As it turns out, Erix Texier makes good wine!

From a dinner with my tasting group with Northern Rhône syrah as the theme. We didn’t have any Pergaud, but there were several of Eric’s wines. As it happens, they are pretty good. We ate a bunch of awesome food, including a whole ham from Green Button farm, the skin was served as crackling. Beef, scallops, lamb chops, root vegetables, greens. Awesome sauce.

2011 Combier Crozes
Nice little quaffing syrah. Organic grower who also grows plums and apricots.

2004 Texier Brézème
Under neo-cork, so I’m not sure that this is representative of what this wine could have been in 2004. A little tired.

2005 Texier St. Joseph
Lovely, gentle savory notes. Some dried fruits, but more about game and leather with some herbal and floral notes. In everyone’s top 3.

1997 Gerin Côte-Rôtie Grand Places
Terrible. Not drinkable.

2001 Rostaing Côte-Rôtie
Fine. Correct. Wasn’t much going on with the nose, but the palate was gentle, mature Côte-Rôtie.

2001 Guigal Côte-Rôtie Chateau D’Ampuis
Gross. I don’t think it will ever shake the oak and the heavy handed winemaking.

1998 Ogier Côte-Rôtie
Disappointing. When I bought this, I was hoping for a repeat of 1988 or 1991. That’s not what happened. It has never lost its wild, sauvage side. A couple of folks really liked it for that very reason. I want my Côte-Rôtie to be pretty, this wasn’t.

2004 Texier Côte-Rôtie
OK, but I’ve had better bottles. This had a seam down the cork, so I think that the bottle is not representative.

2006 Texier Côte-Rôtie
Freaking amazing wine. Beautiful and seamless. Caresses the palate and is layered with note after note. Floral, savory, red and blue pit-fruited with grace and length. 2006 was really a great year for Eric, the Pergaud from that year is as good, if not better, than the Côte-Rôtie. This was everyone’s wine of the night because it was the truly great wine at the table.

2005 Edmunds St. John Syrah Bassetti
Wow, what a ringer. This is the best bottle I’ve had of this. It fit well with these wines of the Northern Rhône while maintaining its Californian-ness. There is a dark berry quality to the fruit that differentiates it from the others, but it has tons of savory notes and a brisk, cool mineral underpinning. Steve once said to me that he thought this may be the best syrah he has made. I don’t know if he still thinks that, but this bottle is persuasive.

For myself, the 2006 Texier Côte-Rôtie was in a class by itself and the 2005 Texier St. Joseph and 2005 ESJ Bassetti were in the top tier. There was a significant drop-off after that.

Thanks! Fascinating line-up and notes. Glad to hear the E St J showed so well, as I have a couple of bottles. Where do you think it is in its development? Peak? Years to go?

We had a 2001 Texier Cote Rotie VV a few nights ago with dinner. Initially a bit racy out of the shoot, it filled in with air to offer nuanced, black tea, dried cranberry , savory herb and earth notes. Gliding palate and plenty of verve on the finish. In no hurry but lovely with roasted chicken.

Whatever, if someone says his wine sucks on a bulletin board then his wine sucks! No two ways Nathan!

I think not only did the guy say the wines sucked, but so did Eric for trying to make so many different wines! So, to my reading, the insult was even worse.

This post could have been called “Texier does not suck”.

A 50% hit rate when tasted non-blind by someone with a personal relationship and an economic interest in selling the wines. Great showing, this. But don’t mind me, keep rooting for your buddy.

David can always sniff out the “long con.”

So as a lawyer, David, you have an economic interest in everything you say about your clients, right? Does that mean that courts and others should not place any confidence in anything you say about your clients?

I don’t expect that a lawyer would be telling a court or a judge that his client is only good 50% of the time either.

Okay.

I had one last Fall which for my taste was way too tight. My recollection from when I was picking up my Bassetti from Steve Edmunds was that he said to hold on to it for 15 years! I, too, recall him saying something like it was the best syrah that had made.

Economics! Something else you can be shitty at. Good work.

50% cork failure, not wine failure. Solid stuff.

It’s in a nice spot for me, although, based on this bottle, I think there are at least 5 years of positive development. I’ve experienced some bottle variation with this wine but more bottles similar to this than not. This is one of those syrah that if you want some fruit, have it in the next few years, but as it matures, it will develop lots of savory notes, so if you like that, wait. There were a ton of embedded clauses in that sentence.

Gliding palate is right. The texture of the 2006 was just amazing.

The old BJ 15 year rule.

While not from this vintage, I had some early 90s ESJ in the mid-2000s that were fantastic. I probably like my wine in a different spot that Steve, so I’ll drink mine earlier but there really isn’t a losing proposition here.

I was just speaking with a friend who was also at the tasting last night and we were both kind of taken aback at how disappointing some of the wines were. Neither of us expected to like the Guigal, but we didn’t expect it to be awful. Both of us have fond memories of 80s Brune et Blonde. Anyhow, the three wines I pointed out were clearly superior with a couple of folks liking the Ogier, but it was interesting how it stacked up uniformly over a diverse crowd.