The five best days…
Wow. Whew. Five days of intense wining, dining, and hanging with friends old and new from around the world. Way too much great food. An embarrassing array of great wines. Another IPNC is behind us. I am happy, thrilled, overfed, and exhausted!
Where to begin? We started “softly” with a nice dinner at Bistro Maison in McMinnville Wednesday night, with our distributor from DC, my buddy Craig Williams from Napa, David & Juliette from DDO, and some nice champers from Marc Chauvet to start. The rabbit casserole was amazing, btw…
Juliette & Lanny at Bistro Maison
Party time in the winery...
Then our Thursday night pre-IPNC dinner at the winery, with special guests Anne & Hervé Sigaut, journalist Bruce Schoenfeld, and the best group of people we could hope to have. Gabe Rucker and Andy Fortgang from Le Pigeon blew everybody away with the dinner – the foie gras and duck confit salad, followed by the rack of lamb with lamb belly – way too good… Opened up the last mag of our first wine – the ’99 Kent Ritchie Vyd. Chardonnay – man did I luck out on that one. I had truly no idea what I was doing at the time (not that I have much of an idea now), but with Greg LaFollette’s gentle guidance we made a lovely, ageworthy wine. It was drinking really beautifully, and I’m glad to still have some 750s in the cellar…
Mike, Scott & the Sigauts in the tasting room
Guests Tom & Sandra Long from CA
Friday and Saturday were consumed with endless IPNC seminars, tastings, lunches and dinners, all of which were excellently planned and executed. It was a special pleasure to hear winemaker François Millet from Domaine de Vogüé hold forth on the intricacies of Chambolle-Musigny terroir, and to spend some time with him and his family during the Salmon Bake dinner Saturday night.
The de Vogué Seminar
Ahh, Salmon Bake. One of the best nights of the year (right up there with La Paulée in Burgundy in my book) – a beautiful night under the stars, surrounded with great friends, wine and food. Oh, and did I mention the wine? A few good bottles were going around. (Understatement of the year.) We really enjoyed an excellent bottle of the ’99 Charmes Chambertin from Taupenot-Merme, and an ’04 Romanée-St. Vivant from J-J Confuron, amongst way too many others. Journalist David Schildknecht (who covers Burgundy, all of France except for Bordeaux and the Rhône, and Germany and Austria for The Wine Advocate) was on hand, going around with a bottle of our ’07 Audrey that I’d given him earlier in the evening, and he was pouring it blind for a bunch of his winemaking friends from around the globe. He came back to report that 17 out of 18 thought it was from Burgundy! That to me is the highest praise I could dream of – believe me I was over the moon to hear that the wine was enjoyed and appreciated for its elegance and finesse…
Salmon Bake at sunset...
If that wasn’t enough, we followed it all up with another great dinner at Le Pigeon in Portland – Anne & Hervé Sigaut, their agent Mike Stephens from Beaune, and Allen & Erica Meadows joined us for another round of hedonistic delights. I couldn’t help myself – I had to order the fois gras terrine. Over-indulgence? Undoubtedly, but god it was delicious! I talked Anne Sigaut into trying the foie gras ice cream profiteroles for dessert, and for a non-dessert eater she seemed pretty pleased. Allen brought a nice ’96 Corton Charlemagne from Tollot-Beaut, and we followed with an ’01 RSV from Confuron, which was stunningly silky and refined. In all, a great, great night.
Foie Gras and avocado terrine
This afternoon we’re pouring wine with the Sigauts for a group of the top sommelliers and retailers around Portland, after which I am officially going into retirement for about 36 hours. (And hitting the running trails in Forest Park to try and reverse some of the damage from five straight days of hedonistic excess!)
