Arv,
The Thalabert vineyard was totally under vine under Gerard (at least, that’s what he told me in 1996 when I asked him), that’s why they got the RR estate. If more vines are coming in its not from that vineyard or they are increasing yield from the vineyard massively. Neither are at all good signs for quality or typicity. Buy at your peril, Arv!
Cheers!
Interesting background, as whilst I was aware of a chorus of doubts about their more modern (ahem!) wines, changes are often about changes in personnel or holdings and this is the first time I’ve seen that discussed.
FWIW I did enjoy the 1998 Thalabert a few times in 2012, but also enjoyed the 1988 a few years earlier.
Ian,
The 98 I only had once - I hated it! The 88 was lovely back when I was a graduate, it fell apart in the noughties, at least the case I got from Oxford did…
Cheers!
I just took a look using Google Books:
in Robert Parker’s 1985 Rhone book the author notes that 9000 cases of Thalabert were produced
in Johnathan Livingston Learmonth’s 2005 Wines of Northern Rhone he notes the production is 23000 cases for Thalabert.
I don’t know if the figures are accurate, or what has driven the change (overcropping, new plantings, better clones, less selection of barrels etc.) but I suspect production is even higher today in 2022.
Good to see you posting again David! Somehow I bought a mag of the 2015 (must have been selling for cheap) guess I will have to dig it out and take it for a spin, very low expectations.
Scott,
(Yet another) Facebook friend tells me every bottle of the 2015 he’s opened has become more monolithic and joyless. He’s selling his last eight bottles. Sorry.
Cheers!
JLL’s website says Thalabert has actually decreased. It says 100,000 bottles, but that it was 200-230,000 bottles until 2007. Not sure the “as of” date for that info, though, since he only has notes (after the 2010) on the 2013, 2014, and 2017.
David, please tell us how you really feel.
Jokes aside, I plan to open an '85 La Chapelle tomorrow.
Hey David, hope you are well.
That’s one helluva tasting note. And quite sad considering that 1990 La Chapelle is a top ten wine for me. The ‘78 was no slacker, either.
I’ve been surprised on the upside my older Thalaberts, too.
Will avoid, thanks!
Jon, I always do. People deserve to know the truth!
Enjoy the 85, I’d be interested to knot how it’s hanging on. The 90 and 78 are still great, last time I had the 83 it was sadly going - I hope your 85 is full of life and harmony!
Cheers!
Hi Brady,
It’s over 1,500 words, ripped from the core of my being😉 writing it actually set my fibromyalgia off really badly and I’m still in a lot of pain, unfortunately.
I think the once-great 1990 Thalabert is on its way out - finally😂! Three decades of giving pleasure for, what was, a really cheap wine; good god Gerard was skilled at what he did! Sad as it is to say I think it’s time to sell your last Gerard-era Thalaberts and enjoy the best of what’s left of the glorious Lash vintages that still exist - of you’ve got any 78 I’ll be there by lunch time!
If you want an 18 Rhône that’s really good for relatively little money (at least it is here in the UK), Domaine Lionnet’s Cornas (both cuvées) will give you much happiness into your far-distant old age. I’ve bought a pile of them (well, as many as I can afford). They are really excellent wines - if a trifle alcoholic in 2018; but still really harmonious.
With 2018 Thalabert, I’m a-Frey-d not.
Cheers!
Another top for a good 18 is Guillaume Gilles Cornas. Ok, it’s a bit butch, but that’s vintage character. It is incredibly sexy, I mean really enthusiastic and ready to go for hours. You should keep it five years at the very least, but it’s not going to be any less ready for action then. It’s sexy, it’s attractive, it wants to rip your clothes off and pull you onto the kitchen table whilst the plates from breakfast are still on there. The 18 may have disappeared from the shelves, but you are not going to get any less lubricity from the 19 or 20. I love his wines, and they very clearly love me. I’m afraid I’ve never tried his Cornas Nouveaux so cannot comment on that.
Get them, keep them, make sweet, sweet love all night.
Cheers!
In reply to Brady I recommend both Lionnet Cornas. I forgot I have a review of it on Elitistreview (also Lionnet’s St Joseph 17), let me pull the review over here because it is one hell of a great wine I really urge you to get (its also a sexy minx like the Gilles’ wines):
Cornas ‘Terre Brûlée’ 2018, Domaine Lionnet
This Lionnet Cornas 2018 is so dark the room dimmed as I poured our tasting samples as it sucked in photons from the surrounding area. Normally whole bunch fermentations lose some colour into the stems, but this is an exception. Ripe Syrah stems contain (depending on the clone) anthocyanins so add colour. This 2018 Cornas is so very ripe!
A sniff… Heaven!
There are delightful aromas: flowers, Parma Violets, perfectly ripe blackberries, loganberries and blackcurrants, and an ethereal sense of crushed rock.
