I opened my last bottle of this on Thursday, and it was a very good showing.
When I first pulled the cork and sampled it, it seemed a bit tart and narrow, so I held off decanting. I was afraid it might be thinning/fading. Ultimately, I decanted about 90 minutes before we sat down to our main course.
By the time we started drinking it, this had fleshed out and was surprisingly youthful, fruity and fleshy – not a huge amount of tertiary development. There was no apparent oak, but the wine had a kind of gloss and silkiness that may trace in part to the oak (notwithstanding the 30 months it spent in fairly new barriques). Some (e.g., R. Alfert) might say this lost some precision to the oak. I wouldn’t disagree.
But the nose distinctly said Northern Rhone syrah, and there all that fruit – a melange of black cherry and dark plum that was sustained over more than an hour. So lively and young!
Score? I don’t know – someplace in the low 90s. I would have preferred for a bit more complexity, but this was very satisfying. Served with roasted chicken thighs marinated with zahtar, sauteed oyster mushrooms (with a dab of miso for flavor) and roasted potatoes and carrots.
Sounds lovely John. Back when B&B was a caliber wine and not the leftover syrah blend it is today. I picked up a fair amount of the 2006 at a good price but the few I’ve drunk over the past 4 years have never floated my boat. I’m holding out that it may finally come around?
Your note hits it pretty spot on. Gloss and loss of precision from Oak is definitely something that happens with Guigal (albeit not to the extent of Chapoutier). With that being said they can still be kaleidescopic when the oak integrates even if it lacks the precision of say a Jamet.
I think that trade off gets better with time. I still remember the melange spice in an 03 Mouline we drank right around 2010. Some of the OGs talk about old Lalas (e.g., 78) with great reverence. I’ve never had but would be interesting to do a vertical and track that characteristic.
The Ch. d’Ampuis had been created several years before this, but I don’t know if that accounted for as much of Guigal’s total production as it has in later years. I’d guess that they also lost other sources of fruit for the B&B as years went by and more growers bottle on their own. But that’s speculation.
@John_Morris - Thanks so much for the great note. I have a 1999 I have been holding onto and will plan to enjoy in the next few months - I especially appreciate the decanting notes!
Missed this post initially. Great note.
I do think Guigals wines can become really good when the oak is more integrated, there is a real quailty in there sometimes, and this comes from someone firmly in the “traditional camp”.
I have been lucky to taste the entire 1998 Lala’s setup once a few years back. Pretty damn good wines.
I finally had my first LaLa a few weeks ago - the 1988 La Mouline. It was legendary and probably the best red wine I’ve had to date. In light of this experience, I don’t get the mild disrespect often shown towards the LaLas.
Taking Devil’s Advocate here, you are basing that on one bottle from one vintage, which was one of the best CR vintages of the 80s, one known for its classicism, and before LaLas got even glossier and more New World-y.
My issue with LaLas personally was never that they weren’t enjoyable in a more generic red wine sense, it’s that they weren’t what I want from Syrah/Côte Rotie and somehow don’t scream their Northern Rhône character like wines from Gerard Chave or Noel Verset or Jamet or Gentaz or Allemand. Whatever the elevage was on the LaLas masked that essential character. Actually although I haven’t had any in a long time, I personally liked the basic Brune et Blonde in 1988 better than the LaLas, which was before Guigal lost their best grape sources for the B&B in the mid 90s: it screams Côte Rotie (no new or toasted oak aging).
I like to hear this as I have a 1988 BeB on deck to open soon. Also, admittedly, when I had the La Mouline, I said I wasn’t sure I would’ve called it Syrah blind (it certainly has a lot of Syrah typicity, but not any/much meat and/or olives I look for when blinding) and certainly not from Cote Rotie / Northern Rhone and I wouldn’t have guessed it was nearly as old as it was.