Joyeux Jour de la Bastille!

[wdonovan]

"I will storm my cellar" [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

The day took some really unexpected twists that had us dining with wife's grandparents. We brought ingredients & cooked there but I had no time to hit my cellar & properly chill a great wine. So I grabbed a cold Roederer NV from my local but stopped home anyway (very determined) & got a 98 Jacquart Mosaique BdB. I threw the bottle and ice in an ice bucket and put the bucket in an insulated wine bag. It chilled on the passenger floor as I drove (ala Ayrton Senna) to dinner. Dinner was lobster en papiote (baked with fennel leaves, orange, and a splash of Chardonnay) with Cognac cream sauce, rice pilaf, baby asparagus. Washed down with the Jacquart.

This wine is an unusual (maybe exceptional?) balance of old grace meets youthful exhuberance. An elegantly mature yeast forward nose and a vibrant fruit driven palate. Neither upstages the other. I wish I had bought a train full but scavenged up about a case. 5 left.

BTW One regret... very small car.... hypersonic speeds..... no place to hide a sword.... I opened the wine by hand. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/frown.gif[/img] [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/frown.gif[/img]
All's not lost though as it has given me an idea for holiday-specific opening methods. Veterans Day I think I'll shoot the top off and next 4th of July may involve dynamite.