It was our Easter meal yesterday at our table in our dining room and everyone was talking merrily away and I was caught-up in the spell of this haunting, distinctly Bordeaux dry red Bordeaux, a 1998 CHATEAU LARRIVET-HAUT-BRION from Bodeaux's best Graves region, south of the town of Bordeaux in Pessac-Leognan. This was the second bottle of this wine that I had tasted of this very same vintage just a week ago. This bottle was deeper, earthier, pithier, muskier, damper, chillier, more brooding and stony-pebbly than the first bottle that I enjoyed with Jim Stutsman, Andrew Stover and Katrina Zubber. We all liked that first bottle very much and Jim and I kept going back to it and marvelling at tasty and what a treat it was to be drinking. Jim did not know the chateau so I am happy to have introduced it to him. ... ...
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This second bottle that I was enjoying with our lamb, fresh asparagus and wild brown rice Easter meal was quite the marvel to me and I kept dipping my nose to the rim of my glass and inhaling and sipping and holding the flavors in my mouth for a little bit longer and swallowing in stages and always leaving a little bit on my palate to see how the remaining flavors would fend for themselves afterward? You never quite know really? Wine, as we are both living and constantly evolving and changing and developing depending on our surroundings, the warmth or cold around us, the amount of air, the time open, the food we are enjoying, the company and what we are hearing all around us?!? WE are never static and this wine as I was fully charged and alive and quite emotional and also, in this case a bit serious and even a bit dark and mulling, pensive and earthy. Yes, earthy, pebbly, stony with accents, dashes, splashes, saturations, filtrations and flare
s/gentle eruptions and churning of the underworld! ... ...
I will finish this post a bit later but will post it now " as is " because I still think that it has at this stage plenty of " wine for thought " as well as" food for thought " for you all. I composed some of my thoughts, feelings, reelings, rants and raves yesterday afternoon at our table. I had to come to terms with it, make my peace, establish my relationship with it before I went onto the lovely dessert that my wife had made for us all. Once I did, once I got a firmer grip on my response to, and appreciation of this 1998 Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion Pessac-Leognan I was able then to enjoy my dessert! Cheers and stay-tuned for more. Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn
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This is what I wrote on tiny cobalt=blue squares of Post-Its yesterday afternoon :
" Dredge Slrdge Swedge, the Rocks , the Drainage, the Taste of Rocks ... Make A Taste of the Rocks & Earth, 'Tween, Less Dirt More Rocks , the Taste of ... Soil - Perhaps collect Dirt $ Rocks & Crush the Grapes Onto ... That and Ferment That and see What the Taste Is ? ... It Should Taste Like This 1998 Bordeaux Red That is Dredge, Sledge, Sludge, Fruit Accented By Earth ... 2nd Bottle - More Sludge, Less Toasty Fruit ... Thicker, Denser , Less Lightness ( Than the First Bottle Tasted ) , Needs Food. Tastes of Minerals and Hay - Grains - Typical - Cries Out Bordeaux Red in That Vintage. ... As if They Turned the Vines Upside Down and Buried the Vines and Put the Roots Up Above the Earth and Exposed to All the Elements For the Duration of the Year in 1998 : Lots of Gray and Cold and Damp and Less Sunshine? ... Smells of the Many Rocks and the Soil in Bordeaux in 1998. ... ".
... ... This is what I wrote as I sipped and enjoyed the wine after my meal yesterday and it was quite the adventure, quite the experience and I was very challenged and very grounded and very focused as I tasted, thought, had the wines settle and work it's magic and spell over me and my senses. It was quite a wonderful ride for me and I did warm and thrill to it gradually as the time went by, almost a bit in slow-motion by this time. ... ...
The more I thought about it, being an artist and a poet, the more that I thought that this was a wine " of the night ", and " of the earth ", an underground, a dark and dank and earthy, soily, rocky, pebbly wine of herbs and spices, of mushrooms, of fruit from under the ground, of grapes growing in the ground and away from the sun and the wined and the sky and yet subject indirectly to all of them anyway, along with all the rest. ... ...
I liked the wine very much. It spoke to me on many levels, it complemented my wife's lamb roast and I think pur two female guests Denise and Susan also liked it quite a bit as they returned for a second and perhaps even third glass of it? ... ...
It's been a grand experience and one that I will complete tonight as there is still another glass or two for me to enjoy later tonight with our meal. Cheers et merci pour ce vin 1998 de Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion de la region de Graves, en Pessac-Leognan. Comme ca m'a plu beaucoup. Merci encore! Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn ... ...
