Yet another fabulous lunch at Sojourn
Wow. Sojourn is such a great little restaurant. After my recent trip to Bistro Ortolan which, in my mind, stole a hat from Sojourn I was very keen to compare the two. The fact is, Sojourn is very far ahead no matter how you look at it. If you haven’t been, I cannot recommend more highly that you go.
We started with a Bollinger Grande Année 1995. This bottle didn’t make the year look so great. The wine lacked harmony. I’ve seen this on a few other 95s. It was really… coming apart at the seams. Will time zip it back up again? I don’t know.
Next, a Cedric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne “Les Ursules” Blanc de Noirs. This is a tiny production (3000 odd bottles) Champagne from the south of the region. The nose was full of raspberry, mulberry and blueberry. I could understand if someone said it was a red wine, but smell alone. The palate was gorgeous, beautiful acid, rich, creamy length, quite dry, very long. A wine in need of cellaring but the potential is there.
With these, we had three small Sydney rock oysters with a cucumber jelly — very light, aromatic and powerful. The Roses de Jeanne was great with them, the Bollinger being to strong in my opinion.
My entrée was out of this world: a raw swordfish carpaccio. The lime infusion offset the red fruit flavours of the Roses de Jeanne, almost turning it into a blend. The texture, presentation and precision of this dish was great. The plates taken by others were also amazing:
On the left, the carpaccio of beef. On the right, a sublime rabbit dish.
Next came a Remoissenet Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot 2004. This wine was very fine in aroma, obviously youthful. The palate seemed lighter on acidity than I expected but it still has plenty left ahead of it.
The Jean Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Clos de la Mouchère 1998 was a fabulous wine for the vintage: Puligny richness, hazelnut and butter, preserved lemon… Great length and structure. A great wine for the food in front of us.
We then proceeded to the reds, beginning with Bordeaux. The first was a La Lagune 1982. Youthful in appearance and fruit, very fragrant and fine, graphite and gravel on layers of purple suggested Pauillac to myself and others, but it wasn’t so. A very good wine with time ahead.
The Talbot 1985 was drinking at its peak, more earthy, with a hint of brett, but still elegant.
I was much more surprised by the Robert Arnoux Vosne-Romanée “Les Hautes Mazières” 2000. Despite being a village wine, this was, in my opinion premier cru quality: very fragrant with musk, strawberry, clove, coffee and more. A beautiful, long, still slightly tannic palate. Truly great.
With these I had the poached pork loin. Another extremely well executed dish which is just a pleasure to eat.
The next wine put all before it into perspective: Chateau d’Yquem 1997. A wine of astounding power and elegance. This wine will be great in 20 years but now is just so full of dense, rich fruit. Layer after layer of amazing complexity. Superb.
My dessert of rhubarb cheese cake was great but the sauternes really wanted grapefruit and mango. C’est la vie.
Lunch finished at 5pm. A great way to spend a day.
