After trying a wine that showed the passage of time, I suddenly found myself a hundred years in the past, but with wireless connectivity! Chateau Saran is an oasis of luxury, with fine dining, fine champagne, fine views and servants. If you are not used to servants, suddenly having one is an odd experience! Everywhere I’ve ever stayed before, I’ve taken my own bags to my room, ironed my own shirt and have never had breakfast brought to my room before, but at Saran I had people doing everything for me and it was so strange!We were visiting Saran for dinner, and again, were presented with some unbelievably good wines to try over dinner Starting off with tuna tartare with a avocado mousse and caviar, this was paired with the 2003 Moet & Chandon. Firstly, the food was exceedingly good, but the bitter lemon pith and the smoky elements worked wonders with the meaty fish. This was a pretty damn good food wine pairing. Moving on a course and things got better with the food and, marginally, worse with the wine!
Since my early days in the wine trade in the dim and distant past of 2002, I’ve never really been a fan of the nineties vintages of Moet & Chandon. I’ve said that the 1990 was “all bubbles, no squeak”, the 1996 was “not special” and the 1998 “like Cheshire cheese and… bitter”. We tried the 1995 with seared foie gras, with grapefruit jelly and orange powder. The wine was the weakest Moet we tried that day, but an ideal partner to the food. The brioche and orange that came flying out of the glass, then a very bitter element on the palate complimented the Foie gras and citrus flavours of the dish.
Revisiting the 1990, nearly five years after tasting it before. An aroma of lemon came off the glass, but it was quite a closed nose. The palate had lemon pith, some grapefruit elements and a herbal element too. A very subtle finish, with lingering lemon flavours made this wine a tough one to make notes on, but it was nothing like the cheesy, dull wine I tried in 2004. Or maybe that is just my palate changing! Served with Sole and langoustines, with a saffron emulsion, this subtle dish, matched with a very subtle wine… subtly!
Pigeon with a maple syrup came next, and an outstanding wine with it. The 1976 Moet & Chandon, a wine with seriously low acid, as has the current release 2003, gave us the opportunity to see what the ’03 vintage may become in thirty years. A load of tobacco, quite smoky with lots of marmalade. The palate had toast, tropical fruit an some lovely spice, and then an apple sweetness. It was this flavour that made the wine sing with the food, the sweet maple, matching the apple, and then the smoky aromas and flavours giving the champagne a savoury element to go with the pigeon. I had never had a better champagne and food matching before.
And then I had one of the worst! But it really didn’t matter because the wine was fabulous! The 1959 vintage is an outstanding champagne. I tried it on New Years Day this year, and it was even better at Chateau Saran. Gorgeous citrus and tropical fruit, honey, brioche and a super texture, this is a wine you must try. The dessert it went with, a sweet cake, was lovely, but clashed terribly with the wine. I didn’t care though, as the champagne is so good!
After dinner we retired to the drawing room, and had a bit of time to reflect on the day of decadence, with a magnum of the best tasting Moet non vintage I’ve ever had (an older bottle per chance?) and some Hennessy Paradis. Sitting there in splendour, sipping fine cognac, I realised that my life is quite good!
And the next day we’d be going to Krug…
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