It was great to meet Anna Tyack and Ariele Monaco at Lavandou last night. We were able to have owner Florence DeVilliers come and join us for awhile and that was great. I brought a bottle of the LouisTrapet Pere Et Fils 1985 Chambertin to dinner and it was so fresh, lively bright and vibrant - just as if it was only a few years old and not 23 years old!
This was an amazing evening really just about pure enjoyment and relaxation in the company of new friends and old ones. I have know you Florence now for twenty years or more and you have in the past invited me to sit at your table in your restaurant with the rest of your staff to enjoy whatever the chef made for you all to eat before the dinner service started. I loved that and have never forgotten it.
Each time that I go to Lavandou ( 202-099-3003 ) I feel that I am returning to France where I spent time there with my family and then by myself all through the seventies. I treasure that time in my past and dining at Lavandou always makes it come back to me.
Funny, when Anna was here at the restaurant tonight she said the same thing. She's from the champagne district of France and now represents I believe five or six French vineyards here in the U.S. including a champagne house. Of course here at Lavandou she is representing the ST. ANDRE DE FIGUIERE vineyard from the Cotes de Provence. I love these wines and have enjoyed selling them over the years at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel : 202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com ).
Tonight we gathered there : Arielle Monaco ( our rep for Country Vintners ), Anna Tyack ( ST. ANDRE DE FIGUIERE ) and both owner Florence and head waiter/sommelier Francis came over to chat and to taste the extraordinary bottle of LOUIS TRAPET Pere Et Fils Chambertin 1985. It was so fresh! It was so bright, warm and cozy and you could almost wrap your tongue around it and fall asleep it felt so enjoyable and comforting. It really did have a lot going on in it still after 23 years and yet it did not let anyone know how old it was by it's taste! How is that possible?!? How can a wine of 23 years of age seem so fresh and youthful and completely charming?
Yes, this LOUIS TRAPET Pere Et Fils 1985 Chambertin did have it bits/hints of earth and spice, tar. leather, olive, barnyard, etcetera. It was all there , all wrapped up in a bed- like a water bed filled with charming, brighter, lighter yet rich, complex, really full yet completely nuanced mille-feuille flavors, subtleties, refinements, additions, extensions, tangents, roads to somewhere wonderful - many of them - conduits, ports and alleys and rivers and brooks and streams of sun-filled/warmed red Pinot Noir grapes that had both maturity and stories galore to tell! I loved it, everyone loved it!
We were all drawn together because we wanted to have a nice dining experience and having both Florence and Francis really added to this experience. I got so inspired as we talked later about doing a wine-food pairing event that I started to quickly sketch portraits of everyone seated there around the table : Arielle, Anne and Florence. I was caught by the moment.
The 1985 Chambertin made us all smile and relax and yet excited and charged fully to want to absorb and take full advantage of this serendipitous moment that evolved richly. It's the best LOUIS TRAPET Pere Et Fils wine that I have had in years. The other bottles I had were excellent, too : but this was the ripest, most bright, most red berry/cherry Pinot Noir I have tasted!
Cheers, I am sure I will have more to say but I will add to this as I think of it and time permits. In the meantime enjoy these photos. TONY
P.S. I just finished typing at chatpoetry some poems that I wrote this Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 inspired by this dinner. Go to : view complete profile on the first page of chatwine and click it on, scroll down till you hit my other blog sites and click on chatpoetry . Cheers ! TONY
This was an amazing evening really just about pure enjoyment and relaxation in the company of new friends and old ones. I have know you Florence now for twenty years or more and you have in the past invited me to sit at your table in your restaurant with the rest of your staff to enjoy whatever the chef made for you all to eat before the dinner service started. I loved that and have never forgotten it.
Each time that I go to Lavandou ( 202-099-3003 ) I feel that I am returning to France where I spent time there with my family and then by myself all through the seventies. I treasure that time in my past and dining at Lavandou always makes it come back to me.
Funny, when Anna was here at the restaurant tonight she said the same thing. She's from the champagne district of France and now represents I believe five or six French vineyards here in the U.S. including a champagne house. Of course here at Lavandou she is representing the ST. ANDRE DE FIGUIERE vineyard from the Cotes de Provence. I love these wines and have enjoyed selling them over the years at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel : 202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com ).
Tonight we gathered there : Arielle Monaco ( our rep for Country Vintners ), Anna Tyack ( ST. ANDRE DE FIGUIERE ) and both owner Florence and head waiter/sommelier Francis came over to chat and to taste the extraordinary bottle of LOUIS TRAPET Pere Et Fils Chambertin 1985. It was so fresh! It was so bright, warm and cozy and you could almost wrap your tongue around it and fall asleep it felt so enjoyable and comforting. It really did have a lot going on in it still after 23 years and yet it did not let anyone know how old it was by it's taste! How is that possible?!? How can a wine of 23 years of age seem so fresh and youthful and completely charming?
Yes, this LOUIS TRAPET Pere Et Fils 1985 Chambertin did have it bits/hints of earth and spice, tar. leather, olive, barnyard, etcetera. It was all there , all wrapped up in a bed- like a water bed filled with charming, brighter, lighter yet rich, complex, really full yet completely nuanced mille-feuille flavors, subtleties, refinements, additions, extensions, tangents, roads to somewhere wonderful - many of them - conduits, ports and alleys and rivers and brooks and streams of sun-filled/warmed red Pinot Noir grapes that had both maturity and stories galore to tell! I loved it, everyone loved it!
We were all drawn together because we wanted to have a nice dining experience and having both Florence and Francis really added to this experience. I got so inspired as we talked later about doing a wine-food pairing event that I started to quickly sketch portraits of everyone seated there around the table : Arielle, Anne and Florence. I was caught by the moment.
The 1985 Chambertin made us all smile and relax and yet excited and charged fully to want to absorb and take full advantage of this serendipitous moment that evolved richly. It's the best LOUIS TRAPET Pere Et Fils wine that I have had in years. The other bottles I had were excellent, too : but this was the ripest, most bright, most red berry/cherry Pinot Noir I have tasted!
Cheers, I am sure I will have more to say but I will add to this as I think of it and time permits. In the meantime enjoy these photos. TONY
P.S. I just finished typing at chatpoetry some poems that I wrote this Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 inspired by this dinner. Go to : view complete profile on the first page of chatwine and click it on, scroll down till you hit my other blog sites and click on chatpoetry . Cheers ! TONY
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