Bordeaux on the Hudson

I was lucky enough to again be at the Bordeaux table at the 3rd Annual Peter Pratt's Lugeresque extravaganza in Yorktown, NY.  The event, organized by a member of the Wine Advocate Message Board, was a wild indulgence into two of my favorite:  steak and mature Bordeaux.  My two wines showed on opposite ends.  The 1998 La Mission Haut-Brion was wonderful, but the 1990 Figeac underperformed.

The Year was 1982...
...and the wines were excellent. Ah, the beauty of mature Bordeaux. The GL, a generous gift of our sick friend Mark Golodetz, had a lot of fans at the table and was quite a well-made wine. My distaste for GL being well-documented, let's just say that there were plenty of people that would happily pick up the slack in drinking that wine. The LP was probably the favorite of the table, but I had a big spot in my heart for that La Conseillante. All in, a fantastic flight and probably the most consistent.

• 1982 Château Gruaud Larose (St. Julien) - A very nice Gruaud Larose, if that's your thing. The nose started out with some tomato notes that I find common to GL and has really prevented me from embracing this producer. The nose is quite complex with charred wood, slightly stewed black fruit, leather and earth. It was pretty substantial in the mouth with some fine grippy tannins and tart acidity framing smoky cassis. It faded a bit in the end although not significantly. Overall, a very good wine that will have its fans, but it did nothing to make me love GL any more than past bottles.
  
• 1982 Château La Conseillante (Pomerol) - This is a wonderful wine for lovers of mature Bordeaux. A complex and evolving nose of earth, leather, gunflint and licorice. It also possesses a pretty herbal quality. The palate is gentle and the sweet cherry fruit rolls on a balancing acidity past the skeletons of resolved tannins. It just got better and better.
  
• 1982 Château Léoville Poyferré (St. Julien) - Sorry, boys, the secret is out on this wine, which showed even better than the bottle we had last year. The nose is all delicate beauty and finesse with some light cherry fruit intermingled with cedar and eucalyptus. The real magic is on the palate though where one finds the marriage of power and elegance. The delicacy of the nose shifts as the fruit turns darker, more tarry and, ultimately, more savory. The ample fruit is wonderfully framed by great structural acidity and fine tannins. This bottle showed broader and more complex than the previous one and I'd recommend holding it for a while; this wine will last forever. A superb, effortless wine.
  

A Wide Variety
The wine that stands out here is the '98 LMHB, so let me explain why it was in there in the first place. Rich, Bill and Paul (and the absent Mark Golodetz) had to suffer through a corked bottle that I brought to our LMHB vertical, so this was to make amends. The wines were so disparate that I don't think its fair to say there was a favorite.

• 1989 Château Palmer (Margaux) - Here is another repeat performer from last year's lunch and, unlike the '82 LP, this was a much poorer showing. To quote Wilfred, there was nothing wrong with this wine, but nothing particularly right either. Nothing really stood out about this wine other than an edgy steeliness. The nose was reticent with some slight floral notes and graphite. The fruit was so delicate as to be an afterthought and so all you were left with were the structural shell. Still, it wasn't a bad wine, just perhaps a slightly off or under-decanted bottle, and I certainly wouldn't panic if I owned any. It just was outclassed today by some great wines.
  
• 1985 Château La Mission Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan) - A classic Claret in an old school Graves style. LMHB seems to have different faces which show from vintage to vintage, but always with a certain style and remarkably consistent. This version displayed the elegant side of LMHB. A wine of finesse with an intriguing nose of dark cherry fruit, herbs and earth. The fruit turns redder on the palate although delicacy remains from the nose and carries all the way through to the finish. A wine that stays within itself and maintains impeccable balance and charm. I wonder if they still make wines like this.
  
• 1998 Château La Mission Haut-Brion (Pessac-Léognan) - A young buck of a LMBH with lots of potential. A bit out of place with its older neighbors, it nonetheless showed tons of personality and was quite wide open and expressive. The fruit is really quiet primary, but is beginning to show some classic Graves elements as it jumps from the glass with opulent black fruit, tar, wet earth and charred wood. It is quite substantial in the mouth, although not heavy, with plush, luxurious black fruit buffeted by silky sweet tannins. The finish is pretty much fruit driven at this point with the ample fruit overwhelming the structure. Overall a bit simple today, but I'd say on revisiting in 5 to 10 years, one will find a profound LMHB.
  

A Visit to the Right Bank
The Angelus' were stupendous and head and shoulders above the Figeac (which I think just tasted like Figeac but others thought it corked). 

