2004 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape- France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (1/10/2015)
Decanted for a couple hours but not sure it was needed as this smelled great from the get go and was very placid. Drank over dinner with the extended family so didn’t monitor this as closely as I might have but, my general impression was this continues to be a stellar example of classy,sublime CDP made more in the style of great Burgundy. Nothing weighty here just an overwhelming impression of class and a wonderfully pure fruit source. Very happy to own 3 more. I’ll try to hold off for a few more years before the next. Dam, I wish I could still buy these for the $40 I paid for them! Can’t bring myself to buy the current releases at $110+ online. I understand that part of the secret sauce behind this this producer’s elegance is pulling back on the syrah more than most producers to let the brighter, sweeter red fruit flavors of the grenache shine. (93 pts.)
Nice note Craig. We had the 2006 last week at Spoon and Stable. It’s a nice wine, but is painfully young. It sounds like the 2004 is in a much better place right now.
I’ve had this wine twice in the past several months. First, in Sept, at a late afternoon tasting at the winery, and then during the holidays. Both times this wine showed wonderfully 93-95.
In regards to the poor review that Robert Fleming referred to, it should be noted that the poster did the pop and pour on that wine, without decant. I decanted our wine for 3.5 -4 hours before our meal on Christmas Eve, and the wine at the winery had been open at least all day by appearance, maybe longer. It escapes me to why any one would pop and pour a CdP, especially one that young. Even sitting overnight, partially consumed, in the bottle with a cork in it, is not enough air for this wine. Anyone that pops, pours, and consumes one of these really delightful wines deserves an 85 experience, imo. For those of us with decanters, and that know how to use them, are rewarded with a 93-95 point experience with this wine. The wine was still evolving and growing even prettier after the full 4 hours of decant.
If one pours a glass or two of wine from the bottle, and sticks the cork back in, that isn’t decanting. The small amount of air the bottle receives will do very little over the period of 24 hours for this type of wine. What this wine needs is: to be vigorously poured into a proper wide body decanter; and allowed to sit for close to 4 hours; and a bit of swirling the decanter along the way helps.
Well, Gordon, perhaps reading the rest of the “poor reviewer” thread by Howard would help clarify. Accordingly, he decanted and drank over 3 nights. I just can’t tell whether he swirled like you did, though.
I quote:
"John G, I decanted and because I was drinking the bottle all myself and found it hard going I ended up drinking it over three nights, so it saw plenty of air. "
FWIW it’s my experience that CDP, including Clos des Papes, is never as good the next day after opening. It certainly doesn’t improve. Just my 2 cents.
Hi guys, I’m on a different time zone so I was not able to reply until now.
As Ramon quotes in post 11 in my thread I say that I did decant. I don’t recall doing an exceptional amount of swirling, just a normal decant from what I remember. As I drank the bottle eventually over three evenings, and it was open on the table for a lot of that time, I don’t think air was the issue. I felt it did improve over the three days with particularly less alcohol apparent on the bouquet on the second and third nights but only a marginal difference on the palate.
I can think of two reasons for the difference in reviews. First, I may have had a bad bottle, but that seems very unlikely. Secondly, as my original TN indicates, it’s an issue of different palates. Perhaps these days I have too much of a Burgundy palate but I struggled with the 15.3% alcohol on this wine. To me, it unbalanced it. I can appreciate that others, like Craig whose palate I respect, can look at the same wine and see no issue there. That’s the nature of wine appreciation …
Believe me, I’d like to like the wine, I have 10-12 CdPs in my cellar … I’ll try another CdP in the next few months to see if I feel the same. I’d add, I’m not anti-Chateauneuf, I recently had a 2007 Pegau I much preferred, but that may again point back to palate difference (traditional style, 14% alcohol etc).
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