6Ls, 6Ls, magnums and more!
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
an incredible selection of wines at a wedding reception
Welcome back to adventures of a black belt sommelier had an experience last night to share with you that kind of hard to even get my head around what this was. One of the most interesting night, professional nights of my life, I was hired to be the sommelier at a wedding reception here in St. Paul, at a really beautiful place called the Simple Mansion. It is an amazing venue if you ever have something special that you need to celebrate here in the Twin Cities. The Simple Mansion is an incredible place to have it, that's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. But in my experience, generally at wedding receptions, the wine is Andre or Cooks, or Belsk, or Bell Champagne, and I think the reason people think they hate Champagne is because they think Andre and Cooks are Champagne. At this wedding reception, the Champagne was a magnum of Maison d'Ont brought in bottles of Maison d'Ont brought Rose and not only that, but they had a little age on them, so they were really just showing beautifully. And then the wines were unbelievable. There was a six liter bottle of Silver Oak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, there was a double magnum, a three liter of 1998 Chateau, a character wrote a buff. There were lots of bottles of 1993 and 1994 Chateau Muteau-Rofield, 94 Chateau Blanche Loose, 1989 and 1990 Chateau-Grouber Rose. There were bottles of Stagg's League Cabernet Sauvignon that didn't open any of those. I'm not sure what vintage or whether it was Napa Valley or Sonoma. They actually had a separate bar where they had Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon to pour for people that really weren't all that interested in wine. This is a very interesting wedding reception, which I was to take care of the wines and pour appropriate quantities and explain to people what character wrote about this and what Silver Oak is, because I think 90% of the guests, they just really wanted a glass of wine. They weren't, well, I would say even more than 90%, but maybe all but about five people were really not all that interested in the nuances and complexities of right-bank Bordeaux versus left-bank Bordeaux, but one of the guests was a British wine merchant named Tim Littler and he brought some wine for his table at the reception and then also at that table was another fellow who they, I think, they all operate luxury trains and they are all the host of the party, the father of the bride and this fellow Tim Littler who's a British wine merchant and then this other, their third friend who operates luxury trains, I'm not even sure what that is, but that's what they safety do. At their table, they had a bottle of 1984 DRC Romany Sanffi Hall, which they shared a glass of with me and it's a very good illustration of how important vintage is in Burgundy because there isn't a lot of wine in Burgundy that is potentially better than DRC Romany Sanffi Hall, but in a not very good vintage like 1984 at 40 years old, it really wasn't very exciting, but then he poured me a glass of port, so 1880 port, Tawny port, vintage port, so Accolieta, vintage Tawny port, 1880, he says and I assume it's the truth that he found a 20,000 liter cask of 1884 in a cellar in Villanova de Gaia and he didn't really have much interest in it because what could it be? It couldn't be that great, but he tasted it and he thought it could be something very special, so he had dirt, knee port, he poured, sorry, dirt, knee port, he's a port producer, he asked DRC, knee port, the bottle of this 1880 vintage Tawny port and DRC contacted them and said that he thought it would be better if he added 5% of his 1945 vintage port to it and they were opposed to that, but then when they tasted the results they agreed that it was a good idea, so this is 1880 Tawny port, blended with 5% 1945 knee port with port, they call it millennial port because it's three centuries, the wine is from the 19th century, it was made in the 20th century to be drunk in the 21st century, I don't really, but obviously I don't have all that context for what 144-year-old Tawny port should be like, except it was magical, it was rich and it you know really rattle of kind of spicy pecans and I kind of almost don't know how to describe it, it just was, and partly maybe I'm influenced by the 1880s on the bottle, I know that if I tasted it blind I wouldn't have guessed that it was an 1880 Tawny, I mean I wouldn't know it was a 24, I would know that it had its old, but I would have guessed an 1880, but obviously it's extremely rich and kind of caressing on the palate with this pronounced character of kind of toasted pecans, toasted walnuts and rich and sweet, but not really you know overly cloyingly sweet, just you know sweet, but more complex than just sweet, I don't know that it's the greatest port I've ever tasted, well I know it's not the greatest port I've ever tasted, because I've tasted it the 3163 Kington of all nothing, but it's one of the most interesting wines I've ever tasted and I know that I was very lucky to be there and be offered a glass of this very special thing that they're, they made, so you know they made 1250 cases, they have 15 left in their sellers in London, I don't know what they sell it for, probably a lot of money, but boy was it special, I was lucky, I was getting paid to drink a 144 year old port with the guy that made it, that was pretty cool, and it's very rare in my life these days that I meet anyone that knows more about rare and collectible and you know the special wines of the world than I do, but these two guys at that table who shared this bottle of Romani Samuel with me and this glass of port with me, they know a lot, they have drunk a lot more rare and collectible wine than I have, you know so that's good too because it's always, it's good every now and then be humbled a little bit and I got, I met two guys last night, I'm really glad to know I'm going to, I hope to stay in contact with them because I think I can learn a lot from these two guys and it makes me experience a lot of great things through a new friendship with these two guys, well thank you for tuning in to Adventures of a Black Belt, so may we appreciate it more than you can imagine and I hope you're my football team yesterday, one my football team Vanderbilt University beat an L1 team in the country, Alabama Crimson Tide 40 to 35, their first ever victory over the top five teams, so that was pretty cool, I hope your football team won yesterday and I hope your football team wins today, whether it's football or soccer, I hope your football team wins, thanks for tuning in.