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I took these three pictures and want to thanks artist Andrea Way as I have used her artwork inspired by the Lincoln penny, as well as Jim Stutsman with me when we enjoyed the first of the two bottles, and then this last picture at night between work and home and making me think of the " darker " flavors, the " deeper ", more " solemn " and classic flavors of this 1998 dry red Bordeaux " merveille " !!! TONY 4/1/13 12>28PM as I type these last words and edit this on a " drop-dead " gorgeous afternoon here on my day-off in northern Virginia. Cheers and enjoy ... Happy April everyone.
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This second bottle that I was enjoying with our lamb, fresh asparagus and wild brown rice Easter meal was quite the marvel to me and I kept dipping my nose to the rim of my glass and inhaling and sipping and holding the flavors in my mouth for a little bit longer and swallowing in stages and always leaving a little bit on my palate to see how the remaining flavors would fend for themselves afterward? You never quite know really? Wine, as we are both living and constantly evolving and changing and developing depending on our surroundings, the warmth or cold around us, the amount of air, the time open, the food we are enjoying, the company and what we are hearing all around us?!? WE are never static and this wine as I was fully charged and alive and quite emotional and also, in this case a bit serious and even a bit dark and mulling, pensive and earthy. Yes, earthy, pebbly, stony with accents, dashes, splashes, saturations, filtrations and flare
s/gentle eruptions and churning of the underworld! ... ...
I will finish this post a bit later but will post it now " as is " because I still think that it has at this stage plenty of " wine for thought " as well as" food for thought " for you all. I composed some of my thoughts, feelings, reelings, rants and raves yesterday afternoon at our table. I had to come to terms with it, make my peace, establish my relationship with it before I went onto the lovely dessert that my wife had made for us all. Once I did, once I got a firmer grip on my response to, and appreciation of this 1998 Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion Pessac-Leognan I was able then to enjoy my dessert! Cheers and stay-tuned for more. Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn
... ...
... ...
This is what I wrote on tiny cobalt=blue squares of Post-Its yesterday afternoon :
" Dredge Slrdge Swedge, the Rocks , the Drainage, the Taste of Rocks ... Make A Taste of the Rocks & Earth, 'Tween, Less Dirt More Rocks , the Taste of ... Soil - Perhaps collect Dirt $ Rocks & Crush the Grapes Onto ... That and Ferment That and see What the Taste Is ? ... It Should Taste Like This 1998 Bordeaux Red That is Dredge, Sledge, Sludge, Fruit Accented By Earth ... 2nd Bottle - More Sludge, Less Toasty Fruit ... Thicker, Denser , Less Lightness ( Than the First Bottle Tasted ) , Needs Food. Tastes of Minerals and Hay - Grains - Typical - Cries Out Bordeaux Red in That Vintage. ... As if They Turned the Vines Upside Down and Buried the Vines and Put the Roots Up Above the Earth and Exposed to All the Elements For the Duration of the Year in 1998 : Lots of Gray and Cold and Damp and Less Sunshine? ... Smells of the Many Rocks and the Soil in Bordeaux in 1998. ... ".
... ... This is what I wrote as I sipped and enjoyed the wine after my meal yesterday and it was quite the adventure, quite the experience and I was very challenged and very grounded and very focused as I tasted, thought, had the wines settle and work it's magic and spell over me and my senses. It was quite a wonderful ride for me and I did warm and thrill to it gradually as the time went by, almost a bit in slow-motion by this time. ... ...
The more I thought about it, being an artist and a poet, the more that I thought that this was a wine " of the night ", and " of the earth ", an underground, a dark and dank and earthy, soily, rocky, pebbly wine of herbs and spices, of mushrooms, of fruit from under the ground, of grapes growing in the ground and away from the sun and the wined and the sky and yet subject indirectly to all of them anyway, along with all the rest. ... ...
I liked the wine very much. It spoke to me on many levels, it complemented my wife's lamb roast and I think pur two female guests Denise and Susan also liked it quite a bit as they returned for a second and perhaps even third glass of it? ... ...
It's been a grand experience and one that I will complete tonight as there is still another glass or two for me to enjoy later tonight with our meal. Cheers et merci pour ce vin 1998 de Chateau Larrivet-Haut-Brion de la region de Graves, en Pessac-Leognan. Comme ca m'a plu beaucoup. Merci encore! Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn ... ...
... ... 
I took these three pictures and want to thanks artist Andrea Way as I have used her artwork inspired by the Lincoln penny, as well as Jim Stutsman with me when we enjoyed the first of the two bottles, and then this last picture at night between work and home and making me think of the " darker " flavors, the " deeper ", more " solemn " and classic flavors of this 1998 dry red Bordeaux " merveille " !!! TONY 4/1/13 12>28PM as I type these last words and edit this on a " drop-dead " gorgeous afternoon here on my day-off in northern Virginia. Cheers and enjoy ... Happy April everyone.
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