It finally felt like fall, so I celebrated with Cote Rotie.
I haven’t had a ton of these, but the 13 pales to the 14 in terms of young ones at this point. Maybe this is shut down for the long haul.
Good showing, serious wine, but not really special yet.
2013 Xavier Gerard Côte-Rôtie- France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (10/19/2018)
Really good potential here. I found it wrapped up pretty tight, but classic notes of meat and pepper on the nose. Purplish color. Palate is lean right now, gives some indication of dark syrah fruit waiting to pop, but more about structure right now. It feels cool, with pepper and meat and shows no excessive weight, it just needs some to unwind, for me anyway.
I brought a bottle of this to Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis last night. It was decent and somewhat correct, but an unexciting wine. It seemed stylistically around the midpoint between classic and modern, some black fruits, hints of olive, leather and bacon (but you kind of had to look for them), medium tannins. It didn’t really improve over two hours or so in a decanter. Perfectly okay for the dinner table, but not much more than that.
I see some comments in this thread below where others found this pretty mediocre as well.
Thanks for the check-in. And confirmation. I’ve got a couple somewhere, not sure what will become. Not a wine I really follow. i had heard good things, but they never really excited me.
Thanks for checking in on it. I have four of them. Not the most encouraging note, but also sounds like it can work well enough as an everyday drinker over the next few years.
Obviously, I’m just one opinion and it was just one bottle, so I hope you end up happy with yours. I do think it would be fine as a everyday drinker.
I was on the fence whether it might improve or not with more age. It didn’t seem to be declining or fading, but it was just not particularly complex or expressive. Maybe try one of yours and see what you want to do about timing the other three.
Got around to open one of mine. I like it. Clearly Northern Rhone and pretty well balanced. But everything is rather subtle. Don’t think it is closed down, just lacks a bit of x-factor and length.
For a Monday night wine this is very enjoyable though. Actually think it works best without food as it is pretty elegant for the lack of a better word.
Thanks for the note as I have a couple bottles. I had seen some similar impressions, so I have this in the category of continue to age and hope it blossoms, but managing expectations that it may never really be all that special.
If you have a few bottles i recommend opening one now to get an idea about when to drink them based on your preferences. I will drink my last three bottles within the next 2-3 years. Don’t believe this is one for extended aging, so rather enjoy it for what it is now, which is a good wine.
That sounds pretty similar to my impression. A well-made and generally correct wine, no particular excesses or flaws, perfectly fine to drink, but sort of lacking distinctiveness and pizzazz.
I didn t have the 13 ever, but the 3 or 4 other vintages- usually in restaurants - were exactly that: good drinkers with food but lacking any excitement. Once we ordered a Rostaing Cote blonde right after this - and man, that was a different animal, really outstanding ( but at 2.5 times the price)
