board contributor John Lahart from New York. John brought two fabulous wines, including the brilliant 2005 Cayuse Syrah Cailloux Vineyard (a wine I don’t see very often). It exhibited a fabulous texture, lots of smoky bacon fat notes along with rich, concentrated black fruit, spice, and background oak. John’s other offering, the 1998 Lafleur Petrus, was magnificent, and owners should definitely be drinking a bottle or two. Bordeaux does not always work well with dim sum, but this one was delicious.

The Italian wines included one that I thought was a 1990 when I pulled it from my cellar, but when we opened it, I looked at the label more carefully, and it was the 1971 Giacomo Conterno Barolo, not the Monfortino (which can be a perfect wine), but his regular Barolo. It was a magnificent wine – young and vibrant with lots of tobacco leaf, truffle, roasted herb, black cherry, and spice box characteristics. An incredibly full, massive red, it is still a late adolescent at almost 40 years of age. It was primarily a day of red wines, but we had two great whites, including the 1985 Domaine de Chevalier blanc (which I brought from my cellar). A still youthful wine, it exhibited lots of lanolin, honeysuckle, citrus oil, and a hint of nectarine. The other delicious white was the Marcassin 2005 Estate Chardonnay. This was a great vintage for Chardonnay in California’s North Coast, and this wine boasts terrific acidity as well as lots of honeysuckle, nectarine, and mineral notes offered in a prodigious style. The third white wine was also from my cellar and the label had rotted away, so we weren’t sure what it was until we saw the cork. Thankfully, the Domaine Zind-Humbrecht brands their corks with the vineyard and the vintage, and this wine turned out to be the 1989 Gewürztraminer Heimbourg. Still spicy, unctuously textured, and off dry, it remains intense, rich, and full.

As always at these bacchanalian free-for-alls, one has to decide how to attack the wines. I try and go from the lighter styles, such as Pinot Noir, to the big blockbusters, such as Syrah, and California Cabernet Sauvignon (none of those were included on this day), the closest wine being the massive Cayuse Syrah 2005. We started with some red Burgundies, one from my cellar. The still somewhat monolithic 1990 Domaine de Chezeau Griottes Chambertin is dense, rich, full, and showing a lot of potential. Far more complex with loads of fresh mushroom, damp earth, forest floor, and red as well as black fruits was the mature 1985 Ponsot Clos de la Roche. The Pinot Noir of the day was the Marcassin 2004, which reminded me of a California version of Clos de la Roche. It exhibited lots of porcini mushroom, roasted meat, forest floor, plum sauce, black currant, and berry fruit notes. This beautiful wine should drink nicely for a decade. I believe the other Italian wine we had, which also came from my cellar, was the first vintage I bought of Sandrone’s Barolo, the 1979, which sports a totally different label than he uses today. It shows the complexity of Nebbiolo (I joked that Nebbiolo is Italy’s Pinot Noir, only better than most of France’s Pinots) in its complex aromas of cedar, Chinese black tea, incense, and black cherries. The aromatics are followed by a supple yet full wine with great acidity, freshness, and length.

As always, Nebbiolo and southern Rhône wines seem to be the perfect match-up for the dim sum, most of which is based on seafood. Pierre Rovani contributed a beautiful selection of southern Rhônes, including a mini-vertical of the limited production Fonsalette Côtes du Rhône Syrah. The Reynaud family got Syrah cuttings from the Jean-Louis Chave family in Hermitage and planted them on a cool climate, north-facing slope. The first vintage of this cuvée was the 1978. Whether these wines ever develop the profound complexity of the southern Rhônes or northern Syrahs remains to be seen, but they do age very slowly. We had three vintages, and the older wines performed the best. The 1996 Fonsalette Syrah exhibited a dense plum/purple hue along with lots of meat juice, black fruit, and herb characteristics. The 1994 was more supple and rich. The real blockbuster, the 1989, blew me away. It is one of those wines that makes you realize that a nearly perfect 100% Syrah from the Côtes du Rhône, aged completely in old foudres and old barrels, is still an adolescent in terms of its evolution. It was a treat to drink. The only other wine from the Reynaud family was the 1998 Pignan, which was the first vintage that Emmanuel Reynaud made. To this day, I believe that he did not handle that vintage as well as many other Châteauneuf du Pape vignerons did. This wine shows a light ruby color with orange at the edge as well as lots of kirsch, loamy soil, pepper, and herb notes. The other 1998 southern Rhônes were really singing. The 1998 La Boussière Gigondas Cuvée Prestige was sensational. Fully mature, it is loaded with red and black fruit, earth, pepper, and violet characteristics offered in a wonderful lush style. Pure elegance, and tasting like a top-notch Burgundy grand cru was the 1998 Charvin. Its dark plum color is followed by a big, sweet kiss of duck sauce, kirsch, lavender, and black currants, medium to full-bodied, elegant flavors, a silky texture, and enough balance and depth to drink well for another 5-10 years. The fully mature1998 Bois Lauzon Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée Classique is a traditional Châteauneuf displaying lots of garrigue, spice box, black cherries, and currants. A younger wine, the 2001 Domaine de Pégaü was really singing. It boasts abundant aromas of balsam wood, lavender, garrigue, black currants, and darker fruits. Rich, full-bodied, savory, and soft, this is a beauty. (A bottle one month later was less impressive.) Another wine that seems to have hit full maturity and is performing beautifully is the Domaine Roger Sabon’s 1998 Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée Prestige. Lots of earth and violet notes intermixed with hints of spice box, pain grillé,  raspberries, and black currants are present in this full-bodied, silky textured wine.

We also had a magnificent bottle of the 1998 Negly Clos des Truffières (which I brought from my cellar in honor of Jeffrey Davies). This prodigious wine is still black as a moonless night, offering notes of asphalt, blackberries, and charcoal. Full-bodied, powerful, opulent, and beautifully rich, it is still quite young. It is unquestionably the greatest wine of the Languedoc-Roussillon corridor. The 1998 Saint-Cosme Côte Rôtie was very good, but it was somewhat lost among the other wines. I have had better bottles of André Brunel’s 1995 Les Cailloux Cuvée Centenaire, which seemed off, although it did improve slightly as the day wore on. This bottle revealed too much tannin as well as a somewhat disjointed style.

A special thanks to Pierre-Antoine Rovani for buying this group of mad drinkers and eaters an entire suckling pig, which was prepared to perfection by the staff at Mark’s Duck House. It was overkill for sure, as we had enough dim sum for 20-30 people, but the pig was remarkable, with the skin a heavenly delight, although it was capable of causing major cardiac distress.