• 1989 Château Angélus (St. Émilion) - Every once in a while, a wine just buckles your knees. While the sheer powerful joy of the nose on this wine is the attention grabber, it is the wonderful balance displayed that keeps you coming back. A complex intermingling of sweet black fruit, spices and smoke meet you on the way to the glass. In the mouth is shows wonderful weight and concentration with an undercurrent of acidity and strong tannic backbone that keep the fruit in focus. A nice reminder that power does not have to mean over-the-top. The best is yet to come for this wine.
  
• 1990 Château Angélus (St. Émilion) - Not much to not like about this wine. A three dimensional wine with the alluring richness of its vintage. A compelling and exotically fragrant nose of dark fruit, spice, chocolate and smoke. Soft and sexy smooth from start to finish it has a decent structure that frames rather than dominates the fruit. Don't be mistaken, this is a fruit story and the story is long and complex as the fruit spreads out over the palate. A bit more acidity would have brought this pretty close to perfect.
  
• 1990 Château Figeac (St. Émilion) - Again this wine shows controversially. There were numerous cried of corked, but I think that people are thrown off by the Cabernet Franc dominated herbal dustiness on the nose. As it is, I find a delicate perfume with dry cherries, herbs galore and leather. The palate is similarly gentle with a refreshingly high level of acidity. This is a counterpoint to the open and generous wines of the Right Bank in 1990. A wine in a minor key that clearly didn't appeal to many at the table.
  

A Couple of LLC's to Finish
These wines suffered for being the last flight in terms of attention, but not in terms of quality. Clearly, the 1985 was the better wine today.

• 1985 Château Léoville Las Cases (St. Julien) - This is a wine they don't make much any more. It had a quietness to it that I don't usually associate with LLC reflecting the finesse-driven 1985 vintage. The nose seduces rather than wows with concentrated cassis, anise and graphite. Silky in the mouth, I loved the striking acidity which carried the remarkably fresh and vivid fruit along through the finish. A classic.
  
• 1989 Château Léoville Las Cases (St. Julien) - Not without some charm, this wine is years away from being ready. A wine of similar weight to the '85 LLC, it lacks that wine's calm presence. There is a quiet anger lurking underneath the placid exterior. Still, it is a wine of distinction with pure compact cassis at its core and a nice fleshy mouthfeel all of which is somewhat obscured at the moment by its own impressive architecture. The wine today has an unrelenting steeliness and I don't think it wants to be that wine. I'd expect that some time down the road those tannins will integrate and the fruity core will explode and we will have a truly compelling wine.
  

A Rare Double Vertical-4 Decades of Haut-Bailly & Pape Clément

This event was a great way to kick off the year. I love Bordeaux and I love drinking it in the context of a vertical tasting. One of the strengths of the wines is that each vintage tells a different story and we were lucky enough to be joined by the owner and manager of Haut-Bailly, Robert Wilmers and Véronique Sanders, to weave the tale. I had the good fortune of sitting across from the charming Mme. Sanders, whose family owned the chateau and made the wines for years. The idea for this dinner germinated in a conversation between wine writer Panos Kakaviatos and the real Jay Miller (i.e., not the Wine Advocate critic) about the changes to Pape Clément in recent vintages. The plan essentially was to taste a vertical of PC to see the changes since Magrez took power using HB as a classical control. To that end, it was a smashing success.

Both Haut-Bailly in the heart of Léognan and Pape-Clément in Bordeaux suburb of Pessac (it is within the BDX ring road) showed very differently, owing perhaps to their unique soils, although both showed the classic elements of traditional Graves. The wines were wonderful (other than a couple of early hiccups), especially the HB which showed a consistent style and quality. I own some HB, but never really sat down with it as seriously as this and really fell in love with the freshness and purity of the fruit common to these wines.

Thanks to Jay and Panos for organizing and to Veronique for her generosity and unique insights that pepper this report.

Mature Clarets
We had much more luck with the HB in this flight. The '88 HB was in particular a revelation, as expectations were pretty low. Véronique particularly enjoyed it as they have none at the chateau and this was an unusually good showing. She indicated that in the past in had shown "square" and this was much more "round" and complete. She also noted that the '78 was the last vintage of her great-grandfather. How nice it must be to have that much personal connection to a wine!

