Bistro Night - 1993 Cheval Blanc & 1998 Guiraud

On Friday 13th, we had some friends over so I could try out some "Bistro" recipes. The menu included French Onion Soup, NY Strip Streaks in a Chantrelle Brandy Cream Sauce, Potatoes Au Gratin, Haricot Vert & Creme Brulee (can't you just hear and feel the cholesterol attaching to your veins & arteries?). Being my own worst critic, (I am know tranforming my persona into the Whine Defender) I thought the food was good, but certainly not as good as I wanted. The soup needed more cheese and less time under the broiler, the steaks were cooked perfectly (thanks to Mark), but were not sufficiently seasoned; the cream sauce, again, was good but not great. The potatoes and the creme brulee came out as planned and I thought were good, but the potatoes didn't set up quite as much as I wanted.

With that bit of whinning out of the way, we did have some really good wine. I had scored some 1998 Pontet-Canet (against the advise and to the confusion of my friend Adam), my last bottle of 1997 Mouton Rothschild and some 1998 Guiraud Sauternes. Mark, one of the guests, brought 2 bottles of 1993 Cheval Blanc.

As we opened the Cheval Blanc, which was not easy due to some dry cork issues, Mark made me promise that I would be honest when I wrote about the wines and not to worry about trashing a guest's wine if that's what I wanted to do. So here goes: I've never Cheval Blanc before and after watching Sideways, always wanted to... I thought that the wine was very good. I think it was on the decline (past its prime), but had really good body and depth (as compared to the Pontet-Canet which did not) and delicious flavor or soft velvety black cherries and vanilla. This is a St. Emilion wine so is Merlot based, and in classic merlot fashion, was more of a fruit-bomb than left-bank wines tend to be. To sum up, while this wine was really, really good, it definitely was not a great Cheval Blanc.

The Mouton was also really good and this bottle was the best of ones I bought. I've found that the '97 Moutons to be a little thin and without a tremendous amount of character. I like the wine and really enjoy the taste, texture and flavors, but it's not worth the $100/bottle price point. Frankly, I liked the initial taste of the Pontet-Canet, but that wine has, as many previous reviews have noted, no mid-palate. There is a good nose and flavor and an OK finish, just in the middle, when you swallow, there's an emptiness to the flavor of the wine.

We finished up with the Guiraud Sauternes, which I thought was very good. It is a reasonably priced Sauterne and is definitely drinking now. Like all good sauternes, there is that great honey taste with really nice fruit nectar flavor that really tends to linger. I really like this wine with the creme brulee because it pairs nicely (no pun, given the pear flavor in the wine) with the silkiness of the custard and the grand marnier in the recipe I used.

Bottom line, good food, great wine, great company, great time!