Osoyoos Larose Grand Vin?

I bought a couple of the 05 and 06 bottles of this wine from Garagiste during the past few years based upon the hyperbole from Jon below. All I’ve read since I bought these wines was pretty poor tasting notes and unimpressed bloggers doing verticals. I’ve yet to open any of the wine (I’ve got 6 total) since there doesn’t seem to be much to be excited about. Anyone drink these and enjoy them? Should I just sit tight and give them another 5 years or so as Jon recommends?

As for Garagiste, fool me twice…shame on me:

"The 2005, from arguably the greatest growing season the Okanagan has yet witnessed, is about to cross the border (the vintage was similar to what occurred in Washington State in 2005, in other words - incredible). All five Bordeaux varietals are represented - the wine is forged in cool-toned, dusty terroir, minerality, acidity and very deep red fruit that coats the glass but is never out of place or out of posture - it remains medium bodied and quite St. Julien from head to toe…with an Okanagan twist of course.

The 2005 is a major effort from this winery - they believe it is the finest wine yet produced at the estate (Gruaud-Larose chose to pour this wine blind at their 2005 Medoc retrospective and it was one of the favorite wines of the night - it caused quite a ruckus when the bag was revealed). In addition, the 2005 Osoyoos-Larose Grand Vin seems to have followed the path of past vintages - exuberance in youth followed by a clamping down phase after a year or two in bottle. It is currently in an angular place that requires bottle age to capture its eventual metamorphosis but patience should be rewarded. The winery recommends drinking the wine young or holding it for 6-10 years (as they would in Bordeaux) to experience its re-entry into the complex world."

And 2006:

“We’ve profiled each vintage of this wine since inception and as the vines slowly gain maturity, the wine does as well. I am reminded as I write this of our own “Judgment of Paris” tasting 6-7 years ago where Osoyoos-Larose was inserted as the only blind ringer in a large-scale tasting of Bordeaux (I believe it was the 2001 vintage of Bordeaux?). The entire tasting was blind and the 150 participants were given a scorecard to turn in with their top five wines of the tasting (if I recall, we had 30-40 of the top Bordeaux of the vintage, including all of the First Growths, Ausone and Cheval Blanc…and also the Osoyoos-Larose -only I knew it was in the line-up). The Osoyoos came in third, just behind Lafite and Pape-Clement - not bad for a little wine from Canada’s Okanagan Valley.”

It’s really enjoyable… if you enjoy biting into oak bits…

I’m from BC so I always have friends back in Vancouver bringing over BC wines… honestly this is so over-oaked and out of balance.
not sure time will help but i doubt it can hurt at all… I’ve had the 2004/2005/2006 and 2007 of this wine… fwiw, I only wrote a note for the 2006 and scored it 84…

Great – more bad news. I guess I’ll just ignore it and hope for the best.

I have a couple of the 05’s that I haven’t touched yet. I’ve had a few '01s and have tasted an 03 and an 06… yes definitely heavy on the oak, but not unenjoyable to me. I had my last 01 a few months ago and I thought there were still plenty of tannins to spare, with some nice secondary cedary/leathery notes coming out and was starting to smooth out. The fruit was a little lacking, but it always seems to be lacking in these wines. All the CT notes I read were telling me to drink up, but I don’t think the wine was anywhere close to dead. Whether it will ever come into balance… who knows.

Ron, I’ll trade you for some other Garagiste wine I can’t drink. Do you like brett??? [berserker.gif]

Désolé…

https://wineimport.discoursehosting.net/t/osoyoos-larose-vertical-2002-2007/59267/1

Ron,

We used to sell this, don’t anymore, and I always liked the wine. Maybe the closest thing to BDX made in N. America for me. Very much styled like a St. Julien from 1998, 2002, or 2004 for me, not great blockbuster vintages, but solid drinking claret.

What would you say is the prime drinking window for the 05 or 06?

IMO, the closest things to Bdx in N. America are Andrew Will, Dominus, Diamond Creek, and Insignia. No need to go north of the border.

Diamond Creek maybe for me, palate wise, not Andrew Will, Dominus, and Insignia is not even close for me, but they are delicious.

Prompted by this discussion, I picked up a bottle of the 2008 when I was in Vancouver last month. I served it blindly in a brown bag group tonight here in New York, decanted 45 minutes or so ahead.

I found the oak lovely and not overpowering in the nose, melded with classic claret black current fruit notes.

In the mouth, I found this overly tannic and over-extracted for a while. I wondered if they’d used reverse osmosis to concentrate it. There was a chalkiness to the tannins at first that was was worrying – like too many “international style” wines that are a bit forced. The palate didn’t deliver on the promise at the nose at first.

But as it opened up in the glass, it became much more giving. The analogy to good 2002 and 2004 Bordeaux seemed very apt to me. (I bought a bunch of 04 Bordeauxs.) Ultimately I’d rate it somewhere in the 87-90 range, which is fine by my relatively tough scale.

I’ll try to pick up a couple more bottles of this the next time I’m up there to stash away for at least five more years. I’m not sure where it will go, but I think there’s a decent chance it will evolve very nicely.

Oh, and no bret or other flaws that I detected.