A NYC Visit, 2 & 3 June 2014
Posted: 13:08 Tue 03 Jun 2014
A thoroughly enjoyable evening in wonderful company! Great to meet Chris, Sarah, Justin, Kate, Greg and Josh (again). The evening commenced with some outstanding negotiation by Chris with the Maitre d', which went something like this:
Maitre d': "Good evening sir, allow me to run through the details with respect to corkage. Our Monday no corkage policy is free corkage for one bottle between two people." (At this point there are 8 unopened bottles of various sorts on the table, and six people.)
Chris: "That would not be consistent with the agreement I reached when I made the booking. I specifically asked if there were any restrictions associated with the no corkage policy, such as bottle quantity limits, bottle size limits, types of wine. And I took care to make sure nothing that I brought was also showing on your own wine list. And I did explain that I was planning to bring as many bottles as I could feasibly carry - we are thirsty people and intend to drink lots."
Maitre d': (pausing as she looks around the table at six eager faces peering at her awaiting a favourable outcome) "Perhaps we can reach a compromise - how many bottles have you brought?"
Chris: "10"
Maitre d': "How about 6?"
Chris: "Deal." (Two bottles are returned to the bag.)
And so we were able to enjoy:
NV Duval Leroy Champagne
2011 Forstmeister Geltz - Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Riesling Spätlese
2005 Chateau Bourgneuf Pomerol
1983 Ramos Pinto
1977 Taylor
1940 Guedes Colheita (bottled 1971)
Wine of the night as determined by Sarah with use of iPhone, eyeballs and totting up various things in the head was T77, with the Riesling and Guedes tied for second and RP83 just back in 4th place.
I did fat finger two or three tasting notes into the iPhone and will post these shortly.
Huge thanks to Chris for organising a great evening and to everyone for coming along.
Maitre d': "Good evening sir, allow me to run through the details with respect to corkage. Our Monday no corkage policy is free corkage for one bottle between two people." (At this point there are 8 unopened bottles of various sorts on the table, and six people.)
Chris: "That would not be consistent with the agreement I reached when I made the booking. I specifically asked if there were any restrictions associated with the no corkage policy, such as bottle quantity limits, bottle size limits, types of wine. And I took care to make sure nothing that I brought was also showing on your own wine list. And I did explain that I was planning to bring as many bottles as I could feasibly carry - we are thirsty people and intend to drink lots."
Maitre d': (pausing as she looks around the table at six eager faces peering at her awaiting a favourable outcome) "Perhaps we can reach a compromise - how many bottles have you brought?"
Chris: "10"
Maitre d': "How about 6?"
Chris: "Deal." (Two bottles are returned to the bag.)
And so we were able to enjoy:
NV Duval Leroy Champagne
2011 Forstmeister Geltz - Zilliken Saarburger Rausch Riesling Spätlese
2005 Chateau Bourgneuf Pomerol
1983 Ramos Pinto
1977 Taylor
1940 Guedes Colheita (bottled 1971)
Wine of the night as determined by Sarah with use of iPhone, eyeballs and totting up various things in the head was T77, with the Riesling and Guedes tied for second and RP83 just back in 4th place.
I did fat finger two or three tasting notes into the iPhone and will post these shortly.
Huge thanks to Chris for organising a great evening and to everyone for coming along.