Just Another Day at the Office

Dinner at Chateau Lafite Rothschild in Bordeaux and a tour of the private cellar:

With my foie gras ravioli and main course of sauced turbot I drank a 1990 Lafite. Diane Flammand, one of the winemakers at Domaines Barons de Rothschild, explained that it was an unusually opulent vintage for Lafite and one of her personal favorites. (She‘s a fan of California wines, too) The 1990 Lafite was amazingly fresh for a 21-year-old wine and the feature I was most entranced with was its mouthfeel: so silky you hardly need to swallow, it just glides down your throat.

Had the rare opportunity to descend stone steps to the private wine cellar of Baron Eric de Rothschild in the main chateau he calls home when he’s in Bordeaux and was astounded to find dusty, cob-webbed bottles dating as far back as 1797. Besides its heady aromas, stimulating tastes and mood-softening properties, wine provides an amazing link through time. In the same room with me were wines that survived Napolean, The French Revolution and WWII when Nazis occupied the Lafite grounds and plundered most of the recent vintages. The family, knowing that the Germans were coming, hid many of the historic bottles.

　

The Sweet Life

The setting: Chateau Rieussec in Sauternes, France, next door to Chateau D’Yquem and considered second only to Yquem among Sauternes producers. It was a beautiful, bright May morning and the vineyard property -- a chateau for receiving guests, a wine production facility and more than 300 acres of neat, orderly vines with vibrant red rose bushes edging the vine rows -- all spelled quality with a capital Q. I tasted the 2002 and 2010 vintages to see how the latest vintage -- a stellar one according to reports -- tasted, and to see one that has been evolving in the bottle. The 2010 was luscious and heavily concentrated in the mouth with firm acidity but lacked distinct flavors and aromas that will emerge during the planned two years in the barrel before it is released. The ‘02 had a powerful honeyed nose with flavors of apricot , white flowers and that sumptuous mouthfeel Sauternes fans luxuriate in. Michel Negrier, export manager for Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite), which owns Chateau Rieussec among other properties in Bordeaux, Languedoc and around the world, told me that Europe is still the main export market for Sauternes, but Asia -- especially China, South Korea and Japan, is the real emerging market for Sauternes.