Cote Rotie 1969 Bruno Thierry.
A negotiant I have never heard of. The year is classic in the Northern Rhone. The bottles were perfect, bright red, without any sign of bricking. The fill was equally good. I opened the bottle, and the cork was loose. The Durand extracted it without a problem. The nose was stunning, pure Syrah. Reminded me of a perfect bottle of older Chave. Slightly sauvage, light but incredibly concentrated, beautiful fruit, leather, fragrant with a massive finish.
You have more, yes?
Few things give as much pleasure as a surprisingly stellar bottle of something very old and obscure for which one had low expectations.
The most recent one for me was a 1968 Cesanese del Piglio from the local coop, which utterly outshone a quite solid, pleasing 2001 Mastrojanni Brunello. The Cesanese was utterly fresh, but with evolved, earthy flavors – not a trace of oxidation.
What a great surprise. That sounds like a delicious bottle of wine. Thanks for sharing.
Love it when this sort of thing happens. Well done Mark.
Thanks all.
I bought seven bottles originally, so six left. Next one is slated for Thanksgiving when it will accompany duck, potatoes roasted in duck fat and red cabbage. I can’t think of a better pairing, as duck is my second favorite vegetable after lobster.
My wife remarked on the resemblance to Chave 1983, which we drank almost every week for a year at a bistro in Geneva when we lived there. The surprising thing is our own last few bottles of Chave were fading, while this is going strong.
Congratulations. Any idea who Bruno Thierry got his wine from in those days?
I wish I could figure it out. In those days, the winemakers barely scraped a living, and I remember Maurice Gentaz telling me that Cote Rotie could produce beautiful apricots. Not sure when the trees were pulled up.
1969 was at least ten years before Parker discovered Cote Rotie. Certainly had the depth to be old vine
Bruno Thierry is one of Vidal Fleury’s brands.
So it might have come from their own vineyards (which was probably 50% of the whole appellation back then), or from purchased grapes.
All the wines I have had from 1969 at Vidal Fleury have been great to unbelievable.
Cheers
Thanks, Eric. Was this wine made by Guigal then?
My last bottles of '83 Chave were getting tired and that was 15 years ago. I was not at all sad to finish them off. I really haven’t had any old bottles from the Northern Rhone. Would love to find a few like you did to take a tour with.
Cheers,
fred
Guigal picked up VF in 1985 after purchasing what became La Turque from the VF vineyard holdings. Highly doubtful the Guigal clan had anything to do with this wine.
Photograph of another bottle.
From what I’ve heard and read, Schoonmaker was pretty serious back then, so it doesn’t surprise me this is delicious. When Kermit Lynch started his store (and before he started importing wines directly), I think a lot of his early wines where Schoonmaker wines.