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Sunday, November 12, 2000 By Woodene Merriman, Post-Gazette Dining Critic
If I had done my job, I would have tasted 150 wines between Wednesday at 3 p.m. and Saturday noon. I would have filled my notebook with comments like "Batard-Montrachet '99 -- closed, but graceful nose, really rich, really long, extraordinary
But I didn't. Somewhere between "Charmes-Chambertin '98 -- lovely nose, chocolatey and spicy, good sweetness, lovely balance" and the Santenay 'Gravieres' '98 -- dark cherries, rich, ripe and tannic," I gave up.
I discovered that drinking wine is fun, but tasting wine is work. "Spit, yes spit," ordered Dave DeSimone, Post-Gazette wine columnist and one of the leaders of our little group, trooping through the famous wine cellars of Burgundy.
"One knows where to spit by watching the host. In some cellars, growers have so little wine that they will suggest that you return the unused wine to the barrel. Observe and follow."
So I obediently spat onto the floor, into the bucket or wherever the host did. And when he (or she) poured the remainder of the glass of wine back into the barrel, so did I.
When you know the wine is a priceless Romanee-Conti or a hard-to-get Volnay Carelles '98 from Jean-Marc Bouley, that hurts. The alternative, of course, would be to swallow it all and be drunk by noon.
Our agenda went like this: Promptly at 8:45 one Thursday morning, we were knocking on the door at Domaine Heresztyn in Gevry Chambertin, ready to taste -- and spit out -- 11 samples from the 1998 and 1999 vintage. At 10:30 a.m., we were due at Domaine Faiveley in Nuits St. Georges, ready to try 10 more.
For lunch we would have two wines (these we could swallow). By 2 p.m., we were at Vincent Girardin's modern digs, where Mrs. G. passed five more wines for sipping, spitting and discussing, and their 2-year-old son played under the table with a bottle opener.
By 4 p.m., I was back at Le Montrachet Hotel in Puligny Montrachet, having a nap. Dinner at a one-star hotel, and five or more wines that we would be really allowed to drink, were ahead.
When you travel with winos, I was learning, you have to talk the talk. DeSimone and our other leader, Greg Godels of Gateway Wine and Spirits, discussed things such as terroir, cuvee, egrappage and cuvaisin, as our two vans traveled between the villages and over the narrow, crooked streets. I always nodded knowingly. His Honor, who sometimes uses funny words like that at home, was enjoying every minute of it. At last, he was traveling with his kind of people.
Besides, it was late spring, and the sun shone brightly each morning when we walked through the priceless vineyards, noticing names we had seen before only on wine bottles.
Dinner was my favorite time of day, followed by lunch. People who are interested in fine wine, I've learned, also want the best in food.
We had reservations at Les Millesimes, the restaurant of the Sangoy family in Gevrey-Chambertin, at 8 the first night. Madame Sangoy herself and a huge, ugly dog greeted us at the door.
Our table was downstairs, in a cave-like room with an arched stone ceiling. The table was covered in a hand-crocheted tablecloth, an elaborate candelabrum and flowers in the center of the table. Dinner was one "ooh" and "aaah" after another.
First it was petites surprises en attente, a snail that we were instructed to eat all in one bite, or it would squirt out, a tiny vegetable tart, and mushroom cappuccino, wonderful foamy stuff with bits of dried mushrooms in a miniature silver bowl with matching spoon.
The waiters spoke English so we had a good idea of what we were eating. Madame, who doesn't speak English, fluttered around the table and tried to be helpful.
The first course was a risotto surrounded by frogs' legs. (When the finger bowls arrived next, we decided we had been correct in eating the frog's legs with our fingers.) The fish course was dorade, the main course veal and kidneys. Fresh goat cheese and local cheeses were among the choices on the cheese tray.
Each diner had a large plate of figs with meringue and other desserts, then a bit of sabayon served in egg shells, standing on end, and petit fours.
The wine list at Les Millesimes is huge. We could have ordered a 1878 Romanee-Conti for 28,000 francs (about $4,500) or an 1889 Pommard from Bouchard (39,000 francs), but we didn't. Instead, we made do with five wines the group agreed on. Here they are, with comments from Godels and DeSimone:
Thanks to the favorable exchange rates, dinner and wines came to $125 a person. After dinner, we toured the wine room, which has an arched stone ceiling, identical to the one in our dining room, and row after row of wine bottles, covered with the good dust of many, many years of storage.
On the way we passed the maitre d', with his shirtsleeves rolled up, washing dishes in a sink full of suds. It was 11:30 p.m., and we were the last people in the restaurant.
Before we left Burgundy, we ate jambon persille de Bourgogne with the local lunchtime crowd at Bouchon in Meursault. We missed our creme brulee dessert at lunch at the tomato-red La Toute Petite Auberge in Vosne-Romanee, because we were due at another tasting and spitting session in another cellar.
We cleaned our wine glasses out after each wine with our dinner, as requested, at our hotel, Le Montrachet in Puligny-Montrachet, because they had run out of red wine glasses.
We had dinner in the "warm and agreeable surroundings of the 16th century" at Restaurant Bernard Morillon in Beaune, where Madame Martine Morillon brought around the biggest cheese trolley I have ever seen (even Alain Ducasse in Paris doesn't match it).
And before catching the train for Paris in Dijon, we rendezvoused at Le Terroir in Santenay, a small restaurant specializing in traditional dishes, but with a mere 100 or so wine selections.
When we got home, I found my notebook has a few notes from Burgundy, but pages and pages of red splotches.
* Bernard Morillon, 31 rue Maufoux, Beaune; 011-33-3-80-24-12-06; rated one star in Michelin.
* Terroir, Place Jet d'eau, Santenay; 011-33-3-80-20-63-47.
* Les Millesimes, 25 rue Eglise, Gevrey-Chambertin; 011-33-3-80-51-84-24; rated one star in Michelin.
Related Recipe:
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Meursault "en la Barre," Francois Jobard '95 -- Very "Meursault," a little "wheat grain" rich, but lively. Needs time.
