2005 Château de Coulaine Chinon Clos de Turpenay

WINE TALK
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  • 2005 Château de Coulaine Chinon Clos de Turpenay - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Chinon (4/24/2009)
    I was looking for something interesting to drink last night and settled on this. Infanticide for sure, I thought. Surprisingly, this wine was wide open last night with nice, velvety, ripe tannins, amazingly sweet fruit, charcoal, earth and tobacco. Nary a hint of green streak. I put half the bottle back in the cellar overnight, and tonight, this has coiled up and closed down hard. The sweetness of the fruit has disappeared and the texture has become more chunky. Tannins are not as hard as one may think, but everything that was so accessible last night is walled up behind the structure of this wine tonight. On the nose, I am getting black currant and tobacco with a dose of green bell pepper and gravel tonight. Palate is tannic and dominated by austere black currant and garbed leather flavors. This has the raw ingredients to be a great wine, but it needs to be popped and poured right now or forgotten about for about 10 years in my opinion. Very intellectual excercise to drink this wine right now. Purchased for $27 and Alc. 13.5% by Vol.

Posted from CellarTracker

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Thanks for the note Steffen. I think the 05 Loire reds are very underrated and will stand up to long aging. Not surprised to here some may be shutting down.

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05 is a fantastic vintage for reds in the Loire Valley. This wine was no exception. That said, it’s a vintage where big wines were made. I went long on 2005 Loire reds (in particular Chinon…thanks Lyle), so I’ve got plenty more things to try both in their youth and glory days.