Jean Luc Columbo - why doesn't he use Rhone shaped bottles?

Jean Luc Columbo - why doesn’t he use Rhone shaped bottles?

I know its petty, but I have never understood why JLC bottles up his mostly Northern Rhones in Bordeaux shaped bottles.

It upsets my delicate cellar feng-shui.

Does anyone know why?

I’ve not thought about it, but now that I think back to the 90’s Columbo that I drank, they were all Bordeaux-shape bottles. Tried hard to recall, but can’t remember any other No. Rhone that uses same bottles.

Colombo is from near Marseilles and worked in Bordeaux. When he set up as a winemaker in Cornas, he wanted to shake things up, according to Livingstone-Learmonth’s book. He destemmed, used high-temperature extraction and aged his Cornas in 80% new Bordeaux barrels, the rest one year old.

I read the bottles as a way of signalling that he was doing things differently – improving on the locals.

Except that he didn’t necessarily.

Interesting John - never thought about it but I bet that’s the reason though.

I didn’t mean to imply that I thought he had. You certainly don’t hear him mentioned much, even as Clape and Allemand (and Verset) prices have gone through the roof.

Because he’s smart? Every freaking wine should be bottled in plain, old style bordeaux bottles. Most efficient storage possible.

Plus it’s the best shape to hold the whole oak branches used to make his wine

That didn’t take long.

Why is it ok for Guigal to oak up his best Nor. Rhones, but not JLC?

It’s not. I own a lot of Northern Rhones, not a single Guigal for that very reason. No JLC either.

This. And if you saw the thread on K&L’s Chapoutier, when I mentioned that even Jeff Leve says Chapoutier might use a little too much new oak, that’s the secret code for “holy crap, I love Guigal with as much new oak as they use, but even I can’t go for Chapoutier”

OK that’s hilarious!

And I couldn’t agree more with this:

Every freaking wine should be bottled in plain, old style bordeaux bottles. Most efficient storage possible.

I think the “Rhone” or “Burgundy” bottles are prettier, but who really cares? They don’t stack for shit. The others are so much more practical.

Agreed - except maybe for Mags

Now, this can be stacked even more efficiently and solid. The number of different stack-designs are endless.

-Søren.

The proof is in the pudding. When I was drinking a lot of Northern Rhone in the 80s and early 90s, Guigal’s Brune & Blonde was an excellent exemplar of Cote Rotie, and wasn’t strongly oaky. It didn’t stick out as a sore thumb alongside more traditional producers.

The one time I visited Guigal – in 88 or 92 – Philippe Guigal said that with very long times in barrel (30 months for the B&B, I believe, and longer for the La Las), the oak became less conspicuous. That seemed to be borne out by barrel samples he gave us. The wine that had been in a barrel a year or 18 months seemed more oaky than the finished wine.

The La Las, which I’ve only had a few times, were another story – unlike other Cote Rotie. But tasty!

I was buying and drinking Clape, Verset and de Barjac Cornas when Colombo came on the scene. His wines just didn’t taste like Cornas, and for my palate they never held a candle against those other producers. (De Barjac retired ages ago.)

I see that Colombo still gets good prices – more than Balthazar or Paris, for example. I guess I should try one to see if I should revise my opinion. From Livingstone-Learmonth’s write-up, it doesn’t sound like he’s changed his methods much in the past 20 years, except maybe to do away with the high-temperature extraction.

We split a 2015 Jean Luc Columbo ‘La Redonne’ blanc [Cotes du Rhone] last night. It’s 13.5% abv, and a blend of 2/3 viognier and 1/3 roussanne. The label says its the perfect wine to serve with ‘sea bream en papillote’ but we had it with grilled cheese sandwiches (squished in my waffle iron). True to Columbo’s preference for non regional bottle shapes, it comes in a tall riesling style bottle. The wine was a bit underwhelming, not offering the floral lushness I would expect from a ripe vintage viognier driven wine. It might have been a touch too warm, but even as it cooled it never really expanded. For blanc CdR, I like Guigal’s better. Strangely my local supermarket carries a lot of JLC’s wines - a couple Cornas, roses, blancs etc. I think I once even saw a St Joe of his there, which I didn’t even know they bottled. I wouldn’t have expected to see any of those, and I only buy this producer infrequently, and when I do, I’m usually left a bit wanting after consuming them. There’s a little pear fruit on the nose, not much on the palate. At least the SO quite liked it, and had a couple of glasses.

I’d give this a B-.

I like your approach.

You don’t have a dedicated panini press?

I have so many kitchen gadgets its really quite insane…but so far no pannini press.

3 different waffle irons though: one round, a square one, and one for making little sticks.

Sometimes I wonder when the importers are making up the back labels if they just have some massive wheel of BS they spin to come up with the pairings.

Arv - the producers, the retailers, the reviewers, the somms - BS sells! It’s not even nefarious as a lot of them quite sincerely believe it.

Who knows - the wine may have gone perfectly well with sea bream. Or maybe that’s what he was eating when he started writing up the label so he just put that down. A Riesling bottle is a little bit much though. One of the worst bottle shapes of all for stacking in a wine cooler.

Barou uses the riesling bottle shape for some of their white rhones, IIRC.

It is indeed inconvenient.

Texier used rieslings bottles for an off-dry white he made – viognier, as I recall. But he was aiming for a German style. (Not nearly enough acid, sorry to say.)

it’s been a minute since I’ve had a Colombo, but I don’t think your opinion will change much. Clearly there is some sort of following as he gets those prices and I rarely see his wines pop up at retail, but I would never choose him over the two producers you just mentioned.