Why a wine dinner?

Beijing is a city full of surprises, I have been organizing a few “gastronomic wine dinners” as I happen to have a very unusual collection of old Spanish and French wines. I mean, REAL old.
We invite normally two couples, close friends, to experiment the old wines while Renaat, the chef of Morel’s restaurant, serves some of his exceptional dishes.
I have been lucky till now: I always prepare several bottles as it is likely some have turned into vinegar but that has not happened yet.

Dinner on 19 October

This time we had a “Belgium-Greece Friendship Dinner”. Our Greek diplomat is an “old friend”: we worked together on the preparation of the 2008 Olympics and we went both to Athens for a large China seminar.
See the list of wines for the gastronomic wine dinner
The Spanish red I had listed as 1950 turned out to be 1930, the date was basically gone but the picture showed it was a 3 instead of a 5. That wine was pretty good but with a lot of sediment. Though called a “Moscatel Tiebas” it was red and not sweet.
The Château Lafite-Rothschild 1949 was finally not that great anymore. The Château Gruaud Larose 1989 (Saint Julien) and the Señorio de Arganza 1964 were both great.
The surprise (not planned!) was that one of the wine years was the birth year of one at the table…

Year of the horse

We were asked our opinion about some calligraphies intended for the office of the well-known Chinese CEO. See for yourself.

The dinner menu

For the Gastronomic wine dinner a copious menu. Appetizer: small balls made with Belgian Beef Stew. Starter: Belgian endive with foie gras; cream soup of small mussels; main dish: Beef Wellington (Beef Wellington is a preparation of filet steak coated with pâté and Duxelles, which is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked – Wikipedia). Desert: berries cake. Followed by digestive (special reserve of Renaat).