There are dark, brooding aromas: grilled meat, cooking blood, burning vines and a singed earthiness.
Then there are no aromas at all: NO SHIT STINK!! It is not suffused with Brett-y poo characteristics in the slightest, Lionnet Cornas is clean as a whistle! Whooooooooohoooooooooo! Wehay!! HOORAY!!!
All the aromas that are present exist in perfect harmony, intertwined in an involute web of earthy complexity. This is an utterly beautiful Cornas nose.
I will have a taste. Cripes, it is bastard tannic! A South African Syrah producer would be chuffed as ninepence to make a wine as tannic as this.
Tannin is not a problem when one is making Cornas – it is supposed to be tannic, you see? A Cornas without tannin would be like a June day without a shower; like London without dog poo mixed with broken glass; like Peterborough without massed ranks of scum! It needs the tannin!
This tannin is a strong antioxidant and so will preserve this Lionnet Cornas 2018 through a long life.
However, as we know, from many a rant, tannin alone will not allow a wine to age. It needs to have harmony between all its elements otherwise it will dry out like an old Comte de Vogue wine.
There is no denying this Lionnet Cornas 2018 has harmony. There is an abundance of fruit on the palate, deliciously ripe black and dark red berries bursting with juice for you to rub into your nak… for you to slake your thirst with. This is allied with a beautiful set of floral flavours – again I think of Parma Violets when I taste these. If you do not know the sweet, I assure you they are a veritable manna from heaven.
The Lionnet Cornas 2018 has burnt earth and grilled meat flavours as well. All these flavours spin into the tannin synergistically to create a brilliant edifice of rigour, delight, balance and harmony that should thrill any lover of quality Syrah. This is as fine an example of the Cornas idiom of Syrah as it gets!
Lionnet Cornas 2018 is brilliant, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Buy it NOW!
If I may add one final note. I do not approve of leaving a bottle with wine in it to drink the second day. However, I left a few glasses of this just to do the experiment. When I woke at four the following morning, I had three big glasses that showed it had lost a hint of its livid, intense, refulgent liveliness, but gained a hint of mellow, peacefulness. This will age, oh yes it will age. I then went to sleep for another six hours and had amazingly weird dreams.
———-
By ARSE, that was good! Their Pur Granit is made from younger vines but a better site, it has the most amazing ethereal scent and come-hither beauty.
Cheers!
Unfortunately, my plans this evening fell through, so the 85 will have to wait. I’ll report back though, probably in the next few weeks.
A different friend of mine, Jeremy, often says, “Having one’s prejudices confirmed is most satisfying, but having one’s prejudices torpedoed under the waterline is vastly more satisfying.”
I’ll admit, the few times I read David’s posts on here in the (distant) past, they didn’t agree with me, but I read this article and enjoyed it greatly. So I am “more satisfied.” Thanks for the interesting piece, David, and the thought and effort you put into it.
I own one bottle of Jaboulet, a 2003 La Chappelle. Hot vintage, widely reviled in fashionable wine circles, so I expect folks will have negative things to predict for the day I open it. The CT reviews seem to show a higher level of variation / flaw, but the non-flawed bottles seem to have notes that sound more like Northern Rhone and not like new world. Which is not to say they are rave comments either, but it sounds like a pretty good mature Hermitage at least. I’ll probably open it in the next year and will try to post.
I think this post sums it up perfectly. These wines have lacked character for quite some time. A real shame what this domaine has become.
Glad you liked it, Chris.
Wasn’t Lash 2003 a Parker 100? I don’t pay much attention to these things so I am not be sure. There cannot be any harm it trying it, it could surprise!
Cheers!
Absolutely! Isn’t it sad what happened to a great family Domaine?
Cheers!
I had a 2005 Graillot C-H a few years ago, and boy was that excellent with its 14-15 years of age. I wish I had been buying the ensuing vintages of that wine and laying them down.
Hello Davy thank you for an extravagantly entertaining read. It brings me back to my honeymoon wherein I dragged my husband to the faintly poncy Jaboulet Vineum restaurant cum tasting room at the foot of the hill (I really had no idea what I was doing) and slogged through three vintages of the Chapelle (2006, 2011, 2014) and the 2012 Petite Chapelle. Even back then inexperienced me was distinctly aware that the wines fell very far short of the promise of their terroir, so they must have been awful indeed. I then compounded the error by visiting Le Mangevins that evening and opening another bottle of the Chapelle - this time the 1998 (!) - in the hopes that a more mature bottle would erase the disappointment of the vintages I had earlier in the day. I still wince when I think of all the amazing producers I passed up on that wine list in favor of Jaboulet, so thank you for bringing back all those memories!
edit: I love Lionnet but tend to take its ready availability for granted. Thank you also for reminding me to sock away a half-dozen or so for my dotage