Found both of these today, a nice opportunity to sample them side by side.
2007 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastel- USA, California, Central Coast, Paso Robles
Tasted side by side with the 07 Beaucastel Coudoulet: This is quite nice, a bit riper than the Coudoulet, but the comparison is definitely there in flavor profile. The Tablas is somehow more focused and forward, while the Coudoulet is broader and deeper; Tablas is more tannic, a little more straight cherry to the Coudoulet raspberry/strawberry; Doesn’t quite reach the level of complexity of the Coudoulet, but overall a nice bottle. I see a lot of higher scores for this, but I think they’re not leaving enough room for other wines with much more complexity and depth. The Coudoulet has a definite edge for my tastes, not to mention the big brother Beaucastel CdP, one of the top wines of the vintage. (88 pts.)
2007 Château de Beaucastel Côtes du Rhône Coudoulet de Beaucastel- France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Côtes du Rhône
Tasted side by side with the 07 Tablas Creek Esprit. This is packed with rich, lush fruit, I might not have guessed Rhone blind due to the level of ripeness, but it’s not OTT. Excellent overall balance, with some fine tannins and a good dose of acidity, the palate is broad and full, showing medium dark red fruits, raspberry/strawberry overtones, hints of roasted meat juices. From memory I think I prefer the 05 version of this wine, though this 07 is really nice in its voluptuous way. Fairly one dimensional and straightforward right now, will probably improve with 2-5 years in bottle. (90 pts.)
With relatively similar blends, it’s easy to find the similarities in these two wines. It’s also easy to spot the French vs. American lineage, some of which is presumably vine age, some of which is terroir, climate, and growing conditions. I’d say they’re definitely more similar than different. I was impressed that the Tablas came as close as it did to the Coudoulet, though I had to give the nod in the end to the French wine. Posted from CellarTracker
You are a harsh critic. These both would be jay miller 100s if he had done the ratings. I haven’t had the Coudoulet. I had the Tablas Creek and thought it was tight red fruit and not showing a ton at first, but i thought it really became compelling with air with several layers of complexity coming forward that I don’t usually get out of CA rhone rangers. I thought it was already 92-93 with clear upside. At least your notes make me want to try the Coudoulet if that was in the same league or better.
Alan,Alan,Alan…my how your true colors show in the last sentance
in all seriousness and jokes aside, great notes and comparison between these wines. You’ve given me the inspiration to pick up a Beaucastel next time I bump into one. Hopefully it isn’t an 07!
Rich, I am definitely harsher than Jay Miller, that’s for sure. Looking at the Cellartracker notes, particularly the Tablas, I do think people get caught up in the moment, and forget that there are lot of truly great wines out there. If you give this 93 points, there’s not a lot of room above it (keeping in mind I almost never give anything more than 95, particularly in its youth). The Russian judge might disagree
Tim, it was actually a close contest. I’ll sample them both again tomorrow and report back. I thought my description was very complimentary to the Tablas, a relative start up Paso wine holding its own against a long time Rhone benchmark
Too many people treat 90 as a floor. As an example someone on CT recently posted this note on the 1998 Beaucastel CdP:
Tonight’s bottle was a little weaker than normal but similar to the others in that it sucked when opened, after a few hours you get nice grenachy notes, zero mid-palate and that sinking feeling that this wine is going downhill. At nearly $100/btl, it is not worth it. I would rather sell what I own and replace it with '05 or '07. Life is too short to drink another bottle of this - I must move on. (90 pts.)
Um… how the hell can you describe a wine like that and then give it a score that means, in virtually every critic’s definition, Outstanding? An 88 is firmly in the Very Good category. I mean, if Tablas is 93… what are all of the various high end CdPs?
Thanks for your thoughts on the Coudoulet Alan. I’ve been a buyer since the '95 vintage-drank my last one about 2 yrs ago and it was beauty. Generally speaking, I love these with about 10 yrs of age, though I think the '06 is actually drinking very well with a good decant. I’ll be buying the '07 and looking forward to trying one before the slumber. RP considers it the best Coudoulet ever.
Rick - precisely why I really try to think about the RP definition of the scoring ranges (which is replicated on the CT site) when I am writing a note and assigning a score. I do try to think is this an outstanding wine, is it very good, etc.
BTW - Alan, look forward to your follow up notes to see how these progressed.
And this is why i don’t score wines as I think of the jump from 89 to 90 as non-linear - it’s a barrier to me, and to get from 89 to 90 or 91 the wine isn’t just slightly better, it’s a sea change. Moving from 87 to 88 to 89 are all slight moves… move to 90 and the wine needs to make a leap to a different category. This isn’t how most people concieve of the range though… so i don’t score wines.
Rick - I understand your reasoning. I do think too many people throw scores around a little too casually. Again, for me, scoring is personal in that it helps me put some quantitative measure on the wine. I take scoring a wine pretty seriously and always have the scoring range in my head when putting points to paper. For me, when I look back at my notes I can tell how much I liked or disliked a wine, the scores just help refine the notes for me, especially if I am thinking about buying more of a certain wine.
Yeah, I’ve thought about scoring for that reason… as a personal note. But I can usually remember from the notes and if I add a score in CT it’s factored into the community score. Since many of the wines i do TNs on have only a few scores…
this is why breaking down a score into the 50, 5, 15, 20, 10 “categories” (baseline; color/appearance; nose; taste; overall/ability to improve with age; respectively) can be especially helpful in determining where someone is coming from w/r/t their score – even better, is to approach scoring within those categories in a consistent/systematic manner. Reading that note, and thinking of these “categories” and how I score wines that I drink, I agree that it’s very hard to imagine a way in which this bottle could achieve 90 pts.
