01 Domaine du Pesquier [Gigondas] Lightly chilled, double decanted although sediment was light. 14% abv. With a slab of king salmon, and succotash, which actually paired well. Nose of lavender, saddle, blood. Color is now a medium garnet, with lightening at the edges. Suggests full maturity. The palate has spicy low acid round mouth feel with long resolved tannins. (Some other 2001 Gigondas were quite tannic when young, Cayron for example) A fair observation is that this does not have the long finish, the depth of concentration that some other estates can show. It’s still a high quality, fully mature example of a traditional village Rhone. It doesn’t show any of the funk that young Rhones sometimes have, but maybe the 1 hour of decanting/aeration helped with that. Either way, I’d slot this somewhere into the B or B+ grade scale. Other producers I like more, but still a joy to drink.
Not a vast sample set, but I still think I liked the 1999 Gigondas the best out of the happy cluster that was the 98, 99, 00, 01 era.