• 1978 Château Haut-Bailly-A beautiful mature Claret. The nose was a delicate perfume that evolved gently showing graphite, ash and loamy earth. The fruit was fresh and pure on the palate and I was surprised by the sneaky persistence of this wine: it rippled slowly on and on. The freshness of the fruit was a nice counterpoint for the spritely acidity leaving the overall impression of balance and delicacy.
  
• 1978 Château Pape Clément-I kept thinking this bottle was going to right itself, but it never did. It was musty and musky with some varnish notes (VA?). Not much relief in the mouth as it was pretty thin and diluted. It must have been an off bottle.
  
• 1988 Château Haut-Bailly-This wine started out a touch angular, evincing nothing more than cedar and graphite, but with a little aggressive swirling it blossomed in the glass into a charming Claret. Popping from the glass were aromas of sweet and slightly sour cherries mingled with orange peel and some Asian spice. The fruit in the mouth was slightly darker than it showed on the nose and was full and broad across the palate. If there were ever seams to this wine they have since hidden themselves admirably. This wine has years of life ahead and will only get better.
  
• 1988 Château Pape Clément-This wine was pretty dirty. I think brett can be a character enhancer, but clearly a fine line was crossed. The nose of wet diapers masked whatever charm was underlying this bottle. The bottle looked good, so I would think it's something in the winemaking. A real shame.

Flight of the Night
These wines were very fine. Any of them could have put up an argument for wine of the night. The '89s are all about finesse and the '90s about power. Véronique noted that to combat the hot harvest of '89, they kept the fermentation cool (<28ºc/82ºf) in order to tame the intensity of the fruit.

• 1989 Château Haut-Bailly-A wine of brilliant finesse, the '89 was probably the favorite wine of the night for the group. The nose was of exceptionally pure cassis and it gained complexity in the glass displaying touches of spice and cocoa. Wonderfully broad in the mouth, it had an alluring minerality and mouthwatering acidity to balance the ample fruit. The tannins to a certain extent contribute to the weightiness in the mouth, but I expect that they will step out of the way as the fruit matures. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
  
• 1989 Château Pape Clément-A very good if somewhat incomplete wine. I wasn't wild abouty the nose, which was pretty reticent. A hint of fruit, but mostly lead pencil and earth along with a touch of VA. It was much more pleasant in the mouth, with a full mouthfeel, well-delineated fruit and an interesting steeliness. It had a nice acidity that carried the finish nicely.
  
• 1990 Château Haut-Bailly-A stikingly powerful wine, it seems to have more of everything. A deep, dark nose with notes of graphite, ash and roasted herbs. A full mouthfeel that showed impressive depth and breadth. Perfect balance between the ripe, ripe fruit and underlying acidity. It is a great example of the richness of the vintage that I so much enjoy. Perhaps it will have a lower apogee than the '89, but I thought it was the better wine for today.
  
• 1990 Château Pape Clément-A powerful wine that speaks to the richness of the vintage and the character of its place. Soaring aromatics of dark fruit, scorched earth, spice and licorice. It had a nice minerality and purity to the fruit although the palate could have used a touch more focus and it lacked some of the complexity that it showed on the nose. Plenty of structure left here, so it will be interesting to revist this wine in 5-10 years. This isn't a classic wine, but it is quite excellent.
  

A Soft Landing
I found these wine to be somewhat unusual compared to the others in that they were much softer wines. Not making a value judgment, just noting the facts. For the HB, the '98 has 43% Merlot and the '00 had 50%, which are some high numbers for these wines. I would assume that the PC blends were similar. I was fairly well impressed by the '98s which were very open wines that could be drunk now, albeit a little simple. The '00s on the other hand were fairly closed, but were more complex, I thought, which runs counter to the logic that the '98 vintage was the better one for Pessac-Léognan. These wine also proved out the point for Pape Clément saw a real change to a more "modern" and aggressive style of wine. Not that that is a bad thing, the wines were much cleaner and were very well crafted. I could see many people finding them a bit of an anathema however. On the other hand, the HB wines were true to their historical style with very clean, pure performances. The '98 PC was probably the one PC that I liked better than its HB analogue, however, I could see someone easily perferring the freshness and true Graves character of the HB.

• 1998 Château Haut-Bailly-Plush and soft, this wine is a little too fruit driven at the moment. The fruit is pretty primary on the nose and there is an ample amount of it. It is quite full-bodied and weighty in the mouth, although by no means heavy. There is nice acidity there, but the finish is more fruit driven at the moment. It's open knit and ready to go now notwithstanding that age will certainly help in develop some more complexity.
  
