TN: 2007 Chateauneuf du Pape Tasting

WINE TALK
21

I’m actually having point fatigue, so it was refreshing for me not to have a pile of 96-100 point wines, yet again.

22

Any idea on how long these wines will last?

newhere neener

23

Until the next “greatest vintage in any viticultural area” comes along. rolleyes deadhorse

24

Great notes and much appreciated. Lots of great wine but perhaps nothing that is worth paying any price for? How do you stck this vintage up compared to 1998 thru 2006? Thanks.

25

Had the '07 Usseglio Mon Aiule last night & it was downright awful - volatile and candied. I hope this is not a poster child for the vintage.

26

Davis

I have not tried it, but I can all but guarantee that that wine will score 99 points in the next WA.

98 at the worst, but I believe 99.

27

Davis,

Not intentionally [stirthepothal.gif] here but isn’t that the typically desired profile of WA, therefore the scores will be rather significant?

Sounds like '07 CdP is remarkably New World in character.

28

Todd,

Clearly, 2007 is not a “classic” vintage for CDP, but that in no way means that the wines are not excellent.

I have tasted some wines and thought that they were great.

29

Candied fruit perhaps, but this was chemically volatile. I have had any number of highly rated wines & never found nail polish volatility to be a highly rewarded characteristic.

30

Drink more Aussie and CA Syrah!

31

The only thing that I find consistent about Mon Aieul is its inconsistency from bottle to bottle. From vintage to vintage (at least from 2000 to 2005), I have had great bottles and then weeks or months later another bottle from the same vintage and it will be out of balance, overripe, almost Aussie like. I really don’t understand the extreme bottle to bottle variation, but I tend to find it almost more in CdP (at least with higher end cuvees such as the MA, various Janasses, Clos des Papes, Pegau, Mordoree, etc.) than elsewhere.

32

Does Usseglio btl from barrel to barrel?

33

Is this consistently with both their ‘regular’ CdP and Mon Aiule, or just MA?

34

Don’t have enough experience with the regular Usseglio bottling to extend it beyond Mon Aieul, but with other CdPs I find it more in a Domaine’s higher end bottlings than their lower end offerings (unless like Mordoree and Pegau, their base offering is pretty high end to begin with).

35

Good tasting notes require work…Believe me! Richard, your notes are beautiful and (as always) helpful. Many thanks! [thankyou.gif]

Colin

P.S. Peter C.: Those avatars never cease to amaze (and excite) me. [mouth-drop.gif]

36

Gordon,

It’s interesting for me that that’s something that’s very important for you in a TN. Could it be you’ve been somewhat conditioned by Parker’s notes on that point? Personally, I’ve found Parker to be way off on those tasting windows he pontificates about. I think experienced tasters can certainly say whether particular wines or a vintage are more structured and, based on vintages with such structure, they’re likely to be more enjoyable in so many years. With very young wines, though, I think it’s ridiculous to give end dates for drinking like Parker typically does. At any rate, are you very experienced with mature CdP? I take it for granted that people on a board like WineBerserkers know their way around the more popular appellations, like CdP, and that you know they’re typically okay to drink in their first year or so, and that they then shut down and should really be left alone for several years after that. A few vintages, like '99, are clearly on a faster maturity track and were more drinkable in their youth than more typical vintages. Very good, well structured vintages like '00, '01, '05 and '07 should definitely be better to drink if you can wait 7 or 8 years to pop them. They can then be beautiful for decades after that.

Maybe it wasn’t obvious from my TNs above, but they were based on a tasting that lasted about 2 and a half hours. At such a tasting, when I do notes, they’re written fairly quickly, and I’m trying to convey a sense of the nose, taste and structure. I will sometimes write that a wine is very tight and needs 5 or 7 years or something like that, but otherwise I don’t write about tasting windows because I think what’s known about tasting windows in well known appellations is pretty much common knowledge among wine geeks, and I don’t have much regard for notes like Parker’s that give very definite beginning and end dates for drinking windows, since I have not personally found those to be accurate or useful. Thanks for letting me know that info is important to you, however. I never would have thought someone was expecting that kind of info from a report like the one above.

37

Loren,
Thank you kindly. I definitely don’t see the '07s I’ve had so far as worth paying any price for. When release prices get to be about the same as mature wines from the same producer, buying the more mature wine is always the clear choice for me, and I think we’ve hit that again with '07 (thanks to RMP’s well publicized hyperbole). I think it’s a very good vintage, but I personally prefer '98, '00, '01 and '05 in terms of recent vintages, and '04 and '06 weren’t that bad either. I’m guessing '06 will mature at a somewhat faster rate, much like '99, if not quite as fast. The only recent vintage I personally shy away from (other than the disastrous '02) is '03, as the overripe, figgy, port-like wines that so many CdP producers ended up with in that vintage are just not to my taste, and lack structure. At any rate, if I were buying recent vintages and they were equally available or similar in price, I’d buy '05 over '07, from what I’ve tasted so far.

38

Dear Richard;

First, let me thank you for your TNs and comments. I didn’t intend on sounding jerky about the agine subject, but I guess I did.

My comments follow Loren’s above. I am very familiar with CdP wines and have many in my cellar. Right now the 07s are a puzzle to me. Some vintages like the 03s, which I bought little of, are about as good as they’ll get upon release. The same can probably be said about the 99s and 06s, along with possibly a couple other recent years. The 07s have been heralded by both Parker and Molesworth, for what it’s worth. I am getting hugely conflicting stories on this vintage in terms of quality, ageability, etc., even amoung people that I have tremendous respect for.

I unfairly, perhaps, expressed part of that frustration toward you and your absence of comment on the ageability subject. I’m sorry. Part of my dispair comes from recently opening a 01 LaNerthe that was still totally shut down. 3-4 hours of decant didnot open the wine up. I shouldhave known better. A wasted $90, and then scrambling to find something to compliment a special meal without much decant!

I am personally thinking that Loren has the correct approach. Since the 07 pricing is close to the 05s, and the 05s are still limitedly available, the 05s are the better buy.

Thanks again on your notes and insights on the 07s.

39

Gordon

You should have come here and asked about 2001 Cuvee Cadettes drinking window. With all of that new oak (and I am a huge fan), those wines need minimum 10-12 years of time.

40

Gordan and Richard are acting like consummate gentlemen. (And knowledgeable ones at that.) What’s up with that? Is that what we’ve come to love and expect from Wineberserkers?? Todd, shouldn’t they be banned for that kind of behavior?

[pillow-fight.gif]