Wine Loving in Milan

Last week, I stopped over Milan for en extra business on the way back from Barcelona to Tokyo.
This is my memo for further chances to stay in Milan for loving wines.
Before going to the restaurant with my business friends, I wen to

Bottega dell'arte e del vino

Via Generale Gustavo Fara, 25, Milano, MI 20124, Italy, 

to buy Italian wines. 

I bought Roberto Voerzio Barolo Cerequio 2005, Giacomo Conterno Barolo Cascina Francia 2007 and other two bottles. For me, Italian wine is mystery. This is because there are several Barolo or  Barbresco wines though, those tastes don't have commonality under the same brand.  I hope that Barolo outperforms other Italian wines at the next wine tasting party.

After the wines shop, I visited 

Boccondivino

Via Giosuè Carducci 17, Milan, Italy 20123, Italy

for socialization. Good wines were served in the following order:

1. 2009 BEN RYE, Donnafugata. Passito di Pantelleria, Sicily, Italy 

2. PAN - MONTEPULCIANO D'ABRUZZO

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo 85% - Cabernet-Sauvignon 15%

3. 2007 Zanoni Amarone della Valpolicella Zovo

The perfect night it was.

Wine Party with Opus One

I'm not into Opus One, which is a premium wine more expensive than its value. One of my friends nevertheless asked me to buy it last month. I remember he asked me Kistler chardonnay before. Buying premium wine bottles is a bit embarrassing. It's like buying Louis Vuitton bags during a business trip in Paris.

Anyway, I got one bottle, and donated it to a wine party yesterday.

Five wine addicts started with Pertois Moriset Grand Cru Brut, then tried to blind wine tasting a usual.
My score was two points. Here is a memo for my memory.

1. Opus One 2008, Cabernet Sauvignon 86%, Petit Verdot 8%, Merlot 4%, Cabernet Franc 1%, and Malbec 1% from Napa
2. Chambolle-Musigny Premer Cru Les Noirots 2003, Pinot Noir  from Chambolle-Musigny
3. Chateau Calon-Segur 2003,  Cabernet Sauvignon 60%,  Merlot30%, Cabernet Franc 10% from Saint-Estephe,
4. Lisini Brunello di Montalcino 2005, from Montalcino,Toscana 

Guessing Pino Noir was so easy, then I got one point. Nrinello confused me so much. It tasted like thin but elegant French Bordeaux. I took it for Chateau Calon-Segur.  Opus one showed  traces of clove and dark chocolate. Then I scored the second correct guess. 

An Italian Bar near Shimbashi Station

Yesterday, I joined Android Bazaar and Conference 2011 Winter which was held in University Tokyo. After the conference, I stopped by an Italian Bar called "Italian Bar UOKIN" which is being operated by UOKIN restaurant group. 


Someone might say this is not Italian but Spanish, maybe another one says this is not Italian nor Spanish but Japanese. That implies this restaurant serves a fusion cuisine from Italian, Spanish and Japanese. 
The food is delicious, Aqua Pazza, Terrine,  Carpaccio,  Bagna Cauda, Smoked Oysters, Steamed Mushroom and Whelk with very affordable prices, say JPY500-800 (USD6-10) for each plate.  They have a wide selection of wines also, you can try various reasonable prices. 
This restaurant is very small and busy. Within 2 hours, you are asked to leave so as to welcome other guests. In that sense, the atmosphere is casual enough to rush into four or five small plates with a bottle of red wine.

Tokyo has many Italian and Spanish bars; I'd appreciate living here.

Bordeaux Wine Tasting Party

I had a wine tasting party with my regular friends on April 18th
The main theme was to enjoy Bordeaux.

Wines were
1.Les Forts de Latour 2003 from Pauillac, Cabernet Sauvignon 78% Merlot 22%
2.Chateau Prieure-Lichine 1998 from Margaux, Cabernet Sauvignon 52% Merlot: 42% Cabernet Franc: 1% Petit Verdot 5%
3.Chateau Canon 2003 from St Emilion Merlot 55%, Cabernet Franc 45%
4.La Chapelle de La Mission Haut-Brion 2006 from Graves, Cabernet Sauvignon 48%, Merlot 45%, Cabernet Franc 7%
5.Chateau Clerc Milon 1973 from Pauillac, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc
Those are shown from left to right in this picture.

