Mini Restaurant Crawl
Offlines at two restaurants last night.
We started at Sakana-ya which continues to provide excellent quality authentic Japanese food. Consider this battera zushi which one rarely sees, even in Japan:
With it we drank a Billecart-Salmon NV which had about 3 years extra cellar age. Lifted toasty brioche aromas, pleasant on the palate but a little too sweet for the food.
We then opened a Hoddles Creek Chardonnay 2005 which was quite oaky with the food. It’s still in good condition, beginning to show a little secondary development.
Sake turned out to be the best match for the food (duh).
We then walked down to Paradoxe where Cam, Mark, Neville, Dig and Ginger were having dinner.
A Leroy Meursault 2000 was quite sulfur laden but showed great quality in it’s structure. I wonder if the fruit will still be around when the sulfur dissipates.
I opened a Jean Grivot Vosne-Romanée 2000 which was quite dry (a little brett), a more masculine style but fairly typical of Grivot. Needed food.
Other wines were were flowing: a Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny 2001 showed the fine aromatics I associate with the producer: roses, pine cone, woody spice. The palate was very youthful, tight. I’d be interested to try it again in 10 years.
Cam sent around a Ridge Geyserville 2005 which I quite liked. Sweet, rich, ripe nose but with balance and length on the palate.
The St Hallets Old Block Shiraz 1994 was in excellent condition, a great example of an aging Shiraz, with its blend of youth and maturity.
Cam sent around an SGN, the producer of which I didn’t note, but the balance of the wine was surreal.
A great night.
