2016 Xavier Gerard St. Joseph le Blanchard - brighter red fruit but upon opening thought it was a bit candied. Settled down after a few hours and began to show some Rhone character and decent acidity.
2015 Guillaume Gilles Les Peyrouses - Tweener as this is expensive for technically cdr, but it’s better than most. Still a nice wine, but not much complexity, so I’m not sold on value yet. Dark cherries leaning to black fruits, fairly tannic, maybe more once it opens.
2015 Rousset Crozes-Hermitage les Picaudières - Beautiful color, dark fruit but initially none on the palate. Gobs of acid that swallows it up. Opened after a couple hours but still not much showing. Hold or long decant.
2015 Balthazar Chaillot - wow, stuffed full of potential, dark fruited and just a whiff underneath of what’s to come complexity wise. Impressive for its broadness now but needs lots of time. Tannic for me, but great framework here.
2015 Faury St Joseph La Gloriette - sort of forgot but this was very solid and approachable. Dark fruit, but lacked just a bit in the middle. Just solid all around and certainly good value here. Better day 2.
2015 Texier cdr Brezeme - Holy $hi? this was my first Texier and I’m in love. Yes the acid is crazy, but the fruit. Oh my, how pure! Crunchy red fruit, hard acid but so thought provoking. Crazy good I just spent a load on everything Texier I could find.
For the same reason that I was not as thrilled with the Rousett, your note on that Texier is gonna make me pull the trigger!! The Rousset clearly needs some time to unfurl, but I did find it a bit thick, a bit grapey. Would have actually preferred more acid on the wine. I think the 2015 St Joseph is better. Both silly values, however.
Now you need to try Texier’s Cote Rotie VV. Man 'o man . . . .
I ordered the only 3 2015 Texier Cotie Rotie I could find. Ive always been an acid head as far as whites but with reds it’s sort of a new revelation for me. The Rousett popped but interestingly I just wasn’t getting much fruit. Im certain its in there though. I think Chambers still has the Joe so I’ll add a couple to my next order. I also noticed JLL also gave the 16 Pic 6 stars with an insane review, looks like one to buy deep.
Markus - I unfortunately don’t ball like that, had a few days off though and popped one bottle a night leaving some of each for the next day. Was just looking to get a early look at the new arrivals. I have a few more on tap for the weekend and will post them after.
You really should be buying Texier’s Pergaud bottlings from Brézème and St. Julien en St. Alban. I agree the Cote Rotie is excellent, but he is on his 3rd fruit source due to the economics of the area and if he loses this one, it will be hard and expensive to replace (if only the Clusel’s would let him have some Vialliere…) so if you want to follow the wines over time the other two bottlings could be of greater interest. The old vine vegative material is super interesting and all the young vines are massale selections.
I’m a fan of Gerard, but haven’t tried the St. Joseph, thanks for the note. I’ve been a fan of Gilles Cornas and a huge fan of Texier, glad you like them as well. IIRC, the Faury La Gloriette is the European version of the VV bottling.
thanks for the Texier tips. I actually bought the few Pergaud (serine) I found on WS. The only vintage seemingly available was 2013. I don’t have pro though, if there are better/more sources there I guess I will sign up as it really only a few scattered bottles of anything out there right now.
I don’t think the ‘15 Pergaud Serine is available yet in the US. The one store I saw in NY that purported to have it actually had the regular St Alban. Nathan, any info there?
All of a sudden now, it seems like it’s been years since I’ve seen any Texier available locally, but back in the day, when we were a major Texier market, his white wines were even better than his red wines.
Sadly, though, perusing Cellar Tracker and Wine-Searcher leads me to believe that he hasn’t made the semi-sweet “Opâle” since the 2012 vintage, and apparently the “Cassis” was just a one-off for the 2001 vintage.
So my knowledge of Texier is so badly out-of-date that I can’t even offer any insight as to what is currently on the market, but if you’re gearing up for the summer drinking season - kicking back on the veranda in 95-degree heat & 110% humidity & pondering the meaning of life - then I’d strongly urge you to take a look at Texier’s white wines.
Agreed, and he made my favorite Condrieu (not a wine I drink a lot of and he stopped making it). Currently, there is a roussanne from Brézème as well as a Pergaud version noe done entirely in a type of amphora. I think there is also a marsanne from St. Julien en St. Alban and I know there is a Pergaud version and finally a CDR blanc which is primarily clairette, IIRC.
I find both of the Pergaud wines remarkable if a bit idiosynchratic. They are the best and only in their category.
2015 Emmanuel Darnaud Crozes-Hermitage Au Fil du Temps - this might be the most interesting 15 I’ve had so far. There’s certainly lots of great fruit here, but the secondary interest is already there in spades if that’s what your after. Mushroom, forest, olives it really had it all. When not individually dissected the overall funk reminded me just a bit of what you get with some Cayuse actually, only more pronounced and not as ripe of fruit of course. Really unique from the other 15’s I’ve had and glad to have more to see where this goes.
2015 Domaine Bernard Gripa St. Joseph Cuvée Le Berceau
This had beautiful pure dark fruit and is actually pretty approachable right now, problem is not much is going on - yet hopefully. While impressive and sound it seemed very straight forward and just lacking that something. Maybe I was expecting too much as this was the wine I thought might impress more, but it was the Darnaud that kept me coming back. Will obviously go a long while so I to see if it will let loose of some of the Rhône character I hope is hidden beneath.
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Understatement of the year…but I would agree also. Matter of fact, I probably like Eric’s whites better than his reds.