WTN: Natural Loire SB and non-PremOxed '96

So when I went to Fairway to get supplies for Monday's dinner, I had noticed that had morels. Shockingly expensive, but I grabbed about 5 of the best looking ones (less than a quarter of a pound, cost more than 3 pounds of cremini AND a half pound of shiitakes). Seemed a waste to put in Monday's coq au vin. So last night Betsy decided to make an asparagus/morel/cremini/ tarragon dish, to have with leftover chicken and potatoes. I wanted a wine to highlight the morels- Pinot Noir is my usual thought, but reds and asparagus aren't my favorite combo. Sticking to whites, should it be Sauvignon Blanc to counter the spears, or white Burgundy to best complement the morels? I brought up one of each and planned to ask opinions online,but mowing got in the way. She said let's have a glass on front porch before dinner, and I opened:

2006 Claude Courtois/Les Cailloux du Paradis "Quartz"
I found this more interesting than tasty for the first glass. Some Radikon-esque oxidative meets orange peel notes. Baked apple, nuts, mineral. I like the mineral notes but overall a little clunky and austere. Doesn't taste very Sauvignon-ish to me, I decide not to serve with dinner. A glass after dinner shows better, still minerally but with a fresher fruit palate. Still, for $24 SB I'd want a bit more pleasure through entire bottle. More than half is left, we'll see what it is like, but as I think this is low sulphur not expecting much. In the end a B.

1996 Doudet-Naudin "Les Terres Blanches " Meursault  
Figured this was a good time to open this, if it was oxidized I could fall back on the Courtois. Well, the good news was this escaped PremOx, there were some light oxidative notes presenting themselves as nutty/butterscotchy, but that's not at all premature in a 13 year old village wine. The bad news is that while the wine hadn't succumbed, I found I didn't really care, not a lot of there there. Not as much acid as most '96s, just rather flat apple juice with a little chalky note. A nice night and we lingered on back patio, but still more than half a bottle left. Maybe better drunk young, but I suspect just never a very interesting wine. C+

The morels and asparagus (and leftovers) were excellent and deserved better. At least half a bottle of each left, will check in tonight, but I think the drain will claim these if Betsy doesn't need for cooking next couple nights,

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency.
 

Thanks for the notes, Dale. I am planning to open a Quartz a week from Friday, together with some other potentially oxidative stuff (like an 04 coulee de serrant) and was wondering if I should decant for some time before, like one is supposed to do with coulee. Your experience seems to bear that out, no? What temperature roughly do you think best serves it?

Oswaldo,
I liked it best a couple hours after opening, cold (it was in fridge while we had dinner). No idea how that will translate to your bottle, with "natural" wines you tend to have more variability.
By day 2 it showed quite sherried, the Meursault actually held up better, though it was still uninteresting.

Dale - I just picked up some fresh asparagus from Union Square Greenmarket today, and I have some fresh morels. Please tell me about Betsy's dish - I could use some inspiration.

Diane,
she used this recent NYT recipe as a base:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/dinin ... gus&st=cse

Since we used fresh morels (along with creminis) rather than dried, she used white wine instead of reserved liquid. And 1/2& 1/2 instead of cream, since I use for my coffe on weekends. Hope you like it!

I'll definitely take your suggestions, Dale, and I happen to have half and half in the fridge from last week's corn and fish chowder. I plan to make it on Monday to go with bison burgers, also from the Greenmarket.