Hospice du Rhône tasting notes

WINE TALK
1

Here’s a link to my tasting notes from Hospice du Rhône, on Grape-Nutz.com:
Hospice du Rhône tasting notes

It was great to see so many WB’ers at HdR, both old friends and new ones - already looking forward to next year!

2

Wow Ken, you really got around and kept clear notes, I am impressed! Next year I need to get around and taste more. [cheers.gif]

3

Thanks for all the notes, Ken.

Wind Gap is the new label from winemaker Pax Mahle, and the wines are much in the style of his earlier efforts.

I found this comment quite interesting. The promotional material I had received from Wind Gap gave me the impression that they were going for a quite a different style. I rather liked the Pax wines, so this is good news to me.

4

Someone else had pointed that out to me as well, though I haven’t read that promo material myself. I do think the new wines will be less ripe and lower alcohol than most of his earlier wines (I’m certain that must be true of the Sonoma Coast Syrah I tasted), but the wines still had a lot of flavor along with that familiar whole-cluster character. That’s what led me to make that comment - that character gave me the impression of more similarity than obvious difference. But that’s also based on tasting only two of the new Wind Gap wines - I’m hoping to visit Pax and taste more of his new wines sometime in the next couple of months so hopefully I’ll have a better sense of the style after that. I suspect if you were a fan of his old wines, you’ll like his new ones too.

5

Hi, Ken.

As you know, I’ve not been able to make it back for HdR (even just for Augie’s annual pinot noir dinner) since we met briefly at said pre-HdR dinner in 2006. I believe, however, that, as early as now, I have been able to schedule things to enable me to be there at the next.

Looking forward to it. Great notes, by the way.

Best,

N

6

Noel, that’s great news that you’ll be able to make it to HdR next year! I enjoyed meeting you at Augie’s dinner there a few years ago - wish we’d had more time to talk then. The wines you brought were memorable! Take care, and looking forward to seeing you again next year.

7

Great notes Ken! It was nice to finally meet you.

8

Yes, it would be great if you could come again, Noel.

-Al