Five participants enjoyed gorgeous rich tastes gifted from Bordeaux.
Food was also great. Thanks to the host family.

Latour was said it was of the best year, and Parker point is around 93!

My score was two out of five unfortunately. I correctly told Canon and Clerc Milon because of those different Merlot & Cab Franc and aged tastes respectively.

Les Forts de Latour was marvelous though, I made a permutation error by taking Haut-Brion as Latour, Latour as Prieure-Lichine, Prieure-Lichine as Haut-Brion. Four of us made the same score “two,” and the host marked three right tastes, which includes Latour in addition to the two. Congratulations on his win.

Wine Tasting Party

It was a great night. We tested six bottles by five persons, wine addicts
As usual, a blind tasting game was set; the participants were requested to tell correct pairs of wines and those descriptions.

The picture shows seven bottles
Givry Clos De Lasevosine -1er Cru- Domaine Joblot 2005
Les Forts de Latour 1995, 2003 (http://www.chateau-latour.fr/)
Casamatta Igt.Toscana Rosso 2007
Gevrey Chambertin 1er Petite Chapelle 2004
Tursan Kalecik Karasi 2005
Klikun Crni 2007

Two Larour were excluded from the blind tasting, since it was so easy to tell the difference from the rest of wines.The game was so tough that all of us could tell just one out of the five. I could shoot Domaine Joblot and failed to tell the rest.
There were several reasons, where Klikun Crni (Croat wine), and Tursan (Turkish wine) put us out in unknown wine tasting, and Chambertin was of Pino Noir. Those tasted similar light flavor.

After having those light-bodied wines, we enjoyed Les Forts de Latour 1995. The other Latour 2003 was stocked for a next occasion). Can’t wait to get our next party started.

Champagne lunch at Chinois Shibuya

If you are interested in wine restaurants of Tokyo, you might take a look at http://www.chinois.jp/

Chinois is well-known of Tokyoite wine lovers with high reputation. It has two wine restaurants in Ginza and Shibuya. They serve dinners with luxurious wines. Usually, open hours are 18:00PM-2:00AM or 0:00AM. Chinois Shibuya, in addition, has a special lunch menu named “Champagne lunch” only on Saturday, Sunday, and National holidays, where open hours are 12:00-16:30 .The lunch costs JPY5,500 (USD58 or so), including sale tax, and it offers appetizer, main dish, dessert, coffee, starting Champagne, and unlimited wines.　It seems that that is for promotion, by which the restaurant is attracting potential dinner customers with affordable wines and good foods.It is a best buy in Tokyo wine restaurants, I think. I visited Chinois Shibuya on May 5th around noon. 65-70 seats became full at 1:00PM. In case of your visit, thus, reservation is strongly recommended.
Wines are not pricy (affordable :) ) though, the variation was well-designed from light to heavy, from thin to thick, and from fruity to dry. The glasses vary from white wine glasses, Burgundy glass, Bordeaux glass and so on. If my memory is correct, the order was as follows.

• Champagne: Jose Michel et Fils, Rose Brut
• 1st white: Gatão Vinho Verde (Portuguese light and thin)
• 2nd white: Sileni Sauvignon Blanc　(NewZealander’s fruity one)
• 3rd white: VINUS Chardonnay Vin de Pays d’Oc (Yummy Chardonnay)
• 1st red: De Bortoli Windy Peak Pinot Noir 2007 (Auzee’s gift, served as well-chilled)
• 2nd red: Recorba Duero Cosecha 2006 (from Spain)
• 3rd red: TERRASSES DE GUILHEM CABERNET-SAUVIGNON (from Languedoc)

I asked several extra glasses of the above wines.

One thing noteworthy is that the food was also marvelous. The selection of appetizer and main dishes is very flexible. I’ll recommend “foie gras rice served in a bowl” for main dish.

It's a perfect day, isn't it?

