One of the most famous restaurants in Shanghai is the Noble Seafood Restaurant, which serves classic Chinese dishes that lean more toward Cantonese than Shanghai styled cuisine. This experience offered an extraordinary combination of remarkable wines that matched up fabulously well with the cuisine. A nutty, roasted, slightly oxidized character of the 1988 Bollinger Champagne RD was presented in a full-bodied, traditionally-styled Champagne that drank beautifully with the tiger-head crab, a delicious, sweet meat that was pure and clean. Even better was the absolutely staggering 2000 Trimbach Clos Ste.-Hune Riesling that accompanied the steamed Lo Mei fish with soy sauce. The soy was delicate and the fish perfectly cooked –  somewhat sashimi in the middle, but warm. The extraordinary purity and freshness of the fish worked well with the citrus aspects and minerality of this full-bodied, intense, dry Riesling. I was blown away by the 1998 Leroy Meursault Les Perrières. Even though this great vineyard is only a Premier Cru site, it has Grand Cru aspirations, and this 10-year-old white wine is stunning. It boasts beautiful lemon oil, hazelnut, and honeysuckle-like notes, excellent acidity, powerful, full-bodied flavors, and enough intensity to stand up to what was perhaps the finest rendition of shark fin soup I have ever tasted. Shark fin, which is such a specialty in China, possesses wonderful sweetness and delicacy, yet is quite intense in flavor.

I am still not a fan of abalone, which I was served numerous times in Asia, and I feel it is an overrated shellfish. Nevertheless, I was pleased by how a Nebbiolo, in this case a Barolo, the2001 Gaja Sperss, worked with this dish. There was plenty of flavor, and none of the rubbery characteristics one often finds in abalone. However, for me, the wine stole the show in this match-up. The 1996 Latour seemed younger than any recent bottles I have tasted. Extremely backward, with classic cedar, lead pencil, black currant, and walnut characteristics, it was a perfect partner for the pan-fried Kobe beef. This fabulous beef was very marbled and fatty, but clean tasting. You would almost think you were eating toro rather than beef. I would rank the 1996 Latour, which was super pure and young, among the finest of the last decade from this château. More powerful, unctuously textured, and full-bodied is the 1998 Penfold’s Grange, one of the finest vintages over the last twenty years from this estate. With the fried veal ribs in a black pepper sauce, this was a marriage made in heaven. The wine’s stunning peppery spiciness, its extraordinary concentration, and nearly over the top richness worked beautifully with the veal dish, which possessed full throttle flavors as well as plenty of spice.

We then moved to what I thought was an unusual combination, a rice dish with air-dried sausage and meats served with a vintage port. However, I could not believe how beautifully they complemented each other. The 2000 Fonseca performed sensationally well, and has more than three decades of life ahead of it. We finished with the wine of the night, the 2001 Yquem. This is unquestionably the most profound young Yquem I have ever tasted. Everything about it is perfect, from the aromatics to the exquisite balance as well as the amazing flavor intensity and length. It should last for another 50-100 years, but I wonder how much will be left by the time it is fully mature?

This dinner was sponsored by China’s greatest fine wine importer, ASC Fine Wines, a visionary company largely responsible for creating the dramatic surge in Chinese consumer interest in fine wine. They presented a remarkable evening of delicate and complex cuisine accompanied by some of the world’s greatest complex and delicious wines.