2006 Copain Roussanne James Berry Vineyard- USA, California, Central Coast, Paso Robles (4/5/2019)
From magnum. The wine was popped and poured, but then tasted over the course of two hours. This wine is really outstanding and interesting once it’s been exposed to air for about an hour.
Upon opening, the wine had a big floral nose, but with no acidity showing at all. The flavors were dominated by minerals.
After about an hour, the wine went through a major change. Boom, the acidity was there. The floral nose just kept on giving. The flavors of minerality was still there in force, but joined by nice fruit flavors including tart citrus and apple.
Overall, an excellent wine with plenty of life, at least in this format. Give it plenty of air for maximum enjoyment.
Here’s the information I received about the wine from Chris Paul, the Tasting Room Manager at Copain: “It’s 100% neutral oak aged. There’s a few hours of skin contact prior to pressing for fermentation. 2006 was a cooler year down in Paso Robles. 2009 was our final vintage with James Berry.” (90 pts.)
Great note - thanks for posting. I still have a number of these - no mags, just 750’s.
I’ve not found it to have much acid, but it does have wonderful texture from the variety itself and the slight bitterness the variety is known for. Would be curious to see chemistries on this at some point.
Did you save any for day 2? Will be even better . . .
Nothing the next day Larry. I opened it at a Copain event and it all got consumed.
On the acid, when I first opened the bottle, there was none at all. But after an hour, it was definitely there and going strong. The next time you open a bottle, you might consider decanting it to give it some air.
Thanks for the reply. I generally am not a big decanting fan but instead like to let wines open slowly and enjoy them over a long period of time. And this is especially true with roussannes and marsannes IMHO.
Thanks for the mouthwatering note, John. The 2009 referenced is a wine I need to find a way to source a bottle or two of. From last July (during one of the 110 degree or so days), this made the cut for my WOTY list:
"2009 Copain James Berry Roussanne
Leslie brought this especially for Frank and I was very glad to have the chance to try. Mystery in the nose, touches of vanilla and nougat and perhaps even a small and very neat oatmeal component. This, to taste, is bend-your-knees beautiful, fully expressive wine. It’s got an amazing acacia thread that sort of buttresses all the yellow and white fruit. Pungently pretty yet powerful at the same time, this gets darned close to the Beaucastel Vieilles Vignes, which is about the highest praise I can give. WOTN."
We had this same wine out of 750 end of last year and really enjoyed it. Like yours, it took several hours to hit its peak. I got more of a peach and almond combination, but the textural richness was the main event. Got some acid in the end too, just not a whole lot!
Encouraging. I have a single bottle of this left in my cellar. I do recall drinking a mag of this with Wells back in 2017 at the winery. He yanked it out of box on a palate from his cellar inventory and we poured it across about a dozen glasses. It was drinking great then, and that was 2 years ago.