VEEN-OH!

Tonight was the Sommelier Guild of Atlanta’s January tasting, featuring the Bordeaux wines of 2000.

Denny, the Grouchy Old Wino Cripple, inveigled me into joining the Guild, and tonight was the first tasting I attended as a full-fledged member. (I had gone to the Guild’s Pinot Noir dinner in November as Denny’s guest but had missed the Champagne tasting in December owing to my travel schedule.)

What did we drink? Inquiring minds want to know...

[All vintage 2000 unless otherwise noted]

Speaker’s Wine:
Gravier Lacoste Blanc 2005

Flight #1:
Alter Ego (Margaux)
Pavillon Rouge (Margaux)
Clos du Marquis (St. Julien)

Flight #2:
Comtesse de Lalande (Pauillac)
Forts de Latour (Pauillac)
Pontet Canet (Pauillac)

Flight #3:
La Dame de Montrose (St. Estèphe)
Pagodas de Cos (St. Estèphe)
La Dominique (St. Emilion)

My personal favorite among all of these was the Pontet Canet, although the Forts de Latour (the crowd-pleaser) was hot on its heels. The Pavillon Rouge and the Dominique were also standouts...but there was not a lemon in the bunch. And as if all that were not enough, a few bottles got passed around as lagniappe after the tasting: a Château Haut-Brion (Graves) 1993 and a Château Lynch-Bages (Pauillac) 1985. Serious wines, these.

No dinner, per se, just piles of nice cheeses, grapes, and pâté to help absorb the alcohol and offer a counterpoint to the Veen-Oh.

Denny regaled us with tales of his just-concluded trip to Snowmass, and we talked a whole lot about topics ranging from Drinkage to Bloggage to Music. The boy is a Renaissance man, for sure.

Now to drift off to a fragrant sleep, a sleep perfumed by the Noble Grape...

Sucks to be us, don’t it?