Candied twice in the note is not going to excite a traditionalist I’d wonder? But it’s the ripe fruit of 15 I’d assume. I wish I’d bought at least one of these to try back to back with the la chavaroche.
Pretty sure the Guigal Crozes i’ve been seeing lately are all 2015, as European shelves are starting to stock 2016 vintages of the lower end releases.
Had a nice QPR 2015 Cornas - Alain Voge Les Chailles. Heavy blackberry/dark fruit, but needed every minute of the five hour decant it got. At 28 euros, I’m a fan.
I had a bottle of the 2015 Barou ‘Vernes’ [IGP C-R] over the last 3 days. It is delicious – incredibly fruity and tasty. Purple in hue, medium/full bodied, black fruit flavors and also sandalwood type of spices. Much richer than some lean Crozes I’ve had recently. Normally it would not make any sense to ship wines at this price point but its hard to find this producer in my local market, and these are good quality. Really impressed by how good this was. Not a keeper as it does not seem dense on the palate, but great drinking for today. B+ or better in my ledger. I did not pick up any acidic edges.
I think I prefer Barou’s '16 St. Joseph to the '15, but the VdP '15 was so delicious!
I’m still buying the '15s, it seems, even one of the Jamets! Recently added to cellar:
2015 Domaine du Tunnel (Stéphane Robert) Cornas Vin Noir
2015 Jean-Luc Jamet Côte-Rôtie Les Terrasses
2015 Christiane Chambeyron-Manin Côte-Rôtie Côte Brune
So far only Beaucastel.
I’m too old to keep buying the N. Rhones that I love.
JLL at DrinkRhone gave this five stars. Great deal if you ask me:
I had a bottle of this over the last 4 days: 2015 Domaine des Amphores Syrah “Les Iris” [IGP des Collines Rhodanniennes] Only 12% abv, but refreshing good wine that seemed to gain some depth over a few days, although I would still consume it now. Lots of floral notes in this syrah. It also has some zip to it, just enough to be good with food, but not so much that its shrill. Organic/biodynamic etc. I think it might low sulfur too. A great QPR to replace Cotes du Rhones. Likely hard to find, but worth shipping. This gets a B+ in my ledger, this lighter styled wine really grew on me over the days. It threw some sediment for a such young bottle btw.
This is the first vintage son Pierre made alone (but he has already assisted for many years … and René was always around).
Definitely very fine, and the best vintage since 2009/10. I really think it´ll be better in 5 years, but you can drink Rostaing Ampodium also young.
The Cote blonde and La Landonne is a further step upwards - and they produced the Cote brune again in 2013 and 2016, not in 2015 … and it seems that the juice is in the Ampodium. This is the old replanted Gentaz-Dervieux vineyard.
Hard to compare 2015, but maybe a mix of 2009 and 10 …
We had the 2015s at the domaine in August 2017 and they were mind-blowing, definitely the wines of the trip, and really really far up there compared to almost everything we’ve drank since. We’ve had a few other vintages of Rostaing but none so soon after bottling, but if the wines emerge on the other side of the shutdown anywhere close to as beautiful as they were at that point, they’re really going to be something special. FWIW Rene mentioned to us that he thinks Americans and Brits tend to hold onto his wines too long, he likes them between 8-12 years past vintage, 15 max, even Landonne and Cote Blonde so that’s about the time we’ve set to check in on what we bought from him. We’ll probably crack into the Ampodiums in the next couple years as the canary in the coal mine.
I know, René likes his Cote-Roties on the younger side, and he is always astonished when I tell him that I drank (for instance) a 1988 Cote blonde at home … but when we had a small tasting 2+ years ago in his home due to his last vintage (2014), and I brought some Austrian wines … he opened … a 1991 La Landonne ! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Well, this thread convinced me to get a couple bottles of the Jaboulet Crozes Hermitage.
I’ve been drinking the 2015 Christophe Billon ‘Les Corendies’ [VdP C-R] the last 3 nights. It’s 13.5% but feels a bit richer and glossier to me. Dark purple/black in color. Boysenberries on the palate. A touch of tannin if you really slosh it around the mouth, but to me its a wine that is actually better without food. White pepper on the nose too. I really enjoy it and would expect bottles to keep well for another few years. Modern styled, in a good way. For my tastes, it slots into that tough zone between A- and B+ wines.
It’s going to be fun watching the 2015 vintage develop over the years.
Yes. My takeaway was that for the price, you can probably do better in Rhone, though all prices for 2015 have become inflated (at every retailer in Dallas).
My note from a previous thread:
2015 Chave St. Joseph > Nice midweight wine with blackberry, grilled meat, pen ink, and licorice. Good balance of lovely, sweet fruit and good acidity and minerality to keep it clean. Fair structure suggests the potential for a decade or two of aging. Strikes a really nice balance between sweet fruit, savory meat, and a nice refreshing backbone of acidity. Pretty good stuff. > 92-93
Just not entirely sure in 2015 that this is worth the tariff given what else is out there.
‘Tough zone’ because there are too many choices in that range?
Their Côte-Rôties are great. La Côte Rozier has consistently gotten five or six stars from JLL; his highest ranking. Les Élotins is a screaming value.
Drinking my St Josephs from around 2010 now. Haven’t been disappointed so far, but then again, they were around 40 EUR all-in I think. They can still go a long way. I wouldn’t be worried on the 2015, but as pointed out, prices have gone up.
Tough to distinguish which bucket to group it in. Day 1 it was A-, Day 3 a B+
I popped another smaller 15 NoRho the last few nights - 2015 Pierre Le Grand [Crozes Hermitage] which only shows 13% abv on the (rather ugly) label but it tastes much bigger, more viscous than that. I’d never heard of the ‘estate’ and it turns out its a label/bottling created by a young producer (a duo named Jean Pierre Mucyn) for a specific importer. Mucyn sell most of their wines under the estate name apparently. But this still gets labor intensive leaf thinning, hand harvesting, de-stemmed fruit treatment etc… At age 5 the wine is showing wonderfully - brambly and blackberries on the nose, some pepper and then a palate with friendly acid yet loads of fruit. I’m kind of down on the retailer where I picked this up from but this one was quite good and the first of that vintage AOC where I was really happy in that seller’s unreviewed/nonrated selections. If there is any wood here, I don’t pick it up. I’d enjoy it now or in the next year or so. B+
Over a couple of nights the 2015 Domaine Belle ‘Cuvee Louis Belle’ [Crozes Hermitage] is excellent - full bodied, purple in color, with blackberry fruit on the palate. Yet not jammy, more balanced in that sense. I thought there was still some oak, along with structure, and it stays tight over the time open, so it could benefit from more time. Still it is a very complete, satisfying No. Rho, more of a Saturday night wine than a midweek sipper. 13.5% abv, natural cork, and no sediment in my example. For my tastes it’s an A- to A grade wine; I’d expect it to keep.
I made some tandoori chicken lollipops to go with it, which really needed more time marinading - they only soaked for 4 hours and ideally needed 24. But still they were pretty good, and I make an effort to get chicken from a not so close Korean market for these dishes. Whatever farm they work with has the best birds for this.