Unfair Advantage

The proceedings for dinner had been concluded.  All the sparkling wines and most of the still whites finished off.  The Nessie invited us to sit down at the dinner table.  JK and his helpers had put the red wines into flights, as you do for a ‘serious’ wine night.  It is a difficult thing to do sometimes, as it all depends on what people bring along to contribute.  Unless there is a degree of co-ordination in the planning, the wines turning up can be pretty diverse.  If you plan too much, you lose spontaneity.  And different wines have different weight of meaning to the owner.  One that might seem ‘ordinary’ to one person could be another’s pride and joy.

So the first pairing were Pinot Noirs.  The 2006 Wooing Tree Central Otago Pinot Noir alongside a 2010 Rousseau Mazy-Chambertin Grand Cru.  “Not fair!” you may cry out, but that’s what was there.  The Wooing Tree was dark hearted and brooding, still, after so much time.  It had a dense core of ripe black fruits, with dark herbs and minerals.  Maybe a touch of thyme too.  Big on the palate, the tannins just beginning to resolve.  It still made a statement.  Maybe it knew what it was up against. The burgundy from a grand cru site, from an impeccably great year, from one of the best produces.  The words here were ‘aromatic finesse’.  This has never been Rousseau’s biggest, boldest, most striking, exotic or greatest appellation, and it’s easy to dismiss its lightness when comparing it to Chambertin. ‘Clos de Beze’ or ‘Clos St Jacques’.  But those with a bit of experience love its cool fragrance and beauty, and refined tannin structure.  So it was with this 2010, great florality, and dear I say it some confectionary lift – from whole, uncrushed berry fermentation.  Then nuances of herbs and an array of red fruits.  Yes, this is Mazy-Chambertin class.  An unfair advantage to the burgundy – yes, but the Kiwi wine was not disgraced.