Gibier @ Tokyo

＊日本語版はこちら
http://amys-wine.blogspot.jp/2013/05/blog-post_15.html

I went a Gibier restaurant "Ino Shika cho" @ Koen-ji, Tokyo with my friends, who are all wine lovers.  The restaurant is "BYO (Bring Your Own)" with corkage fee (\1,000), so my friends brought wines that they think to mariage to any type of Gibier dishes.

It was a great dinner with tasty food and fine wines.  I was impressed with the quality of food and great sense of my friends to choose such a wonderful wines.

First, we had a Australian white wine, souvenir of one of the friends (Mr. O) who just had come back from Australian winery tour.

Wine: 2012 PEGGY'S HILL RIESLING / HENSCHKE
Dish:  Duck breast ham

 


This wine is by the HENSCHKE winery, famous as the Australian best Shiraz "Hill of Grace." Wow, he went the Henschke winery...envy you!!

The color of wine was clear and pale yellow with green note.  Observed a few bobble.  From the chilled wine, there were some aromas and bouquets of citrus, apple, La France (pear), and white flowers with stony mineral.  Very dry and rich sour.  Rich fruits flavor and very floral taste with rich minerals.  As the temperature increase, there were an aroma of apple's nectar and a bit of petrol-like aromas as well.  Very elegant, very fine wine.  I loved it so much that it would be one of my best Riesling in my life so far.
More impressing thing was that this wine showed perfect mariage with the Duck breast Ham! The sour of this wine went great with the delicate meat and fat of the duck! Wow, it was just a perfect mariage❤

Next, we ordered a Deer's Sashimi.  While waiting the dish, we opened other wines we brought; one for this dish, another for waiting to fully open the aromas.
Wine: 2008 DEYO / CASTILLO DE MONJARDIN
Dish: Deer's Sashimi

 


Look at this color of meat! How fresh they were♪ Very fine and delicate red meat, so I always crave this dish!
We tried the Spanish Merlot wine (M-chan's selection) for this dish.  The wine, Deyo, is from D.O. Navarra, Spain, and made by a winery "Castillo de Monjardin."
The color was cherry-red.  Powerful aromas of dark-cherry and berries with a little of dried fruits.  Also some oaky aroma like cigar and wood with spice, earth, and meat aromas.  Rich fruits flavor with very silky texture, round tannin, and well acidity.  Wow, so tasty! I love it❤
It surprisingly went great with the deer's sashimi! Though this dish came with garlic soy-sauce, it was better to have without the sauce for this wine.  The condensed deer's meat flavor was like a bluefin tuna sashimi, which was great with the wine's aromas of like row meat or iron. OK, another best mariage tonight❤Great selection.  Thanks for M-chan!

In the meanwhile, aromas of the other wine had been fully appeared.  We tried this wine with deer's stew.  
Wine:2009 CH. MONBOUSQUET / SAINT EMILION
Dish: Deer's stew

 

Chateau Monbousquet is located in the AOC St. Emilion and had a long history; its origins go back to 1540.  On 1993 it was sold to Gerard Perse; afterwards, quality of the wine improved mainly due to
a genius oenologist "Michel Rolland." Finally, this chateau became Grand Cru Classe of the Saint Emilion classification.

2006 Ch. Monbousquet, the color was dark ruby.  Right after taking off the cork, the aromas and bouquet were mainly tobacco, cigar, and cider.  After half to one hour, different aromas came up like ripe blueberry, cassis, or dark-cherry with demitasse coffee, toffee, chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, and clove.  Also there was some nuance of ink bouquet and others.  Rich fruits flavor, acidity, and tannin;  a little tanic but silky texture.  Very powerful wine♪
The cepage is 60% merlot, 30% cabernet franc, and 10% cabernet sauvignon.  It was aged in 100% oak for 18 to 24 months, then blended and bottled without filtration.

It was great to enjoy this wine by itself; however, it was much better to have this with the deer's stew:) The meat was very tender, the taste was very rich and many spice flavors, which was just perfect harmony and perfect mariage with this wine!

We had one more bottle of wine, but I had a little more than enough wine at this time, so forgot to take tasting memo in detail.... OK, let me try the wine again, hopefully soon!


↓Click here if you LIKE this blog! Thank you :)

英語 ブログランキングへ

Chichibu Wine

I went to Chichibu, western part of Saitama Predecture and famous for "Shiba-Sakura (ground cherry blossom) ," to participate my friends's wedding party.  I met many friends of my high-school time and spent a great time with them:)

The wedding party was a nice French-Japanese full-course meal with free drink, so I ordered a white wine, which was the local Chichibu wine!

