2013 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche- France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (6/17/2018)
Decanted 10 hrs, and I don’t think another 10 perhaps 20, would have been in any way a hinderance to bringing this young brute to life. I knew what to expect opening a young, structured vintage of Levet, but I was still thrown as to how burly and anti fruit the wine showed last night. Right to the point, I liked the wine, in fact I liked it a lot thinking about it later, but it took some work. The nose was so distinct - musky, smoke, dust, but sooo Northern Rhone to its bone marrow. The first sip had it tasting a bit sour, and not in a delightful Chianti kind of way. Thankfully, a great NY strip (doesn’t this cure all life’s ills?) got the wine into proper drinking shape, albeit in tight, tannic form, but you could see a sneak peeks of some character popping out. I normally am a fan of the 100 point scale, it just doesn’t work for me on a wine like this. HOLD!
Fantastic note, Dale. Every now and again it’s fun to drink a wine that makes you work and Levet is so good at that! Obviously needs some time or it sounds like you need to decant the f&ck out of it. Appreciate you taking one for the team! Northern Rhone or die!
2013 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (3/24/2024)
Decanted 2 hrs. Not much development since my last bottle in 2018. Re reading that note, it very much echos last night wine. Really dominated by Jungle Juice insect repellent aka a very strong musky presence, huge tannins, lots of feral character etc. In short, a big zero in the way of conceding anything that would be considered modern, which is great, but I think I would have liked just a touch more fruit or perhaps even wood (did I just type that?) to round things off a bit. But this was very enjoyable in a intellectual capacity, and I’ll let my last two bottles sleep a decade.
Great note - thanks! Like Barolo 2013 I sometimes worry if Levet has the raw material to actually blossom one day.
When I open a young Gonon I am very comfortable with aging it as all elements seems to be in the right place. Not always the same feeling I get with Levet.
Interesting comparison, but one where I think it’s really hard to tell how things shake out.
I have more confidence that if I were Rip Van Winkled, my Levet bottles wouldn’t be past prime drinking. I’m not so sure with Gonon. That is to say, I have a high degree of uncertainty of what Gonon looks like at 25-30 years past bottling, whereas I have a lower degree of uncertainty with Levet.
The one corollary is that Gonon can be enjoyed much sooner whereas Levet not so much (see Dale’s note). My nerd brain almost thinks about it as a cumulative distribution function hypothesis, where Gonon is heavily tilted towards years 3-15 and Levet far moreso years 15-25+.
Thank you all for the replies. After having a little time to think about this 13 a little more and reading the replies, I was curious about something. So, for a wine that exhibits exactly zero in terms of charm 11 years in, generally speaking what is the reveal, 10,15, 20 years down the road? Does it just soften up? Does it gain in aromatics? Of the few Northern Rhones I have had with extended age, (basically Jamet), there usually is a semblance of some type of appealing fruit action or traits like flowers to latch on to along with the traditional Cote Rotie / N. Rhone goodies - black pepper, blood etc. I have no read on where this wine is headed.