• 1998 Château Pape Clément-This one was open and ready to go. Lots of plush, round dark fruit mixed with a bit of dark chocolate and a ton of licorice. Full in the mouth and bordering on heavy, it has decent concentration but is a little short on focus. The tannins are fine and the acidity merely adequate. A really juicy, chewy, fairly simple wine that has a nice "please like me" personality. I don't think it's going anywhere for a while but it certainly is enjoyable now.
  
• 2000 Château Haut-Bailly-While I usually prefer more Cabernet driven wines, I liked this quite a bit. That said, it is way too young for a proper evaluation of the details as it doesn't show much nuance. The beginning and end of this wine are fruit driven and the palate is balanced but somewhat uniteresting at the moment. That said, it is impressively crafted. It is a very soft wine (about 50% Merlot) notwithstanding the impressive tannic structure. While other vintages of Haut Bailly seem to use the acidic structure to balance the fruit, this one appears to rely more on the tannins. Accordingly, this is going to need some time to show what it's got. A very impressive value for the vintage.
  
• 2000 Château Pape Clément-This wine is an inch wide and a mile deep. The color, the fruit...black and deep. However, it isn't showing any breadth at this stage, so its a little bit of a waste. Made in a soft, round, modern style, the nose is dominated by black fruit, semi-sweet chocolate and oak-driven roasted espresso. There's lots of pure, concentrated fruit there and a huge architecture framing it. It's more of the pieces of an excellent wine than a good wine now. Hopefully, time will tie it up into a great package because it does have potential.

Sandwich Vintages
I tend to ignore these two vintages, sandwiched between '00 and '03. I did like the '01s as being good every day drinkers and continued my general dislike for the hard '02 vintage.

• 2001 Château Haut-Bailly-I am sort of torn about whether this is a sleeper of a wine or just an everyday drinker. It is pretty much textbook Léognan with deep cassis, smoke and earth. It's slightly on the thin side of medium-bodied and doesn't have much architecture, but it is wide open and impeccably balanced. A wine with an amiable, easygoing demeaner that will neither disappoint or set the world on fire. A nice wine to drink while you're waiting for your other vintages of Haut Bailly to age.
  
• 2001 Château Pape Clément-This wine is packed, but shows itself in a fairly restrained way. Not to say that this isn't made in a modern style, it is. The fruit is sweet bordering on jammy, but I didn't feel that it got out of hand, as there were ample tannins and good acidity. Common sense says to wait on this one, although it is certainly drinking well now with some fine secondary characteristics of spice and licorice. The style of this wine is not going to appeal to everyone, yet there is no denying the talent that went into making it.
  
• 2002 Château Haut-Bailly-While others seem to enjoy the '02 vintage, I have not and this wine did not convert me. It's a hard, steely wine that reveals little on the nose. It is pretty angular and doesn't give much more than structure and the slight astringency that I've found common to the vintage. Perhaps age will soften it up as it is well-made.

Young Pups
We finished with some great youngsters that show great promise. The star of the night though was the '05 HB. An absolutely stunning wine and I put my money were my mouth was the next morning by purchasing a case.

• 2004 Château Haut-Bailly-This wine seemed to be in a bit more modern style than other vintages. It had some nice fruit and some Graves undertones, but it had a bunch of oak as well. The results are much better in the mouth where you get a little bit more of the purity of the fruit. It's pretty big boned and quite tannic that should give it some structure to age and integrate, but it was somewhat lacking in acidity and that worries me a bit. Still not a bad effort for a vintage that hasn't warmed my heart.
  
• 2004 Château Pape Clément-A big and juicy wine. The nose is all about power with waves of cassis hitting you with little subtlety. It is not without complexity however and it already is showing some nice secondary element of Graves. It doesn't seem to be going for elegance, but may acheive it in spite of itself if it can shed its youthful exhuberence. It also may veer off into pure decadence. For now though, it comes across as a bit blowzy despite some good structural elements.
  
• 2005 Château Haut-Bailly-Wow, what a wine. The nose is explosive, yet precise, filled with pure, fresh fruit and typical Graves notes and baking spice. This wine is a dream in the mouth with so much fresh fruit that you don't mind the ample but super-fine tannins. An undercurrent of acidity knits the package together. Exquisitely put together, this wine was a star that should easily top the wonderful '89 and '90 vintages.
  