Chateau Mont-Perat v.s. OpusOne Overture

Five wine addicts joined a wine tasting party held on Sunday, November 16, 2008, 2pm-8pm in Tokyo. According to the Wine Enjoyment Guide for a blind test,
http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/fun-wine-tasting.html, it is advised as
1. Twelve to sixteen people is about right for one of these wine tasting parties.
2. One bottle of wine can easily be poured in small amounts for 12 to 16 people.
3. Four to six wines for comparison and rating is about the right number.
4. Set a theme for the wine tasting.
5. Bag your wines.
6. Pour about 2 oz of wine in each glass.
7. Use our easy scoring sheet to score the wine. Then repeat with the next bottle of wine.
Our party was a bit different from the above advice, seven people were originally invited, since the seven is a magic number of glasses from one bottle. We don’t believe one bottle of wine is enough more than a dozen people for drinking as well as tasting. Unfortunately, two of the seven couldn’t make that day; one mistook Saturday for the party and the other had got injured by a traffic accident a week before. The five people were taking a bottle of Champaign, and five bottles of red wine. It meant one and one fifth bottle for each person. That was a great opportunity for the wine addicts. The above picture, from the left to the right, shows the five red wines which we selected:
1. Chateau Mont-Perat 2006, Merlot 80%, Cabernet Sauvignon 10%, Cabernet Franc 10%
2. N.V. Opus One Overture 2003?, Napa, CA. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petite Verdot (that is what I brought from my precious stock.)
3. Brunello di Montalcino Granducato 2003, Motalcino, Toscana, Sangiovese
4. Domaine Philippe Charlopin-Parizot Marsannay, 2005 , Fixin, Côte d'Or, Pinot Noir and
5. Gary Farrell 2006,Russian River, CA, Pinot Noir
The theme was to confirm whether the Chateau Mont-Perat, a Bordeaux red blend wine from France, outperforms a Napa wana-be French, Overture.
The other theme in conjunction was whether we could tell the Russian River Pinot Noir from the Marsannay Pinot Noir. The Brunello was added as a wild card that was expected to hinder (in other words, to challenge) our sense of taste.
The result was miserable in terms of our excellence in tasting good wines. We could successfully categorize the two Bordeaux-type wines from the others and identify the Russian river as a Pinot Noir. One fault was the Marsannay and the Brunello were reversed. The Marsannay showed, unexpectedly from pinot noir grape, a strong structure and its rich taste and thus the Brunello was considered as the Pino Noir. The Brunello worked very well as the hindrance in that sense.
More than worse, the total evaluation results turned out deceptive since the Chateau Mont-Perat and the Overture were reversed also.
I didn’t expect that the French lower pedigree wine represented a typical and expensive Californian strong color and flavor, while the Overture represented a thin and elegant French delicate. So, that means a French wine is becoming more than Californian and vise versa. I together with the other participants lost the game.
Anyway, the party continued till 8pm and we really enjoyed the five bottle of red wines.

Sake Bar

This restaurant is one of the bests in Tokyo through all my experience.
All Sake (i.e., rice wine) are being served by wine glasses or small bottles. Those are not well-known among most Japanese, but collected from small local wineries of Nagano, Tochigi, Hiroshima, …, mostly western Japan. I enjoyed a chat with the owner, Mr. Ohno. He recommended several glasses including sparkling sake. That's a treat!

Sorry I’d like to make the name hidden, since it is my precious!
Instead, let me leave the phone number 03-3253-0044 and the map for hints.

View Larger Map

Wine Tasting at Omote-Sando in Tokyo

Omote-sando is one of my favorite places to walk around. Omote-sando means “main front avenue to a shrine” in general; in Tokyo, the shrine is specifically Meiji Shrine that is dedicated to Emperor Meiji almost 100 years ago. The avenue is known as an upscale shopping area.

Last Friday, I and a friend met together at Omotesando Hills　to try wine tasting.

That is one year my absence to the wine shop and restaurant called Bisty’s　

Bisty’s offers wines with a small unit, a 20ml, 50ml, and 90ml via their wine serving system, for which I paid several thousand Japanese yen (USD30-40) for a pre-charged IC card.

We started affordable white wines, even with a bottle purchase, and tried Paul Autard Chateauneuf du Pape (Rhone Valley France, Wine Spectator 91) and 2002? Gevrey Chambertin/Claude Dugat.

Paul Autard gave us a blackberry and graphite flavors, with solid underlying note of Grenache. Claude Dugat was marvelous full body red　(See its description in Japanese)

It was a nice Friday to celebrate a chilly cold winter in night of Tokyo.　I love such a winter night, for the best occasion to taste red wines.

About pictures:
Two pictures show the wine serving system, displaying 20ml price of each wine.
The last one is a funny sign board at the avenue that say’s “Heavy Sandwich ” which is playing on words as Heavy -> “Omotee” (in Japanese) and “Sando” ( i.e., Japanese pronunciation of Sandwich) .