←Gensaku-jirushi GKT / Chichibu-wine
The grape variety of this white wine is 100% Koshu grape, which is one of the Japanese original grape.  It was the first time for me to drink a wine from Chichibu, so I was a little excited:)

Very clean aroma and bouquet of grapefruits, white flower, and mineral like a stone.  Well balance of fruits flavor and acidity.  Good volume but not too much.  Wow, it's soooooo tasty❤

Actually, I had underestimated this wine before drinking but totally knocked out by this high-quality taste.  Sooner, I recommended to my friends to drink this wine.  They were also very impressed about it as same as me and started to drink it with me.  I don't remember how many bottles we had....

This Chichibu-wine winery was established in 1933 and succeeded to brew a wine in 1936.  The founder, Gensaku Asami, had no knowledge about brewage at the beginning, so he learned it from "Zenbei Kawakami," one of the most famous Japanese wine-brewer at the time.  At the beginning, the business was not going well, having very hard time to sell his wine.  After several years later, his wine was admired by French priest as "Wow, this wine tastes like Bordeaux wine, so great!" This admiration was soon known among Japanese wine lovers, and Chichibu-wine was getting popular; his effort was finally rewarded.

I love the Chichibu-wine's taste, the history, and their passion and effort to wine-making.  At the time I visit to my friend @ Chichibu, I'll definitely visit the winery as well :)

You can buy this GKT wine at this website;

秩父ワイン　GKT（白）　720ml 価格：1,680円（税込、送料別）

Unfortunately, this website is available only in Japanese...

この記事の日本語バージョンはこちら：
http://amys-wine.blogspot.jp/2013/04/blog-post_22.html



↓Click here if you LIKE this blog! Thank you :)

英語 ブログランキングへ

Wine Fair info @Tokyo

There is one more wine event @Tokyo.

@Nihonbashi Takashima-ya
World Wine Fair (4/18 - 4/23)
It offers some special set including Leroy's Beaujolais!

Wine tasting event and sales info in Tokyo

It's gonna be a rainy weekend in Tokyo...hmm.... OK, how about going to some wine tasting events!

Here is some info. Check them up!

1. Wine Shop ENOTECA
@ Shiuya Hikarie
It's in the one-year anniversary sale now!
This shop offers \10,000 for 10 full bottles set, \10,000 for 2 bottles of more than \5,000 wine, etc.. Interesting!

@Ginza
Here offers interesting tasting events in this weekend!
20th (sat) "2005 Bordeaux tasting" including Ch. Haut Brion and Ch. Margaux!!! Oh my.... Gotta go!
21st (sun) " Louis Roederer, Chapagne tasting," including Brut Premier NV and vintage, rose etc... hmm that's good as well.

@Roppongi Hills
It's in the 10th anniversary sales!  It offers many rare California wines including Screaming Eagle!!! Wow! I'd love to drink someday!!

Also, it offers a great tasting event as well!
20th-21st (sat-sun) "Mouton family tasting," Ch. Mouton Rothschild, Opus One, and Almaviva!! Oh, wow!!!

well, how about we go Ginza first to have some Champagne and then to Roppongi to have great wines?? It must be a great weekend plan☆

2. Wine Market Party @ Ebisu
It offers a tasting event on Sunday!
21st (sun) "World Reisling wines" from France, Germany, Australia, and USA.  I love Reisling as well.  hmm... may be after Roppongi, Riesling as a dessert❤

You can get some more detail info at below link, but it's only in Japanese...









Have a great weekend!

日本語はこちら：
http://amys-wine.blogspot.jp/2013/04/blog-post_20.html


↓Click here if you LIKE this blog! Thank you :)

英語 ブログランキングへ

Ch. Leoville Barton '99 / Saint Julien

I went to a wine festival, "world wine and cheese festival," @ Daimaru Tokyo (next to Tokyo station). There are 200 kinds of free tasting wine, some charged tasting wine, and many kinds of free tasting cheese.   Also these products are all on sales (some wine is more than 10% off), and can be shipped to your home.

There are many varieties of wine from all over the world, so I was so excited and tasted so many kinds....

At the charged tasting booth, I found one of the Grands Crus Classe Bordeaux! Yeah, let's taste it!!

Ch. Leoville Barton '99 / Saint Julien (Second Cru)

Dark ruby color with orange at the edge.  Aroma of cassis and blackberries (a bit dried not fresh one) with powerful bouquet of cider, pencil, leather, clove, ciger, truffle and leaf mold.  The tannin was rich , so the texture was a bit tannic at the first.  As time went, the tannin became round and silky.  The wine I had seems at the mid to latter peak.  If I describe it as human, this wine is like "mid to old gentleman." Well, it's in good mean.  It was wonderful wine in the fact.