The Anti-Wine Snob

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has dubbed Master of Wine and former wine drinker Jim Hanni the "wine antisnob" in this marginally interesting hagiography. All in all, it's a pretty shoddy piece of journalism. For example, the subject of the article is the sole source for POV of Hanni's importance to the wine industry (e.g., "Mr. Hanni was immediately 'a god in the wine world,' he says.") While Mr. Hanni is purportedly the anti-snob, the article never clearly defines what it means by "snobbery," but that shouldn't be terribly surprising from a piece that refers to Loire Bordeaux (comparing it to Tuscan Brunellos-so it's wrong on so many levels). I almost hate to point out that uneducated error for fear of being called a wine snob myself!

The major thrust is that one shouldn't feel bad about liking white Zinfandel; they can't help it, physiologically speaking, because they are prisoners of their taste buds. That to me sounds a lot more snobbish than educating someone on better (yes, better) wines that have similar attractions, but are seriously made. "I'm sorry, Mr. Jones, you like white Zinfandel due to your genetic make-up" "But Doc, can't I have a Riesling?" "No, I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do for you." If the focus is getting people to pick wine on a one-off basis, then I think it' a reasonable approach to getting people started on their wine journey. However, if the idea is to educate people to think constructively about wine choices, then it fails entirely. The bias seems to be that the hoi polloi can't be educated, so we might as well dumb things down to their level. I really object to that way of thinking.

Parker Incapacitated-Last Call on '05 Bordeaux

Eminent critic Robert Parker is currently dosed up on drugs following back surgery and not drinking any wine. Normally, he'd be tasting in Bordeaux in advance of his third and definitive rating. Meanwhile, the Bordelais with their very expensive product must be waiting with bated breath for his recovery and his final scores. This may be the last opportunity to get your hands on the "vintage of the century." After the scores come out (and I'd be shocked if they are anything but up, up, up), the wines will most likely go from outrageously expensive, to astronomical to gone baby gone.

Quite frankly, the only reason I follow Parker's advice on BDX is that you know the prices are going to skyrocket on the best rated wines and get out of reach. As an actual guide based on the taste, rather than pricing trends, I much prefer Neal Martin's reviews. He's been a real breath of fresh air over at the Wine Advocate, bringing a disparate view to a publication that has long been dominated by one voice (and one palate). I find the most useful thing is to try to triangulate between the two of them, as a truly great wine will appeal to any palate.

Ruminations on the 1988 Dunn Howell Mountain

Why do we anthropomorphize wine? Wine can not literally be like a woman or a car or any of the myriad other descriptors wine geeks use everyday. So what is the point? It is because you can't really share a taste, a smell or a tactile sensation with someone without creating an analogy to a shared experience. What raspberry means to you as opposed to me is likely quite different. Is it wild raspberries? Is it the frozen kind? You see what I mean. That brings me to the 1988 Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet and my late grandfather.

My grandfather, my father's father, although a college graduate, worked as a foreman, a carpenter, a laborer, among other jobs. He rode the rails out West during the Depression and built PT boats during World War II. He grew up poor, which taught him to save any money that came his way; he died with rather impressive personal wealth like a squirrel that was saving for the next Ice Age. He was a smart man, but not an intellectual man. He taught me that any job worth doing is only worth doing right. He was a hard man, as you can imagine, and physically one of the strongest men I have come across. Not in a hulking sort of way, mind you, but sinewy and lanky. He went to the gym every day well into his 80's and took pride in showing up the younger men in the weight room. But, he got old (as men do) and he developed heart disease and he was almost mystified that his prodigious strength was abandoning him. The last time I saw him, as I was explaining to him why he couldn't do all the things he had once done, he took me to his basement and explained to me that his basement was once unfinished and that he had sheetrocked the ceiling...by himself. It remains achingly heartbreaking. I am glad for that though, to know him like that, to see the vulnerability of age mixed with the reminiscence of the power of youth.

I was thinking about him when I was trying to describe the 1988 Dunn Howell Mountain Cabernet that we enjoyed on New Year's Eve. It was a wine that was a shadow of a different age when it was most likely massive and backward, imbued with raw power. I didn't know it then and can only go by accounts of others, as I had heard stories of my grandfather. Aromatically, it was interesting and complex showing some dusty cassis and herbs, as well as a bit of fennel. Savory and soft in the mouth, it showed good focus and finesse without any true elegance. Not lithe like a dancer, but more like lean, muscular, slightly withered older man. A hint of a once more powerful self. It had a nice earthiness to it, but it finished with a slight astringency that was distracting without ruining the overall impression. Like my grandfather...

Is Drinking Wine a Personal Loss or Gain?

