I was thankful to have another chance to taste with my friend Ed’s group this past month. The theme was Northern Rhones, and we ended up with a very nice line-up of nine wines representing a good cross-section of communes. All wines were served blind.
1996 Tardieu-Laurent Cote-Rotie. The bouquet on this first wine of the night is overt and exuberant. It features a notable purity of blue fruit and a flowery elegance married to a denser earthy aromatic core. Specific aromas of violets, cigar ash, tangy blue fruits and hardened bacon grease manage to seem both airily perfumed and intensely meaty at the same time. It is a bit astringent in the mouth for a while upon first tasting, though the finish manages to be less puckering. Coming back to it after a while, however, reveals a wine that has become smooth and rounded, with flavors that leave a rather lasting impression. It is mellow-fruited and really accessible, with little tannin interference and just a springy backbone of acidity for structure. The black cherry and dark cranberry fruit has some depth of flavor, but the wine mostly demonstrates an easy-going, not too pushy character that may make it seem to lack some dynamism through the middle. However, it is a nice reflective wine showing a good deal of resolution and excellent length. When it was revealed as a Tardieu-Laurent, I was shocked, as the ’95 and ’97 Crozes I have in my cellar taste like they were bottled yesterday and a ’97 Cote-Rotie a few years back seemed destined for at least another decade of cellaring requirements.
1991 Rene Rostaing Cote-Rotie Cote Blonde. The next wine is much more directly earthy and funky on the nose, featuring aromas of sweaty leather, cinder ash, persimmon and mint leaf combining into a masculine, but classy bouquet. It has its own sort of perfumed quality and sense of aged resolution, but it has a wiry kick to it, as well. It is just really enjoyable to sniff. It is equally enjoyable to drink. It has a big mouthfeel to it, covering the palate with lots of spicy and lively black raspberry fruit and an ever-growing brown caramel edge. It is direct and intense, yet not overly thick or dense. It has excellent push from the mid-palate through to the finish and displays effortless length. There isn’t much tannin except perhaps some sneaking in toward the back, and the wine has a really interesting quality of seeming to languish and roll around for quite a while on the tongue. This is just a very enjoyable wine and my WOTN.
1988 E. Guigal Hermitage. The bouquet of this wine grows and grows throughout the evening. It offers up very direct notes of aged leather books, horse sweat, jalapeno pepper, ash and sweet cherry fruit roll-ups that grow sweeter and finer as the night goes on, eventually turning a bit darker fruited with some bacon fat accents. It feels substantial and solid both on the nose and on the palate. Indeed, in the mouth, it is fuller-bodied than the previous two wines, but also maybe more four-square and stocky. It also has more acidity, more tannic structure and more overall body. The sour cherry, cranberry and dark raspberry fruit comes across as wide-based but not especially exciting. So, it feels substantial and solid, just not especially dynamic.
1985 Guy de Barjac Cornas. The aromatic character of this wine offers by far the biggest funk-fest on the night. Loamy earth, bridle leather, moss, dark moist cigar wrapper, grilled bell pepper, sweaty animal hide, campfire embers and eventually even a bit of fruit in the form of rhubarb combine together to make for a really interesting bouquet. It feels texturally seamless in the mouth, with good density of fruit, a dry finish and nice overall balance. It feels easy-going, with no hard edges until some astringent acidity sneaks in on the finish. The wine holds itself together well over the course of the entire evening, although some gentle tannins do start to show themselves after a bit. Still, this seems like a fine wine to drink now and maybe even a ways into the future.
1983 Paul Jaboulet Aine St. Joseph Le Grand Pompee. The nose here is a bit shy and in general softer and more feminine than most of the others on the table. It does open up a bit over time to reveal notes of dusty licorice rope and more ebullient sweet red cherry and raspberry fruit—but eventually folding in some less appealing elements of stalks or stems, as well. In the mouth, it is silky-smooth in texture, with an easy feminine presence and some pretty surface-oriented black cherry and blackberry fruit. It is definitely showing a softened edge as a result of age, but sadly it does not come across as especially layered or complex. It is nice and pleasant for a while, but eventually it starts to dry out and some raspy tannins come in to turn the whole package a lot tougher. This is one to enjoy for its surface pleasures and nicely resolved qualities early on.
2000 E. Guigal Cote-Rotie Brune et Blonde. This wine seems to have more youthful aromas than most, featuring big aromas of wild mixed berries, stems, menthol, thin mint candy and maybe a bit of lifted volatility at times. It is really solid in the mouth, with a dense deep core of dark chocolate and black currant flavors. It is full-bodied and on the dense side, with meaty flavors and big presence but a fairly silky texture. This is one that would seem to need some time, but can be tamed with appropriate food.
1988 Domaine Auguste Clape Cornas. A real earthiness pervades the nose of this wine, with charcoal ash, green pepper, tomato leaf, warm stones, clay, dried blood, leather and dried cherry aromas combining at odd, disjointed angles for awhile before really starting to come together in a nice package at around the one hour mark. In the mouth, this tastes pretty both younger and older, with plenty of soft and rounded tannins lending structure to what is otherwise a nice easy-flowing wine. It has a nice earthy core, with flavors of ground spices, tangy and sometimes sweet dark red fruits and sour cherry that meld together with a fine inner mouth perfume. It is a complex wine, with a lot going on—it just seems to need some time to gather itself together. But by then, it starts to turn a bit too sour and drying. My advice is to give it a few hours of decanting time and then drink it up as soon as it feels like it has achieved the harmony and balance it eventually finds.
1988 E. Guigal Cote-Rotie Brune et Blonde. A good deal of sediment seems to be thrown by this wine, judging by the chunks floating in my glass (even though the staff had decanted it). The nose has a fresh and complex character to it, with all kinds of brambly wild berries, mown grass, sarsaparilla, nutmeg, coriander, persimmon and rendered bacon fat aromas wafting around. It has a nice silky texture in the mouth, with a fine tang to the bright cherry and black raspberry fruit flavors. It feels fresh and on the medium-bodied side, with a good deal of drive and life. Late tannins feel spicy and fine-honed and the wine as a whole just feels exuberant. It is like downing a perfect shot of Syrah goodness. My runner-up wine of the night I liked it so much that I bought some at auction a few weeks later.
1990 Ferraton Pere et Fils Hermitage Cuvee des Miaux. The evening’s final wine is decidedly cloudy and murky in appearance and doesn’t smell anything at all like the body of wines on the table. In fact, it takes me a while to realize that what this wine smells like is a highly perfumed, fuzzy red late-harvest Gewurztraminer. I mean it is bizarre to stick your nose into a glass of Northern Rhone and smell litchi, sweet tropical mango, raspberry fizz and red grapefruit galore! I have to say it has a certain sweet and sexy attractiveness to it, but it’s totally out of whack with expectations. Anyway, in the mouth, this is very softly cushioned, with a gorgeous silky texture that is smooth and polished to a high buff. There are no hard edges and again one can sense a certain sexy quality to the sweet tropical red fruit. Much later in the evening, it seems to be approaching more typical Syrah qualities, but it never shakes this unusual tropical character. What a wild experience.
-Michael