Fine & Rare Dinner Vol. 2 by Maksym Demchenko
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EN
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Boris Buliga
An evening of rare Champagne wines with Maksym, marked by unique selections, excellent food, and a close-knit gathering.
Everyone is already weary of this relentless heat. While some languish in hopes of a soothing change, Maksym, true to his nature, is scouring the globe for exceptional bottles of wine and meticulously planning their food pairings. Whether inspired by Remy, the protagonist of Ratatouille, or channelling Dionysus himself, Maksym adheres to Epicurus's philosophy, carefully curating these infrequent hedonistic gatherings to maximise pleasure.
This time, Maksym brings us a selection of Champagne wines. But this isn't your typical lazy array of bubbles from northern France. No, we're in for a Fine & Rare Dinner, with wines that are nothing short of extraordinary. The mix of Selosse, Egly-Ouriet, Bérêche, Ulysse Collin, Krug, Salon, and Taittinger might seem like a clash between top growers and top houses (with one notable exception), but I prefer to see it as an opportunity to witness the vinous diversity Champagne is capable of. Thanks to Maksym, we can come together in an intimate setting at Mirali restaurant and delve into the intricate, delectable, and refreshingly vibrant world of Champagne and gourmet foods.
| Wine | Place | rms Average score calculated using the root mean square method, reflecting the collective assessment of a wine by participants. | wavg Weighted average score for the wine, where each participant's rating is adjusted for their wine assessment expertise. | sdev Standard deviation measures the controversy of a wine's reception. A lower value signifies greater consensus among participants. | fav Count of participants who selected this wine as their evening's favourite. | out Number of participants who identified this wine as their least favourite of the evening. | price Price of the wine, if available. | QPR Quality-price ratio, indicating value for money. A higher number denotes better value. Available when price is known. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🏅 8th | 4.0980 | 4.1015 | 0.1476 | 0 | 0 | 6,600 UAH | 0.4242 | |
| 🏅 5th | 4.2799 | 4.3592 | 0.0846 | 1 | 0 | 12,000 UAH | 0.3484 | |
| 🏅 7th | 4.0069 | 4.1554 | 0.1349 | 0 | 0 | 7,550 UAH | 0.4028 | |
| 🥈 2nd | 4.7278 | 4.7023 | 0.0266 | 5 | 0 | 10,200 UAH | 0.7138 | |
| 🥉 3rd | 4.5865 | 4.5577 | 0.0289 | 1 | 0 | 23,200 UAH | 0.2477 | |
| 🥇 1st | 4.7828 | 4.7662 | 0.0484 | 4 | 0 | 41,000 UAH | 0.1974 | |
| 🏅 4th | 4.5491 | 4.5143 | 0.0484 | 0 | 0 | 17,000 UAH | 0.3151 | |
| 🏅 6th | 4.3225 | 4.3066 | 0.0861 | 0 | 0 | 2,684 UAH | 1.4334 |
Larmandier-Bernier Latitude (d2023) NV
- Region
- France » Champagne AOC
- Type
- white traditional sparkling, extra brut
- Producer
- Larmandier-Bernier
- Wine
- Latitude (d2023)
- Vintage
- NV, based on 2018
- Disgorged
- 2023-05
- On lees
- 48 months
- Grapes
- Chardonnay
- Alcohol
- 12.5
- Sugar
- 3
This wine secured the 🏅 8th place in our wine tasting lineup.
Excellent beginning to the evening. Complex and charming bouquet of cheese, lemon, ginger, soda, chalk, zest, and meringue. On the palate, it's beautifully energetic, refreshing, mineral, vinous, and voluminous. It doesn't hold its ground for a long time, but it's delightful while it lasts.
Learn more about Larmandier-Bernier on a dedicated page.
