All Bordeaux Lunch at Pepato

Lunch Organized by Greg, who was craving for an all Bordeaux wine line up. We were 6 in total, including Lester, who runs Zen Asia, an importer of wines. It was quite hard for me to bring Bordeaux, since most of the meals I have had there were mostly all Italian wine meals. I was tempted to bring a Barolo or Basrbaresco for the lunch, but decided on Bordeaux so as not to veer away from the theme of the lunch

Anyway, on to the food and wine...Jay brought (as he normally does) the white wine for starters, a 2004 Leewin Estate Chardonnay. I enjoyed this one (I normally don't like Chardonnay), quite fresh and a touch of sweetness to it. I had this with the Squash Tempura flowers. This, together with the Bone marrow, is my favorite appetizer in Pepato.




Jay had this dish as his appetizer, which I believe is new on the menu. I think it was Asparagus Fritters, Scallops and some kind of Chorizo Panacotta (?)


As we were having our Chardonnay, all our reds were being decanted. Some for more time and some for less. Our first red was the 2004 Chateau Clinet, Keichi's bottle. This was a young wine, so as expected, it was quite tannic and strong. As others mentioned, this needs a few more years in the bottle, or major decanting. Next was my bottle, a 2003 Reserve de la Comtesse. Despite it's youth, this wine is drinking very well. I'm not sure how this will taste years from now, but if you have this wine, drink up now.

We reserved the best wines for last: Greg's 1999 Chateau Angelus and Jojo's 1995 Chateau L'Evangile. The Angelus was superb, a typical Bordeaux, medium bodied and great nose. For me this is already very drinkable now but I'm sure this will be much better with a few more years in the bottle. Jojo's L'Evangile, another great wine that I have tried before in one of our La Tienda Dinners. This and Greg's wine were my favorites of the lunch.

With all this wine, I was really craving for the signature Steak that I always order: Bistecca a la Fiorentina. I was very tempted but decided to for for a smaller, lighter dish of Grilled lamb Chops (Scottadito). I normally do not like my lamb very rare, so I had to send mine back for a little more grilling action. It came out great, very tasty and a great match for all the wines we had.



It was a fun lunch as usual, which stared very quiet but ended with the stereo laughing of Jojo and Greg as you will see in the following 'fun' pictures:

I wonder who Keichi is pointing at??

5.1 Surround sound laughter....

And last, a serious pose for the group picture

An enjoyable lunch. Thanks for sharing your wines!! Til the next one!