Grape Wine Journey

After my first post on Madam’s blog, I was going to take a break, at least for a couple days – but I just couldn’t resist. What happened was that we came across a second bottle of Pontet Canet 2002, but this time at an ultra chic hot springs hotel in the Izu area, about 2 hours outside Tokyo.

The Arcana resort is a different type of hot spring hotel. Instead of the traditional ryokan serving up traditional Japanese cuisine, the Arcana is made up of a complex in contemporary architecture styles, situated on the banks of a mountain stream, with a central restaurant serving up contemporary Japanese/French cuisine.

We got a room with a private onsen – in fact, I think all the rooms had their own private onsen overlooking the mountain stream and facing a forest of greenery (now filled with red leaves or autumn), which was nice enough as it is.

Like all onsen hotels, there is one restaurant for meals – in this case, an establishment called, Lumiere, featuring a long, wooden bar (like a sushi bar) – like a sushi bar.

The cuisine is distinctive in the sense that it was more French than Japanese, but prepared with indigenous ingredients.

We started with a mélange of mushrooms (at least 8 different types) from the Nagano prefecture – all braised and offering different tastes and textures. The highlight of the course, served from a cast iron pot, was cherry blossom wood smoked quail breast, which was cooked only to medium to allow the actual flavor of the bird to come through.

This was followed by prawns with sea urchins (uni) and a range of flavoured sauces and coulis, which I thought had a little too many flavours for a single dish. Next was a layered tarte consisting of eel, fois gras and sliced quince (a sweet and sour fruit not unlike sour apples) served with a red wine sauce, followed by a fish course consisting of baked cod and caramelised fugu (poisonous blow fish) roe. The last course was either lamb, or duck – each prepared in three ways (we tried one of each to taste both), followed by cheese and a dessert of pear, also prepared in three ways (poached, foam and a crispy wafer).

Following our experience in Tokyo, we decided to replicate the wine sequence, going with a half bottle of Chateau Fuisee Pouilly-Fuisse 2006, followed by a 2006 Nuits St-George “Vielles Vignes” Burgundy red. We knew nothing of both Chateaus, but the Pouilly-Fuisse was excellent, while the Burgundy could have been a bit more full bodied.

But that is not the reason why I’m writing.

After the meal and a little buzzed from all the wine, we decided that we were going to be greedy and get a bottle to pamper ourselves in our room.

Quite unexpected, instead of presenting us with the wine list once more, our server, who turned out to be senior butler at the resort, Shinjirou Kobayashi, began bringing out bottle after bottle from the restaurant’s cellar for us to choose.

First, there was a 1983 Chateau Malescot St Exupery Margaux (19,000 yen), a 2004 Chateau Montrose (we didn’t ask), a 1999 Chateau La Mission Haut Brion (19,000 yen), a 2005 Harrison Hill from DeLILLE CELLARS in Washington – of all places (around 16,000 yen), a 1998 Grands Echezeaux, a 1994 Chateau Palmer (40,000 yen), and a 1999 Chateau Simard Saint Emilion. Then there was the Pontet-Canet – same year – 2002, which was selling for 21,000 yen, a whole 50% more of what we paid at Les Saisons two days ago.

Obviously, we couldn’t bring ourselves to pay 50% more for the bottle, so settled for a 2006 Amiral de Beychevelle, which was actually the same price as the Pontet Canet two days ago. On the other hand, we are not sitting in a hotel restaurant, but looking out at the side of a mountain over a flowing stream.