Wine highlights from inauguration day

I write a few days after the Big Event in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2025. For us deplorables, it was a celebratory occasion. I am told that non-deplorables entertained different feelings that day. Since they had been used to having the run of our capital city, I can understand their sentiments.

But, perhaps by some process of selfselection, very few non-deplorables were in evidence at the haunts I visited during my stay. Every hotel, restaurant and event space I stopped off at was full of red caps — yes, those red caps — and the mood was almost giddy with anticipation and glee. It brought to mind a passage from one of my favorite Psalms, number 23:

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

The enemies had mostly scattered to escape the festivities. But you knew they were there on the outskirts, scowling as they peered into a domain that had just been expropriated from their clutches. It was a pleasant feeling.

Also pleasant was the cup-runneth-over motif. Let me mention a few highlights.

After a party at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium, the evening of the 19th found me dining at La Grande Boucherie, a big, jolly bistro on 14th Street, NW. Steak frites was the order of the day, accompanied by a 2018 Clos de Vougeot from Louis Jadot. That enclosed vineyard (hence the “clos”) is a grand cru wine in the Côte de Nuits, the largest single vineyard entitled to the designation.

2018 was a good if not great year. We had it decanted, waited the requisite ten minutes, and then proceeded to put it to good use. I found it a little taut but nonetheless full and bristling with intimations. We were prepared to love it and we did. Has anyone made a study of the way mood interacts with taste? I’d say the study deserves a government grant, but I suspect Elon Musk would frown on the expenditure.

I don’t know that he would frown on the cost of the wine. It’s a snazzy wine from one of the most expensive parcels of land in France. If you have a good wine shop near you, you might find it for around $300.

If you look it up, you will see that Clos Vougeot borders the great vineyards of Grands Échezeaux. I mention that because the next day, the Big Day, after listening to the leader of the free world tell us what was on his mind, I sat with a few friends as we did our best to interrogate a 2019 Grands-Échezeaux Grand cru from Georges Noëllat.

2019 was an excellent year, and though it was really cradle robbing to drink it in early 2025, we put those scruples behind us as we contemplated being finally unburdened by what had been. The Noëllat Grands-Echezeaux is a truly great wine, brimming with possibilities.

Candor requires me to note that we were insufficiently reverent in our courtship. We just blustered in. At the same time, I can also report that we thoroughly enjoyed it. As for the cost, probably more or less double the Jadot Clos de Vougeot.

The last wine I’ll mention brings me back to an early column about Domaine Tempier, one of the best houses in the Bandol appellation. In fact, the founders of Domaine Tempier, Lucie (“Lulu”) and Lucien Peyraud, pioneered modern winemaking in the region and won an AOC designation for Bandol in 1941. The property was a wedding present from Lulu’s father, Alphonse Tempier, a successful leather mer- chant from Marseilles.

Someday, I hope to discover whether Alphonse was related to the Étienne Tempier, who was the Bishop of Paris in the 13th century. It was he who promulgated the famous condemnation of 1277, declaring 219 “radical Aristotelian” philosophical propositions heretical. It was a big deal at the time.

I must save that inquiry for another day, however. For today, let me recall my trip to Butterworth’s, a newish restaurant at 319 Pennsylvania Ave SE. The Washington Post says that it “caters to far-right intellectuals, enfants terribles, and neighborhood diners who just want some duck.” It also caters to people who like good food (but no hamburgers), homey surroundings with decorative touches like a portrait of Queen Elizabeth (II, not I), comely barkeeps, and a friendly and knowledgeable chef/sommelier called Bart Hutchins.

Bart opened and decanted a bottle of the 2021 Bandol Rouge “La Tourtine.” Delish. All Tempier wines are Mourvèdre-based. It’s a difficult, low-yielding grape that had lost favor until Lucien brought it back into fashion. In the right hands, it makes for exquisite wine.

Tempier makes one of the very best rosé wines (around $50). Their reds start with a “Cuvée Classique” (about $60-$70). They also offer one named for Lulu and Lucien (about the same price) and three others that come from different parts of the Tourtine hills. The highest elevation site is the windswept spot “La Migoua.” The wine is composed of 50 percent Mourvèdre, 20 percent Grenache, 26 percent Cinsault, and 4 percent Syrah. “La Tourtine” is one step down the hill, and is composed of 80 percent Mourvèdre, 10 percent Grenache, and 10 per cent Cinsault. Both retail for about $100. The lowest and most protected plot is “Cabassaou” (the literature says “ça cabasse” means “gives a hefty punch”), which is composed of 95 percent Mourvèdre, 4 percent Syrah, and just a dash of Cinsault (about $150).

Go to Butterworth’s. Ask for Bart. If he likes you and your credit card hasn’t expired, he might open some Domaine Tempier for you.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s March 2025 World edition.