Bérêche & Fils Cramant Grand Cru 2017
- Region
- France » Champagne AOC » Côte des Blancs » Cramant
- Type
- white traditional sparkling, brut
- Producer
- Bérêche & Fils
- Vintage
- 2017
- Disgorged
- 2022-07
- On lees
- 48 months
- Grapes
- Chardonnay
- Alcohol
- 12.5
- Sugar
- 3
This wine secured the 🏅 5th place in our wine tasting lineup.
My expectations are always high when Bérêche is in play, and luckily, this bottle was exceptional. Such a beautiful, intense, generous, and slightly perfumed bouquet of baked apples, zest, cider, yellow plums, fried nuts, spices, honey, and wet chalk. On the palate, it is pushing, filling, and stormy, evolving and lasting. Flavours of cider, spices, and fried nuts mixed with honey and chalk.
Learn more about Bérêche & Fils on a dedicated page.
Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Grands Crus Blanc de Blancs 2007
- Region
- France » Champagne AOC
- Type
- white traditional sparkling, brut
- Producer
- Taittinger
- Vintage
- 2007
- Disgorged
- N/A
- On lees
- N/A
- Grapes
- Chardonnay
- Alcohol
- 12.5
- Sugar
- 10.25
This wine secured the 🏅 7th place in our wine tasting lineup.
This one is pretty and well-made, yet somehow I find it hard to fully enjoy this wine. A bit austere bouquet of white flowers, tarragon, lemon oil, hints of bitter herbs, and an abundance (really, a lot) of brioche with almonds and chalk. Its medium to full-bodied and tight-knit palate is pointy, racy, and tense yet well-balanced, with a long and chalky finish. The exuberance of brioche makes the wine puffy, but other characteristics add layers of complexity while keeping it easy to understand. My bet is this wine needs much more time to achieve depth.
Ulysse Collin Les Maillons (2017) NV
- Region
- France » Champagne AOC » Côte de Sézanne
- Type
- white traditional sparkling, extra brut
- Producer
- Ulysse Collin
- Vintage
- NV, based on 2017
- Disgorged
- 2021-03
- On lees
- 36 months
- Grapes
- Pinot Noir
- Alcohol
- 12.5
- Sugar
- 4.2
This wine secured the 🥈 2nd place in our wine tasting lineup.
Pinot Noir vines were planted in 1971 in heavy, iron-rich clay soils with chalky limestone sub-soils. Hand-harvested, the clusters destemmed and the grapes gently pressed; the juice is fermented spontaneously and slowly (up to 6 months) with natural yeasts in mainly-used Burgundy barrels. Reserve wines are held in foudres and tonneaux. The wine is bottled without fining or filtering and aged on lees for 36 months.
Over the last two years, it has become wider and deeper. Sophisticated, elegant, and perfumed bouquet full of apple seeds, iodine, yellow fruits, red apple skin, yellow currant, plum, dough, graphite, with some Jerez notes and lanolin. On the palate, it has a generous core of minerality, bright acidity, fruits in the background, and a lively mousse. All that results in an insanely concentrated, precise, evolving, enveloping, and vinous wine. It's interesting how it opens up with some cider and pickled flavours. I can't help but wonder how this wine will evolve with time.
Learn more about Ulysse Collin on a dedicated page.
Krug Brut 2002
This wine secured the 🥉 3rd place in our wine tasting lineup.
Intense and generous bouquet of red fruits, damp cellar, fried hazelnut, honey, iodine, dough, with subtle peaty notes mixed with cocoa beans. It is racy, incredibly multilayered, deep, and concentrated. Yet it offers a clear, fresh, and very structured palate with a lingering and flavourful aftertaste. Beautifully oxidized style. It's easy to fall in love. And it still has lots of energy to evolve further.
Salon Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs Brut 1997
- Region
- France » Champagne AOC » Côte des Blancs » Le Mesnil-sur-Oger
- Type
- white traditional sparkling, brut
- Producer
- Salon
- Vintage
- 1997
- Disgorged
- N/A
- On lees
- N/A
- Grapes
- Chardonnay
- Alcohol
- 12
- Sugar
- 5
This wine secured the 🥇 1st place in our wine tasting lineup.
