TN- 2005 Allemand Cornas les Chaillots

OK, I am running around the Rhone tasting tons of small wineries, but last night I had dinner with Paul and Sandy Jaouen (I am also pushing Paul to join Berserkers, BTW) at Restaurant Gerard Alonso in Sorgues, outside of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. To put it mildly, this was the best dinner of my entire trip so far (and I’ve eaten at some killer places). The wine list alone is worth the detour, as I saw this wine for 75 Euros and had to order it.

-2005 Thierry Allemand Cornas les Chaillots
Decanted about an hour or so while we enjoyed some firsts, this was swinging for the gates the moment I poured and sniffed. Amazingly bright purple color in the glass, it deepend into darker reds as it breathed, and the nose, OH MY F*'ING GOD THE NOSE!!! Gorgeous bright and exuberant dark minerally fruits filled the air above the glass, I didn’t want to stop smelling it. After all the earthy dark fruit of the Chateauneufs and Cotes du Rhones that I’d been tasting, this was a welcome reprieve.

Despite the aromas, it was elegant and lithe on the palate, with a gorgeous black pepper note and tons of spices, and a long finish with fruity tannins. What I really loved was that there was a nice segway from the exuberant fruit on the nose to the bright but elegant structure on the palate that ended with that spicy note and those fruity tannins.

Really, really lovely.
Cheers!

10 years ago, an Allemand Chaillot TN gets NO replies in Wine Talk. No way that happens today if this wine is posted as a TN. And it was 75E on a wine list. Those days are GONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNE!

Yeah, well he broke the “rule of 15.”

25
The 98 Reynard is still in a pre-mature phase

Wow, talk about a blast from the past!

Yeah, it’s been a crazy rise through the ranks. In 2014 you could still find this wine in restaurants in Paris for less than a hundred but would be difficult now. Well, for the most part I’m only happy that Allemand is getting the respect he deserves.

Ordered two bottles of the same off a wine list in SF last year; the first had big VA and the second had mild VA that got worse over time. So sad

We had a great dinner in Sorgues at La Table de Sorgues. Quite the culinary delight. We’ll have to try your recommendation. Thanks for the post.

My first thought was to add the restaurant to the list for our Rhone trip this spring, and the second was that Michel might soon be announcing his latest under-the-radar Northern Rhone producers discovered during his trip…then…poof…it is another of FMIII’s retro thread bumps. I’ll have to say, he got me on more than one old thread today. Still, nice to revisit the 2009 WB time capsule.

Cheers,

Steve

Agreed! Thierry served one blind when I visited in the summer and it could have used a few hours in a decanter. More backward than the 98 Clape I would say.

Well, it seems like others have more recently dined there and like it, Steve,

So you could still add it. In the meantime, I, too, have been fooled by some of these “zombie” threads, and find them a touch annoying on the whole. Seems like a lot of work on the poster’s part as well. But I guess, different strokes…

According to Google it has closed its doors permanently.

I was referring to post #8, but perhaps the poster was speaking of an earlier occasion. In any case, thanks for the heads-up.

Joshua, it’s not work to pull these up. We created something special here for a decade. If you celebrate a milestone in your family, a birthday, or something meaningful at work, don’t you put effort against it? Don’t you look at the road traveled to get you to the milestone?

For me, there is no other place out there like THIS place. To honor it, to represent it with some of the lore that got us to this moment, that means something to me.