There are three "Ch. Leoville ～" in Second cru classe of Medoc, Bordeaux; Leoville Las Cases, Leoville Poyferre, and Leoville Barton.  These wineries used to be one winery "Ch. Leoville," whose history began in 1638.  The wine of Ch. Leoville was high quality, thus evaluated and famous as "the vast and great vineyard."  In 1826, the Barton family owned 1/4 of the vast Leoville vineyard, and the history of Ch. Leoville Barton began.        

Its grape varieties is 72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, and 8% Cabernet Franc.  The wine is bottled after 18 months aging in 50% new oak barrel.

The wine of Ch. Leoville Barton is usually very classic Bordeaux style.  The quality is high, but it's a little minor as comparing with the other "Leoville"s; thus, the cost performance is high.


This wine is available at this online shop;

This site has an English page as well (at the bottom of this site, there is an "English" link), but they ship only within Japan.


日本語ブログはこちら：
http://amys-wine.blogspot.jp/2013/04/ch-leoville-barton.html


↓Click here if you LIKE this blog! Thank you :)

英語 ブログランキングへ

Chassagne Montrachet les Encegnieres '10 / Etienne Sauzet

I had a nice Thai dinner with my friends at hear in Yuraku-cho, Tokyo;
← Aroyna Tabeta (http://www.tabeta.com/yurakucho/)
*The picture is from its website

All dishes are \500 ! And its drinks are reasonable as well, so the restaurant was already full before 7 pm.

It was very warm day, so we took an outside table, had a lot of beer and Thai food.  Yum, yum❤
After the dinner, it wasn't enough drink for us, so we went to a wine cafe at Ginza.

Winshop ENOTECA Ginza, Cafe & Bar Mille (http://www.enoteca.co.jp/shop/ginza.html)
*The picture is from its website

This wine cafe belongs to the Wineshop ENOTECA, so you can drink your purchaded wines at the cafe (charge: \1,050/bottle).

So, we looked around the shop and found a nice Burgundian white wine.

Chassagne Montrachet les Encegnieres '10 / Etienne Sauzet
 
This 100% Chardonnay wine was great! At the first, it was mainly oaky and banana-like bouquet; afterwards, more complex aroma and bouquet came up like fresh citrus fruits, nuts, and butter.  The flavor was something like eating fresh grapefruits.  Mineral and sour (not too sharp) made this wine so elegant.  Very long finish.

Wow....I love this.  I love Sauzet!!

Etienne Sauzet is one of the top 3 winery in Puligny-Montrachet.  It used to be domaine (yield wine by 100% own grape from their vineyard), but currently half Negociant due to heritage matter. However, the quality of grapes from their contract vineyards is great, so Sauzet's wine quality is as great as before (by the way, Sauzet wines are all biodynamics from 2010).

Because of the popularity, it's rare to see any Sauzet wine at shops especially Montrachet Grand Crue, praised by Alexandre Dumas as "C'est a genoux et tete decouverte qu'il faut le boire (hats off and kneel to drink)."

Hmm... I love to drink the Montrachet someday...

Not the Montrachet, the "2001 Bienvenues Batard Montrachet (Grand Cru)" is available at this store!!

Click this pic to Buy

This site has an English page as well (at the bottom of this site, there is an "English" link), but they ship only within Japan.


It's a bit expensive (about \50,000), but worth it! Only 2 bottles left.  Should I buy or try not to.....hmm....

日本語ブログはこちら：
http://amys-wine.blogspot.jp/2013/04/blog-post_10.html

↓Click here if you LIKE this blog! Thank you :)

英語 ブログランキングへ

Ch. Lynch-Bages 2001/Pauillac

 Ch. Lynch-Bages 2001/Pauillac (Cinquiemes Cru)

The color was garnet with orange color at the edge, but little darker than 2001 Ch. d'Almailhac.  Powerful and rich aroma and bouquet of ripped blackberry, cassis, and blueberry with hint of leather, tobacco, leaf mold, nutmeg, clove, and coffee.  Silky texture with flavor of condensed fruit, rich tannin, and soft acidity.  It's been aged for 12years but still young,, so I thought this wine just reached the beginning of its peak.

The grape varieties of 2001 vintage are 73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot.

Ch. Lynch-Bages is ranked as "Cinquiemes Cru (5th);" however, many wine reviewers ranks it as the second cru.  Thus, the price is a bit pricy as Cinquiemes cru, especially for its great vintage such as 2000, 2005, and 2009.  The price may increase in the future, so it may be better to buy now.


This wine is available at this online shop;

This site has an English page as well (at the bottom of this site, there is an "English" link), but they ship only within Japan.


日本語ブログはこちら：
http://amys-wine.blogspot.jp/2013/02/ch-lynch-bages.html


↓Click here if you LIKE this blog! Thank you :)

英語 ブログランキングへ