So much to tell and so little time to spit it out. So I’ll work backwards.
Last night I attended the seminar the petite wine importer, Jenny Lefcourt was giving at the new Astor Center with a few of her producers entitled Vins Purs.

Who knew there were so many would attend a French wine seminar in French, my only wish is that it would have been presented as a class so I could have felt empowered to ask for clarification as my French is...ahem.... pathetic.

One of the big treats, by the way was a 1989 Domaine Oudin 1er Cru Chablis, "Vaugiraut." An incredible treat to see how that wine aged. Sure it was evolved, round, leesy, creamy, mandarin-orange like with piercing acidity and wool with brazil nut meets dulce de leche finish.

After the seminar some intense guy was pressing the tall, angular vigneron Laurent Tibes (Clos des Camuzeilles) to tell him what was the matter with the wine he made. I wondered if he made the wine in his New York bathtub or perhaps one of the Crushpad custom made wine deals. The wine was really vile, but the first thing I smelled was sauerkraut and then dill pickle.

The sauerkraut signified lactic bacteria going on the dill pickle was about the barrels to me, but after I spit it out the American oak was powerful, disgusting, bitter. I don’t know what grapes he used but it could have been extremely under ripe cabernet.

What surprised me is that Tibes said there was nothing technically wrong with the wine, maybe he just thought the guy was such a jerk that he didn’t even want to partake in dialogue. But the question is: the wine was obviously from bought grapes and whacked out with all sorts of bad intervention and no real winemaking. So Jenny was really scratching her head, “Now, why would he choose these vignerons to show his wines? He crazy or something?”

Now, on to my Night at Adour