Ch Larrivet Haut-Brion

This is a Graves estate whose wines (both red and white) I had tasted quite on quite a few occasions. I think the first time was at one of those hotel F&B promotions where you buy a "wine passport" and both red and white were on offer. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of this relatively unknown estate. Looking up in High John's pocket book made us keep an eye out for this estate  - Leognan property with perfectionist standards, now who wouldn't with this sort of recommendation?

Originally Ch La Rivette when it came into being in the 1800s, the owner started calling it Haut-Brion Larrivet in 1874, much to the consternation of Ch Haut-Brion proper. Later the wines were rebranded as Larrivet Haur-Brion after the threat of lawsuit. 61 of its 72 hectares are planted with red grapes - Merlot and the two Cabernets, whilst the remaining 11 heactares are planted with Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc. My most recent encounter was the 2005 Blanc at the Century of Fives tasting.

A Century of Fives

We had this PWC dinner over the weekend, Initially the theme was to taste wines from vintages ending in 5 - that would be 2005, 1995, 1985 and maybe 1975. If one was to push the boat out, I can always try and locate that Warre 1955 port I had already blogged about here. In the end, due to the number of participants and from a rather tight budget, we ended up with a champagne, a white Graves and two clarets from 2005 and two clarets and one RP100 Monbazillac from 1995. The surprise came in that the total age of that selection actually came up to 100 years! Of these, I mentioned the Champagne ( in a blog about the Champagne House) before and actually blogged about the dessert wine - Chateau Tirecule la Graviere Cuvee Madame 1995. Going through the rest will make this entry inordinately long, so I will cover them later.

A d'Arenberg Stump Jump dessert wine

This 2010 d'Arenberg Stump Jump Sticky Chardonnay Riesling Semillon Pinot Gris (what a mouthful of a name!) was part of the line-up for the Valentine dinner wine pairing option. Though I had tried a number of d'Arenberg wine, I think it is the first time I have tried their stickies. (On a different note, though I have blogged about their flagship Dead Arm Shiraz, their other wines I have tasted, all of which are reasonable drinks, also have not yet appeared on the blog either.)

The rather long name dealt with cepage and it seems that all those grapes are nobly rotten before they can be eligible to participate in this sticky. A minimalist approach to wine-making kept the fruit vibrant in the glass. An old gold in colour, the wine was sweet with botrytised notes and a touch of fruitiness on the nose. Sweet botrytised dried apricot notes dominated the palate and carried onto the backbone with a good dose of acid. We were also given some Ch Diosy-Daene to taste; unfortunately d'Arenberg was not really a match for the latter's balance and finesse, though truth be said, it would still be very nice with a really assertive dessert.

Older wines 1

It is not easy to get to taste wines with a bit of age. Modern day drinkers are generally more than a touch impatient, and look with suspicion on older bottles. That is not incomprehensible, especially in a place like Hong Kong, because the hot weather will soon spoil any bottle that is improperly stored. Even when properly stored, some wines won't last, and others not that long. The 65 year old bottle of Pichon Baron was certainly not designed to be drunk that old and that showed when the cork was pulled. However, I also tasted a bottle of Madeira from the end of the 18th Century and that tasted absolutely wonderful.

A Toro Albala old and rare PX tasting

We went to a tasting of old and rare PX sweet wines from Toro Albala over the weekend. My first encounter with this winery is with the Don PX 1972 and I had also tasted the 1962 which was also in the line-up the other day. I forgot which are the vintages I had previously tasted in the different HKIWSF over the years, but this time the other vintages are 2010, 1983 and the climax of the tasting the 100-pointed Parker rated 1946. A bottle of 1910 was also there to entice us to buy, but there were no takers.

The 2010 was very young and sweet, threatening and nearly succeeding to cloy. My wife had brought along some Roquefort and that saved the day. The 1983 was much darker, not so sweet but rich a bit smokey and still went well with the cheese. The two older wines will merit separate entries, since the second tasting of the 1962 yielded completely different impressions to the first!

Chateau Haut-Brion Blanc

This is a bottle of the rare white wine from Chateau Haut-Brion, and yes, it is more expensive than the red most if not all of the time. Excuse the pinkish tint of the label, but if I had "corrected" it, then you cannot see the clear contents of the bottle - it is really the white! (Actually the silver print on the label as opposed to the old gold of the red also gives it away). Whilst some 48 ha of the estate are planted with red grapes, only 2.7 ha are planted with white grapes (which actually includes a soupcon of Sauvignon Gris but no Muscadelle), giving an average production of some 450-650 cases of white, as opposed to the ten to twelve thousand cases of red. Before Ch Mouton-Rothschild made its white, the only other First Growth making white wines was Ch Margaux, which was much more widely available.