Agreed Brian. Even if you don’t do the categorization process I think it’s valuable to have some internal idea of why a wine makes the transition from Very Good (85 -89) to Outstanding (90-94) to Extraordinary (96-100). Then say to yourself “Self, is this wine Very Good? It is? Is it Outstanding? No? Ok, so it’s ~85-89… lets think about where it fits in there… is it close to Outstanding or jeust barely above Good?.”
IN other words, I stuff wines into a broader category first that is basically a 5 point range, then use a score (to myself) to place it within that range.
… i don’t know why, but this really made me laugh! … I wish more people would think in this manner when scoring wines - then maybe people would realize that an “86” or “87” actually is a good wine!
I think what often happens with those of us who write wine TN’s (which inherently makes us wine geeks) is that we become very picky/critical of the wines we drink b/c we drink so much good wine. This pickiness/criticism is reflected in the written TN - I know I often write a TN that might sound like a mid-low 80’s wine, but then score it in the high 80’s or “90” because as I take my systematic stroll through the “categories” mentioned above, I realize that my (relatively) harsh TN was merely me being a picky/critical wine geek. That is why I was initially willing to entertain the thought that the above-noted bottle of ‘98 Beau really could’ve been a 90 point bottle; but, as I read the note, and used what (limited) information was contained therein, I realized I likely would not score that bottle at or above 90 points if my experience mirrored that of the note writer.
This has gotten sidetracked, so thanks for the note and comparison. Haven’t had either wine in a long while and it was very interesting to see. Now, back to the sidetracking …
The problem I have is that unless there is a substantial tasting history, the notion of 90 point wine is just too flexible. Imagine Rick, to pick him for illustration, had never tasted any consensus “great” wines like Beaucastel. His point scale will very like give 90+ points to something like Coudoulet because it is in the top 10% of what he has had. Then he tastes Beau … and doesn’t go back and re-calibrate all his previous scorings with the new information that it is really a quantum jump above. He wasn’t really wrong before, but lacked the information needed to place the wines in context. We all do that. Whenever I talk to people about wine or food, I explain there will be a-ha! moments when your quality scale is recalibrated.
Conversely, I find myself writing something like ‘no finish’ when the reality is that I am comparing to a universe of truly great wines with 30+ sec finishes and the wine has merely a few seconds. (I am sure that wines I consider having “long” finishes would be nothing to others with more experience.) I don’t know the taster whose note was quoted, but I can see where the wine failed to deliver at a Beau-level (95+ pts) and he wrote about it scathingly yet was more objectively (compared to a broader universe of wine) at that 90 pt level.
Using the metric for scoring really helps. When I run wine judging, I force even my most experienced tasters to use a rigid 20 pt scale that is broken down by section. Even then, I find that while the ordinal ranking of the wines is quite consistent, the absolute scoring varies widely. Interestingly the more experienced the taster , the higher the scoring will be as they are better able to put the wine into a more objective box while a less experienced taster will be stuck on the idea that a wine they didn’t like couldn’t possibly be over 10 pts.
Coudoulet shows more on the nose, mainly sweet fruit. The palate is quite ripe and sweet now, with a touch of roasted fruit character. Bordering on syrupy. Acidity is there, though tannins are light to moderate at best. I’m not diggin’ this wine as much tonight. There is more acidity and touch more crispness to the Coudoulet.
Esprit is now a touch fleshier and richer. No question it’s California with the ripeness level, though it could probably fit in reasonably well with a bunch of CdRs and CdPs in the very forward and lush 07 vintage.
After being open 24 hours, there is little to distinguish these two wines, slight differences in acidity and flavor. They are both ripe enough that some of the underlying fruit character is masked by the perception of sweetness. Both are fun wines, but lack real complexity or nuance. I’m calling it a draw, giving them both a score of 88. Those who want to call either of these, particularly the Esprit, in the mid-90s, are grossly over-rating what’s in the bottles.
…
Coudoulet is still the slightly better wine here for my tastes, with a bit more interest, and less straightforward ripeness. Getting some nice nuances, hints of herbs, charred meat, bit more layered. Either way, they are wines that drink decently at their price point, with the Tablas overpriced for what’s in the bottle.
I have had both of these wines blind recently (the Tablas twice 1 blind and 1 not), and I went straight to a new world guess with the Coudoulet. I found the Coudoulet to be extremely extracted (come to think of it those were my exact words). Maybe I need to try these with some age, but this was not for me. The Tablas on the other hand I found slightly hot, but at least it had red fruit and not syrup. This turned a bit of my hype for 07 CdP into concern…I need to try more than 3 I guess before investing so much in a vintage.
I don’t score wines either for a few reasons but one is that this effect you describe here is very alive and true. In think most people want to believe that a wine they enjoyed is a 90 or above point wine. The de facto scale you see out there is essentially about 8 points for the most part, 87-95. This renders the 100 point scale relatively useless and drives the mathematical engineer in me nuts.
For myself I would see a lot of wines that I could give very positive notes to that would only score in the 80’s. Then there would be the questions about why I trashed wine X with a low score after praising it. No thanks.
The break downs like Brian described CAN help though they are a problem since most people give 5 points for appearance. It either looks drinkable or it doesn’t. Has anyone really enjoyed their wine less because it only looked like a 3 outta 5 pointer??? Then there is the huge disparity between what most people allow for a range on the nose versus the palate. /rant
To wit, I just read a note in CT that called a wine “nasty” and was running to pour it out. Score???..80 points.
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… i don’t know why, but this really made me laugh! … I wish more people would think in this manner when scoring wines - then maybe people would realize that an “86” or “87” actually is a good wine!![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
