A NYC Visit, 2 & 3 June 2014

[flash_uk]

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.

[djewesbury]

Brilliant, well done Flash, and all in NYC, this should inspire us all...

[Chris Doty]

The evening commenced with some outstanding negotiation by Chris with the Maitre d', which went something like this [...]

One meaningful detail you neglected, Flash, is that her opening salvo was to inform me that there was a $50 per bottle corkage fee!

Of course, I reminded her that Aureole (which was fantastic, btw) has a longstanding policy of no corkage on Mondays (which, obviously, is why I chose it).

Understanding that each restaurant that has a corkage policy has its own, I make special efforts to inquire very specifically into the peculiarities of such policies - both when making my reservation, and when I confirm on the day of the event. I explained that in neither of these discussions was a limit placed on the number of bottles we could bring.

As it turns out, 6 (our settlement) was a perfect number, and allowed me to take Justin's 1970 Graham home !

Anyway. It was great to meet Flash, and officially welcome him to TPF NYC. I hope the availability of beautiful wines encourages more frequent travel to our shores.

So - to the wines. We started with some Duval Leroy champagne, which was a credible and satisfying NV (I also had a Mitcher's Rye and an Ice-T, cause I'm a boss...). We progressed through a beautiful mid-mosel Spätlese which I described as 'fairways and greens' - just exactly what you want out of this style - good fruit, perfect acidity, round and delicious finish - gentle sweetness, gorgeous. At first pouring, I was a bit worried about the 2005 Bourgneuf, as I couldn't tell if it was cooked or just closed. It opened a bit during the evening, but was never delicious to me. I will hold my remaining bottles for 20+ years. We then moved onto the ports - the 83 RP, the 77 T and 40G Colheita.

For voting, I had the 1940 as #1 (92pts, consistent with the bottle we enjoyed w/ Oscar last week), the 1977 Taylor was a very respectable second, and gets a nod for being the most consistently enjoyable 77 (91pts) and the Zilliken was just too drinkable/delicious to ignore (90). The RP was also showing nicely, and could have had an equal claim to the third spot, but the Z just exemplified what I want in a Spätlese. Fire that up all day, brah.

I had beautiful (if guilt inducing) Hudson Valley Fois Gras, and then the Aureole Burger - both of which I would recommend without hesitation.

So - another beautiful way to spend a monday. Great company, great food, great wine.

Let's run it back, money.

[Chris Doty]

Courtesy of Sarah, I present the voting

Josh
1 2010 Zilliken
2 1983 Ramos Pinto
3 2005 Bourgneuf

Flash
1 1983 Ramos Pinto
2 1940 Geudes
3 2010 Zilliken

Greg
1 1940 Geudes
2 1977 Taylor
3 2010 Zilliken

Kate
1 1977 Taylor
2 2010 Zilliken
3 1983 Ramos Pinto

Justin
1 1977 Taylor
2 2010 Zilliken
3 1983 Ramos Pinto

Chris
1 1940 Geudes
2 1977 Taylor
3 2010 Zilliken

Sarah
1 1977 Taylor
2 1940 Geudes
3 1983 Ramos Pinto

Scores
1977 Taylor: 13
2010 Zilliken: 10
1940 Geudes: 10
1983 Ramos Pinto: 8
2005 Bourgneuf: 1
Duval Leroy: 0