2016 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picasses - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Chinon (4/24/2023)
– decanted 1 hr. before initial taste –
– tasted non-blind over a couple hrs. –
NOSE: medium+ expressiveness; typical Chinon plum & pyrazine; strong mineral note; hint of mesquite.
BODY: violet-garnet color of medium depth; medium bodied; approximately one tsp. of large-grained sediment.
TASTE: medium-low to medium acidity; not much tannin; open/approachable; very obviously Cabernet Franc; little bit of leather; light oak; not terribly structured, but it is well-balanced; on the thin/watery side; Drink Now and over the near term, unless you believe it will flesh-out with age.
I hope you’re right about this '16 Marshall. I’ve had this wine young and relatively young many times (various vintages), and sometimes it has been unimpressive, and other times it has been delicious (apparently not needing those 15+ years). I don’t think I’ve ever had it with 15+ years – certainly not more than once, if at all – so I haven’t been able to personally experience the extent to which this bottling routinely blossoms at that age. CT notes on this wine seem to reflect some bottle variation, too — kinda tempts me to open another bottle sooner rather than later, but we’ll see …
I do not think so. I respectfully disagree with both of my esteemed colleagues here.
I think this is a very good Raffault. I also think Raffault is misunderstood. Even among Chinon-nuts, not everyone loves this wine. It is a wine dead center in my wheelhouse. Want some funk, come here.
Quite aromatic, really, even in its youth. Has a wonderful, wild, brambly red-fruit nose with persistent funk/stank that would seem to be a wet French kiss of brett and decaying ground cover. I. Love. This. Nose. And it’s been wide open like this from P&P up until this second day open. The palate is nicely ripe, open shiny red fruits (like biting into that big ripe McIntosh apple), earthy notes, green cigar leaf, pepper spice and other herbaceous greens. Medium-bodied at best. Perhaps a little hollow on the mid-palate, but with the soaring nose, I will forgive that. Sweet-tart finish, medium length, some tannins kicking in on the backside. This wine is pairing wonderfully with food, so in balance and complementary.
I think it is much better for my palate than it is for Brian’s palate. I see that Cris likes it just fine, and thinks it is better than 2014. That is where I digress. The 2014 is an excellent Raffault from an utterly classic Loire Chinon vintage. I went deep, 2 cases of the 2014, along with more than my normal purchases of my personal faves, Rougeard, Baudry, Guion, et al. I think 2014 will reward those with patience like 1989 did - and if any vintage to me feels like 1989, it is this one. Whereas this 2016 would the 1990 comparative, more open with lovely fruit. I am not saying these two vintages rival 1989/90, but that’s how I see 14 and 16 comparing to each other.
I’m 92 points on this 2016. My last 2014, I’m 94 pts.
And regardless of who you pay attention to - my clunky palate or the more refined palates of Brian and Whetstone - but all accounts these wines are ridiculous values.
Now tuck these away, be patient. Of course, I preach but cheat.
So just to weight in…I have a number of Picasses 2016 in half bottles. The ones I have tasted seem tired fruit has faded and left very little…but again these are 1/2 bottles.
There is no reason why the fruit from this wine in 2016 out of a half bottle would be tired, unless it is just a wine that you do not like, or was exposed to heat somewhere along the line. I have been drinking wine from this estate for 25 years and have had bottles with 25 to 40 years of age, these wines age so effortlessly. Not a criticism of your palate at all, as I noted above some people just do not like this one. Kinda like me and Musar. By all accounts, I should love that wine, and I tend to have more misses than hits.
There is a typo above that I was kidding about with my ‘warming climate’ remark(2106 vs 2016).
I like the '14 just fine. It’s a good Loire CFranc but it didn’t turn my head or even make me consider it could be a top tier wine. It certainly doesn’t have anywhere near the fruit concentration to turn into anything resembling an '89 though. That is one thing that does concern me is that I feel like the modern Raffault house is making a lighter bodied wines rather than going for broke with denser fruit. At least in my precious few tastes of their 80’s wines I feel the comparison is off.
I think the '16 is clearly a stronger wine. Again, it’s hard for me to really put it in the upper echelon category. But a tremendous value. Sometimes the price a wine can fetch is a decent if rough indication of it’s relative quality in the marketplace.
First of all I love Musar…LOVE IT (yes the bottle variation is high). Second, it is quite possible the 3 btls 1/2’s I have opened would be flawed…possible not probable. Third, while I can not say that I have had Picasses going back 40 years (though that would be a treat), I can say with no hesitation this has nothing to do with palate…the freakin fruit was tired!
That’s really unfortunate, John. I had that experience with the 2004. I bought a bunch of those in half bottle, late releases, and I would say the miss rate is about 75%. I attribute it to either storage or shipping. I’m not recommending that you run out and buy this 2016, but if you can find a 750 for a fair price, it is worth a try.
Baudry is so top-tier, hard to compare fairly. Raffault is just a classic throwback. It would be like Sociando is to me in Bordeaux. One of my favorite estates, but I cannot say it is better than, say, Leoville Barton, d’Issan, Clerc Milon, for example.
Your note half sounds like you were tasting a different wine, but – as you noted – this is probably more the result of two folks with two different palates than it is anything else. … you and I really need to pull some corks together sometime — we often like the same things, but approach them from different angles — it would be lots of fun to add more nuance and discussion to these apparent differences.
For me, the answer is Hellllllll No! But that’s in reference to the Croix Boissee and Guillot. I’ve had some Raffault Picasses that I would place above some of the Baudry Grezeaux I’ve tasted.
It bears noting: the Raffault is quite different than the Baudry bottlings.
No doubt. Palates are always funny like that you and I seem to like a lot of the same wines, but I recall us deviating pretty dramatically on the Plouzeau Franc de Pied.