One of my favorite writers about wine today is Sharon Bowman. An American living in Paris, her discussion of wine flows naturally into the broader life's narrative.

Well, Sharon hasn't written anything yet this year, so I was rummaging through some of her older posts and I came across this beautiful rumination on whether loving wine is about loss. She essentially posits that, since every bottle is different, drinking that bottle is an act of destruction that leads to a sense of loss. There is some truth to that. I think about it a little differently. I feel that a great wine becomes something that becomes part of me and changes me just a little. In that way, it lives on immutable and it retains its character in my memory. So, there is a degree of loss there, but also an act of creation. As Picasso reminded us, "Every act of creation, is first an act of destruction." That is why I am not melancholy. Wistful at times, maybe, but I remember the words of Pasternak in Dr. Zhivago, "You in others-that is your soul." So, nothing is truly lost as long as it is passed on.

Anyway, it is all worth reading and thinking about, if for no other reason than this line: "[Wine] is a philter, and a filter for our experience and our emotions."

Terry Theise on Gout de Terroir

I came across this great quote from Terry Theise today. It's brilliant stuff really and in one sentence clearly lays out the battle lines on the topic. I suppose, one man's dirt is another man's dirty.

[Gout de terroir] means "crude or flawed flavors resulting from lazy or ignorant winemaking" if you don't believe in terroir, and "a clearly discernable flavor of distinctiveness taking the form of specific fruit, flower or 'mineral' nuance" if you do.

For those unfamiliar with the term, it literally translates from the French as "taste of soil" and refers to the notion that a wine should taste like where it came from, both in terms of site and vintage. The converse would be a "spoofilated" wine, which essentially means a wine doctored beyond definition of site and vintage by winemaking techniques, such as the use of oak. As with all things, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Dinner at Ruths's Chris in NYC (A Dirge in the Form of a Limerick)

Unfortunately the wine list revealed
nothing good but an overpriced Rothschild.
Do we save money with Oz
and order a Shiraz?
Honestly nothing else quite appealed.

So we went with the Art Series from Leeuwin
which showed oak and some fruit that was stewing,
plus a little more than a hint
of eucalyptus or mint.
Quite frankly it's not a wine worth pursuing.

Still as spoofilated as it was
We ordered another bottle because
sometimes you will trade
a wine that's well-made
for a serious alcoholic buzz.

Just Because I'm an Environmentalist Doesn't Mean I'm a Sissy

Hilarious video from our friends at Funny or Die. Will Farrell, John Reilly and Adam McKay are The Green Team, eco-maniacal pollution busters.

Underrated Bordeaux Vintages

Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of buying "on vintage" for Bordeaux. That said, I've really fallen in love with the 1981 vintage. The Wine Advocate completely ignores the vintage entirely in his Vintage Chart. Ignores it. Not that I'm complaining, it makes for some easy pickings in the secondary market. Recently, I've had some effortless bottles of La Mission Haut-Brion and Ducru Beaucaillou. Classic Clarets both. They share delicate, sophisticated aromatics and glide with a gentle finesse across the palate.

Maybe it's time to rethink my vintage bias? Probably not, given the prices of Bordeaux these days. Better to be safe than sorry, but when you find that hidden gem...

5 Classic Works of Literature

There's an interesting discussion going on Lyle Fass' blog Rockss and Fruit. Lyle, as part of his New Year's resolution, wants to read "five of the world's classics books."

I recommended this list, which is a pretty good starting point, albeit for use as a reference tool and not as definitive list. Here are my five:

• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner may be the South's greatest contribution to the English language other than the second person plural (y'all).
• I, Claudius by Robert Graves is one of my favorite novels of all time. It's wicked and wickedly funny and renders another time in a perfectly modern way. I couldn't put it down.
  
• John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy deserves to be up there with Faulkner and Hemingway, although hardly anyone reads it (maybe because its like a 1,000 pages of trilogy). Generally speaking, I'd pick Hemingway over Dos Passos, but I like the cache of having read a classic novel that most haven't even heard of. A masterful work of historical fiction.
  
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera is wonderful non-linear novel. Maybe not his best work, but certainly his most complete and accessible.
  
• ...and, of course, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov is my favorite novel. He effortlessly interweaves the story of the devil coming to Moscow with the story of Jesus and Pontius Pilate. There's tons of inside jokes in Russian, which you don't have to get to enjoy the novel, so you need to be mindful of the translation.
  

Tough to leave out Garcia Marquez, Ondaatje, Vidal, Nabokov, Hemingway, Whitman and others. What would be your top 5?