The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

Another spectacular, gastronomic, educational dinner at Scott & Kate’s, this time with Harumi and Rob, built around Northern Rhône legends and one very serious Champagne. The evening actually began in my cellar, staring at three Burgundy bottles and trying to decide what could possibly make sense after a lineup of young Chave, Jamet, and Allemand. Note: for Burgundy geeks, finishing a meal with red Burgundy and Époisses is almost always a defensible answer. My heart wanted to bring the 2010 Comtes Lafon Volnay Santenots du Milieu. I absolutely love that wine, and mature-ish Volnay from a great vintage often delivers more immediate pleasure than a same-age grand cru from Morey-St-Denis. But I suspected the group would want something more “serious,” and honestly, I was curious too. In the end, I decided to bring all three bottles, announce them to the group, and then serve just one blind. Then into the wine carrier everything went, color-matched with the shoes, naturally, and off to ...

This article was co-authored with my friend and wine geek extraordinaire Harumi, who attended and documented the very special Domaine de Montille dinner. Some wines reward patience. Domaine de Montille is one of them. Because of that, d e Montille is a producer whose reputation is easier to understand in a focused dinner context than in a crowded tasting room. Domaine de Montille is one of Burgundy’s most historically important and stylistically consistent producers—particularly in Volnay and Pommard, where the estate has long been associated with some of the most serious expressions of those villages. At its core, the domaine is built around a set of top-tier sites across both the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits: in Volnay, Les Taillepieds , En Champans , and Les Mitans ; in Pommard, Les Rugiens-Bas , known for its iron-rich soils and Grand Cru-level structure; and in the Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts (including the Cuvée Christiane parcel adjacent to La Tâ...