BV - Georges de Latour vs. Tapestry ?

WINE TALK
1

BV - Georges de Latour vs. Tapestry ?

I have generally liked the GdL’s I’ve tried from 70/80s/90s time frames.

Realize that they are a bit mass market for some, but I think that can be a plus.

But I have hardly had any Tapestry bottlings.

How do people feel those compare with their flagship?

Is it much different? far worse?

It seems like some CT notes suggest that at times people like them better than its big brother?

Thanks for any comments

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Far worse is a good description but I haven’t had either since 04 vintage.

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Completely different wines. Tapestry is a meritage and if I recall one of the first large market ones at that.

4

The last Tapestry I had five years or so ago was awful – very high alcohol, without any concentration or balance. Just industrial swill at $40 or $45, or whatever it was. Bleeecccch.

5

1994-1997 Tapestry’s were awesome…great value. Last time I had or bought them.

6

They were nice wines.

Then BV had a TCA problem. They acknowledged it. WS scored the wine 69 points for the 2001 vintage after BV acknowledged the TCA issue. BV spent lots of money to clean it up. They hired Michael Rolland. The wines changed.

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Thanks - I had not known of the recent issues / style changes.

I guess that explains why I have not tripped over them much in recent years among friends.

8

Some of us are old enough to remember the Beautour, which was a stunning value and a really nice wine. I mentioned it to a BV rep circa 2002 and she’d never heard of it. It was only off the market a few years at that point.

1 Like
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This is my experience as well. Really enjoyed some of the mid 90s vintages, then many rough years followed and they really lost me. Many, many better choices around that price point, so I haven’t tried one in probably a decade.

I’m inclined to try the 2012 and 2013 though, the write-ups are decent. The problem for BV with Tapestry in my opinion is that the $40 price point is extremely competitive with tons of better options, and they’ve made enough crappy bottlings that their name isn’t enough for me to gamble on it any more. if I can them $35 or less, I might try the newer ones.

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Tapestry was great in the mid-late 90’s. I haven’t had one in a long time.

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I’ve never had one, but bought one a few weeks ago from a local grocery store that was going out of business. Not a screaming deal (their supposed markdown was based on an inflated list price), but cheap enough to take a flyer. I haven’t opened it yet, so no tasting notes, but I’m not encouraged by the discussion here. Maybe I’ll give it as a Christmas gift :wink:

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Same

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Agree. The Beautour and the Rutherford were both excellent values back in the 70s and early 80s. And, the BV PR used to be great. Had a 1976 earlier this year and it was excellent.

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Is there a reason to buy the Tapestry over Ridge’s basic Cab, for example?

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For me, historically, no. I love Ridge’s Estate Cab and have rarely been less than impressed. Great QPR as they say, IMO.

But the review for the 2012 Tapestry is very good, don’t know if the 2013 is out yet, so if you’re into that style of wine (Tapestry is a blend of Bordeaux varietals versus the Ridge), I’d say it’s worth trying as of 2012.

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Whose review?

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RP gives it a 92.

92 points Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate
The impressive 2012 Reserve Tapestry, a blend of Bordeaux varietals, is more elegant and slightly less intense than the Private Reserve. It offers up sweet black cherry fruit notes intermixed with licorice, spice box and dusty, loamy soil undertones. Medium to full-bodied and deep with loads of ripe fruit, low acidity and sweet, velvety tannins, it can be enjoyed over the next decade. (10/2014)

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Thanks.

I don’t find Parker a good predictor for me these days, but if you find your palates correlate, go for it!

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I hear you! Like most on this board, I like certain reviewers for various varietals or parts of the world, but for CA cabs I would say yeah Parker/Advocate reviews work for me for the most part. We could go on and on about that topic I think but I’ll try not to derail things. 8)

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For me the style change came with Rolland. The BV wines tended to be a little bit lighter than the ever-bigger wines that kept appearing in the late 1990s and 2000s. It’s what I liked about BV and even though they didn’t have the cachet of other wines, I enjoyed them.

In fact, through the 1990s the BV Rutherford was one of the better buys in Cabs from Napa. You could pick it up for around $20 fairly easily and you had a very drinkable Cab. That continued into the early 2000s. In fact, I bought a lot of Tapestry for $25 because it got such a low score from Laube but I’d tried it several times and found it fine. Yeah, they had a TCA problem but so did a lot of other wineries.

When I did blind tastings of the Georges Latour subsequent to the Rolland arrival, the wines were more plush, slightly bigger, and had become less distinctive, at least to me. Parker lauded the change, which is why I did the tastings in the first place - I wanted to taste a few vintages side by side before and after. I disagreed with the review then.

I haven’t had any after the 2008.