2014 Château Le Puy Bordeaux Côtes de Francs Cuvée Emilien

WINE TALK
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I served this wine blindly to the same group that tasted it in March in a blind tasting then of '14 Bordeaux. This wine brought to mind a quip that Adam Gopnik attributed to a character in a short story in The New Yorker 20 years ago. At a dinner party where a Wall Street figure brought together artists and their patrons, an artist says:

“It used to be that there was just the beautiful and the ugly. Now there is just the ugly and the ugly with an explanation.”

The first remark on the wine tonight was that it had a faint scent of peanut butter. That label hadn’t occurred to me, but I couldn’t dispute it. Someone else said “plastic.” I wrote “Green!” for the aromas. On the palate, “green tannins, sour.”

No one guessed Bordeaux, though there were some guesses of underripe Loire cab franc. In fact, it’s ~85% merlot.

The wine tonight did not seem defective, as the one in March seemed, except from a balance standpoint, and my notes from March were pretty consistent with those tonight:

Nose: “Earthy, green, cab franc, plastic, cab franc; underripe cab franc.” On the palate: “A tad green. Streak of green acid. Underripe. Awful. Like an underripe Loire red.” Finish: “Green streak. Awful.” Overall: “One of he worst wines I’ve tasted in a long time. 60 points”

Tonight I wouldn’t say it was one of the worst wines I’ve had in a long time, but it was perhaps the least pleasant non-defective wine in a long time. It would take a huge leap of faith to believe this will evolve into something pleasant.

Because I’m a curious guy, I would be interested to taste this in in five or ten years. But on someone else’s dime. (That would be your dime, Mr. Alfert, or Mr. Levenberg’s.) I’m not betting on this.

To those who explain/excuse this by saying it’s not like today’s Bordeaux, I say: I’ve been tasting young Bordeaux since the early '80s – including late '70s wines, '80s and '81s, before the '82 revolution, and before Parker’s influence – and this is nothing like any Bordeaux I’ve ever had young. And certainly nothing like any merlot-dominated wine I’ve ever had. I’d be curious to know how it evolves, but I’m not optimistic.

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P.S. Whole Foods carries this in the NYC store on Columbus Ave. if anyone wants (aka any masochists want) to see who’s right.

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You clearly have a Suckling-Galloni palate, seeking beams of blueberry compote, essence of kirsch liquor, with a plush and velvety palate, followed by soft and sweet tannins. Bingo. :wink:

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On Alfert’s list of wine’s of significance, I am on board with the first three. The others I just don’t know as well. And, of course, there’s a handful of CdPs I would add to mine (to Alfert’s horror) as well as some other Loire reds (Baudry anyone?). Still our palate’s have a certain family resemblance, as Wittgenstein would say. But I could say the same, based on his tasting notes with John (I’ve never met or drank with either of them, so one can’t be sure). I would not put him in the Suckling-Galloni camp.

Given that, all I can say about this dispute is that for those of us who haven’t tasted the wine, it is a puzzlement.

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That was a joke about John. I bet our palates overlap substantially. And I should have added Baudry to that list, but I do not consider them “distinct”. I consider them excellent.

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I was concerned about the enamel on my teeth after drinking the Ch. le Puy twice in a couple of months.

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Luv me sum high acid!

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(my emphasis)

A whole new type of tasting? You didnt know what you were pouring? [stirthepothal.gif]

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