What's Pressoir Drinking?

by Raj Vaidya
Tuesday, February 15th, 2021

Inspired by Max’s Lunar New Year feast of Poon Choi, I decided to celebrate the new year with some Cantonese seafood delivery (call it the poor man’s banquet!) I chose eel sautéed with peppers and onions and wilted pea shoots for the main course.

The sweet and savory flavors of the take out prompted me to open a bottle which paired extremely well with the wide range of flavors I had in play. I wanted something with a seriously saline and even gamey edge, yet something low in tannins and delicate in structure, as I find that high tannin wines tend to clash with the spice elements in some Cantonese dishes. Digging around my wine fridge, I came across this lovely, mature example from one of my favorite domaines in Burgundy. 1990 was a warm vintage, and a very lauded one for sure, but often I find the wines a tad overripe, sluggish and in the worst cases, somewhat boring. But this bottle proved to be a tremendous and happy exception! The wine had a beautiful perfume, with notes of dried flowers and a distinct mushroom aroma akin to black trumpets. On the palate there was a sucrosity which preserved the fruit, cherries in particular, and this paired beautifully with the sweetness and spice of the eel as well as with the dish’s somewhat oily texture. Domaine Lafarge’s Bourgogne Rouge is sourced from a vineyard called ‘Petit Pré’ in the regional appellation just east of the Volnay vineyards. The domaine treats this simple Bourgogne just as seriously as the Volnay and Beaune wines, with aging of around 18 months in barrel. Back in 1990 the vines here were about 25 years of age on average. A perfect bottle for the new year!