Caprice in August, part 2: Le Pin duo

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It's been exactly two days since some of the MNSC boys last saw each other, and here we are again tonight, sitting around a table blind tasting wines. It's my turn again to play host, and for the second time in two weeks I'm back at Caprice with the Hairy Chevalier. With a smaller group tonight compared to last week, we could comfortably fit into the Chef's Table and hang out near the cheese cellar.

With a bunch of old fogeys at the table who bitch about long menus, I asked my friend for a short service. I was serving Champagne to start plus 3 flights of reds, so 4 courses ought to do it for these guys. Focus on quality, not quantity.

As is the same with every meal, the amuses bouches arrive in la boîte à bijoux:

Foie gras tartlet

Lobster tartlet

Crispy anchovy roll

Crab, tomato, caviar, and anchovy panna cotta – sounds very simple. And looks luxurious with a layer of oscietre caviar on top.

The tomatoes have been marinated, and the crab meat was actually seasoned with shrimp.

Of course, I looooove putting everything I can on bread. And how could I resist, when the mini baguettes here are so nice?

1992 Bollinger Vieilles Vignes Française, bouteille N°626 – definitely showing its age, with marmalade on the nose, almost a little oily. The body was fine but not too powerful, which fades quickly to a soft finish that seemed to last for a while. The nose was almost a little like Japanese umeshu.

Homard bleu Breton, marmalade de figues et sauce ruby - – it seemed it was only last week that I had a dish like this… OH WAIT, I DID! The “small variation” Hairy Chevalier made was the sauce, as the ruby sauce has been replaced by one made with ceps. The fig marmalade topped with a cep “tuille” remained, but now came with a dab of oregano gel on top.

Of course, the homard bleu was cooked just about perfectly for my liking.

Flight 1: opened 1 hour before serving.

1986 Lafite-Rothschild – stoppered right after opening and served without decanting. A bit more ripe and advanced, with clear oxidation. Higher acidity on the palate. Certainly savory on the nose. This bottle that I originally took from dad’s office – which did not have a wine fridge - more than 25 years ago is clearly not showing at its best. 92 points.

1986 Mouton-Rothschild – served without decanting. This was very elegant, smoky, woodsy, and exhibiting a classic nose for the region. Also green capsicum. Two hours after opening this was showing some lovely sweet fruit along with coffee. 95 points.

Lamb rack saddle, lamb shoulder, celtuce, peas - the lamb came from Greffeuille Aveyron. The condiment on the side was made with green peas, chickpeas, and mint. The lamb jus was a little spiced.

The saddle was slow-cooked on the bone and was kinda firm as expected.

The crunchy celtuce worked very well with the lamb shoulder, with crunchy pastry.

Flight 2: opened about 2 hours before serving without decanting.

1996 Colgin Herb Lamb Vineyard – this was really ripe and sweet, with a hint of metallic nose along with eucalyptus. I love it. My kind of shit. 97 points.

1996 Masseto – this was also ripe and sweet, but a bit more smoky. So lovely now and drinking so well. 96 points.

Pigeon de Bretagne et foie gras, cerise, betterave, emulsion de persil et sauce vaudouvan - OK, now I think the Hairy Chevalier is just getting lazy... I asked for four dishes and he serves me TWO dishes that I had last week? Tsk tsk tsk... But in all seriousness, I always love his pigeon dishes, and once again this was just beautufiul... like the one he served me last week. The "Rossini" was very tasty, as was the pairing with parsley sauce.

Flight 3: I had been wanting to do this pairing since 2016, when Foursheets found the bottle of "Château Le Pin" in her neighborhood Wellcome supermarket. Foursheets says it cost around HKD 70, but I thought it would be hilarious to serve it in a blind tasting together with the "real" Le Pin. You should have heard some of the guesses from the boys about what they thought this was...

2014 Le Pin – served without decanting 2 hours 45 minutes after opening. This was showing a beautiful nose, so ripe and sweet but not quite to the level of a Californian. Smoky, leathery, minty, and fragrant eucalyptus. A little young, perhaps. 94 points.

2014 Château Le Pin – served without decanting 1 hour and 15 minutes after opening. This was definitely more lean and rustic. Not very interesting and clearly a couple of steps down. 88 points.

Sêlection de fromages affinés - I may have nibbled on some of this... but not a whole lot. A shame.

It would seem that 7 bottles of wine wasn't enough for the 5 of us, so we opened up a bottle of white wine from China that has been very sought-after lately. Most of us have never tasted it, so this would a good opportunity to see whether it was worth the hype.

2024 Clos Mao Light (理光) – decanted for more than 30 minutes before serving. Very big and toasty popcorn nose, reductive, flinty, with lovely lemon notes. Nice and round on the palate. 96 points.

The pre-dessert du jour, with diced (Gariguette?) strawberries and strawberry sorbet at the bottom, yogurt foam, and strawberry pop rocks.

Chocolate soufflé with vanilla ice cream

I saved myself a tiny little stomach space, so I ended up nibbling on the cammomile caramel puff in addition to the strawberry tart and caramel rocher.

Danny also very kindly poured us glasses of another chard he wanted us to try. This turned out to be really something.

2024 Michel Naddef Marsannay Chardonnay – also showing big, toasty nose. Flinty, lean, and slightly reductive. 95 points.

This was… a lot of fun! I’ll admit that the condition of the Lafite made it a little tougher to guess, and the boys were never meant to get Château Le Pin, but c’mon… the Mouton, Colgin, and Masseto? Well, I think I managed to host the second-lowest scoring tasting in MNSC’s 25-year history… second only to this Masseto vertical I hosted back in 2012.

Many thanks to the Hairy Chevalier, Victor, Danny, and the rest of the team for once again matching dishes to the wines I brought. And those two chardonnays at the end… what a revelation! Winemaking in China has really come a long way since the days of Die-Nasty!