2020 Edition, disgorged in the last quarter of 2019.
Alright, this is a beautiful wine at a charming age. Notes of honeycomb, marmalade, sake, tropical fruits, soaked bread, damp cellar, apple blossoms, orchard fruits, and citrus. On the palate, it's almost full-bodied, racy, structured, graceful, and concentrated. It offers a very potent and expressive core in the mid-palate, which ends with a beautiful and long-evolving aftertaste. The result? A sophisticated, multilayered, and insanely quaffable wine.
Jacques Selosse Rosé Brut (d2023) NV
- Region
- France » Champagne AOC
- Type
- rose traditional sparkling, brut
- Producer
- Jacques Selosse
- Vintage
- NV
- Disgorged
- 2023-06-08
- On lees
- N/A
- Grapes
- Pinot Noir
- Alcohol
- 12.5
- Sugar
- 1.33
This wine secured the 🏅 4th place in our wine tasting lineup.
At last, the day has come when I tasted a bottle of Selosse that meets expectations. And it's a bottle of what some consider to be among the best rosé Champagnes, if not the best. Intense and beautiful bouquet of orange marmalade, spices, honeycomb, dried fruit, and white cherry. Full-bodied, racy, vinous, intense, and persistent. So oxidized that it's almost a fault, but this one maintains a good balance. A bit of caramel in the finish with a chalky touch. Really delicious.
Learn more about Jacques Selosse on a dedicated page.
Egly-Ouriet Ratafia Champenois NV
- Region
- France » Vin de France
- Type
- rose still, sweet
- Producer
- Egly-Ouriet
- Vintage
- NV
- Grapes
- Pinot Noir
- Alcohol
- 17
- Sugar
- unknown
This wine secured the 🏅 6th place in our wine tasting lineup.
My initial reaction was slight disappointment due to the lack of acidity and a rather simple bouquet. But after giving it more time, I realised it's a unique wine that brings a new experience. It offers an unexpectedly large amount of fruit both on the nose and palate. Around this core are notes of caramel, cottage cheese with honey, and candied fruits. Compared to some great Madeira bottles, this Ratafia indeed lacks acidity, but it's still delicious and has an endless aftertaste with flavours of bitter herbs, cough syrup, and cottage cheese. Delicious. I want to taste it again, and luckily, I have one more bottle stashed.
Learn more about Egly-Ouriet on a dedicated page.
Raw Scores
| Wine | Max D | Liudmila | Oleksandr B | Svitlana | Denys | Viktoriya | Dmytro | Karyna | Serhii | Valeriia | Boris B |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.10 | 4.30 | 4.20 | 3.00 | 4.50 | 4.30 | 4.20 | 4.00 | 4.10 | – | 4.10 | |
| 4.25 | 4.40 | 4.55 | 4.50 | 4.50 | 4.20 | 4.10 | 3.50 | 4.30 | – | 4.40 | |
| 4.20 | 4.20 | 4.50 | 4.00 | 3.80 | 4.10 | 4.20 | 3.20 | 3.50 | – | 4.20 | |
| 4.60 | 4.90 | 4.85 | 4.80 | 5.00 | 4.80 | 4.50 | 4.50 | 4.70 | – | 4.60 | |
| 4.30 | 4.80 | 4.65 | 4.70 | 4.60 | 4.50 | 4.30 | – | 4.70 | – | 4.70 | |
| 4.70 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 5.00 | 4.70 | 4.40 | – | 4.50 | – | 4.70 | |
| 4.45 | 4.80 | – | 4.90 | 4.70 | 4.20 | 4.40 | – | 4.40 | – | 4.50 | |
| 4.20 | 4.80 | 4.30 | 3.90 | 4.00 | 4.20 | – | – | 4.70 | – | 4.40 |