Last month, I was thrilled to join a few of the local guys at a cozy restaurant in Newton to taste through a fantastic set of flights featuring the wines of Domaine Jamet. The blind tasting was set up in three flights, with a ringer in each flight, just for good measure. And naturally, there were about a half-dozen starter wines and a trio of sweet wines (non-blind) thrown in to bookend what turned out to be a series of stunningly delicious Cote-Roties.
Starters:
1996 Delas Freres Cote-Rotie Seigneur de Maugiron. As a few early-arrivers were popping corks and arranging the flights, Charles brought out this bottle–which had been opened the night before, but was still about three-quarters full. It has a moderately rich nose of fleshy cherry paste, black olives, animal fur and iron ore at the core, with little wisps of crushed red flower petals and licorice rope that are quite pretty. In the mouth, it is a bit foursquare in its structure and it perhaps lacks some of the excitement factor that the other wines later on delivered, but I do like how extroverted the sour cherry and cassis fruit is right now and how well it marries that with fine savory bits of bacon fat and cracked peppercorn flavors. Overall, it may not be profound, but I find it to be quite tasty and likely to deliver pleasant drinking enjoyment over the next 3 to 4 years.
NV Montaudon Champagne Chardonnay Brut Premier Cru. At first, this almost reminds me of Chablis on the nose, with aromas of crushed seashells, chalk and fine green herbs. After a while, aromas of fresh ginger, lime zest and peach pit start to fold in, too, but the whole thing stays very fresh, lifted and clean. In the mouth, it leads with toasted bread, chalk, herb and tart apple flavors, putting on flesh and fanning out through the mid-palate before cinching up quite a bit on the tart, citrusy finish. It is a nice mid-weight offering, exhibiting decent volume and rather giving flavors, but perhaps in need of a more integrated finish down the road.
NV Gosset Champagne Brut Grande Reserve. This wine features a fun and energetic (yet sweet-toned) nose of candy cigarettes and powdered sugar to go along with rich orchard fruit aromas. In the mouth, it is direct and driven, with a powerful sense of linear drive and youthful intensity, but also a solid dose of sweetened apple and white peach flavors. I think that, in the end, it seems a tad too sweet for its own good, but I still enjoy the bouquet and the overall energy of the wine.
NV Cedric Bouchard Champagne Inflorescence Blanc de Noirs. I believe Dan noted that this was from the 2008 vintage and was disgorged in April 2010. Just a few months earlier, I had really struggled to find enjoyment in a bottle of this same wine, but tonight I liked it much better and have to wonder if this particular disgorgement could have been that different from the one I previously drank. In any event, this particular bottle delivers fine aromas of smoke, struck flint and a bit of skunky fern allied to notes of lime zest, toasted herbs and a distinct minerality tinged by background sulfur. In the mouth, it shows off a lot more delicacy than I was expecting, with a sense of finesse and precision to its yellow apple, chalk and citrus flavors. Boy, now I need a third bottle to triangulate my views on this wine!
NV Laurent-Perrier Champagne Cuvee Rose Brut. Gentle scents of watermelon, light red berries and citrus fruit combine with bits of smoke, graphite and pencil shavings on the nose of this wine. In the mouth, it is a bit richer and weightier with its easy-sipping red fruit than the nose would lead one to expect, but there is also a refreshing acidity and liveliness here that I haven’t always experienced with bottles of this cuvee. This made for nice, easy sipping.
NV Paul Bara Champagne Grand Cru Brut Grand Rose. Aromas of flint, schist, toasted herbs and bread are the predominant factors on the nose of this rose Champagne, with the strawberry fruit way in the background. On the palate, it is kind of airy and light, with notes of spritzy quinine and mineral providing a crunchy top note to the core of more nuanced and layered strawberry flavor. It is not a weighty or dense wine, but it flows along crisply and is pretty easy to drink.
Flight 1:
1995 Domaine Jasmin Cote-Rotie. This wine possesses an absolutely mesmerizing bouquet that is wonderfully complex and graceful, yet powerful and savory—full of geranium, tobacco, rawhide leather, sous bois undergrowth, soy, cooled bacon fat, animal fur, gypsum and ocean brine aromas that I simply can’t get enough of. It shows off tons of black olive brine, iron ore, dried blood, leather, seaweed wrapper, blackberry and black cherry sorts of flavors that are expansive and full of life on the palate. The earthy, old-fashioned profile is just awesome, and the savory finish tinged with wintergreen draws the taster back for more. This is just an outstanding wine in every way. My wine of the flight.
1994 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie. Here one encounters a big, boisterous nose full of forest fire smoke, black cherry, white pepper, cooled bacon fat, pork rinds, iron filings and wintergreen aromas that are cool, earthy and considerably more brawny than either of the 1995s in this flight. In the mouth, it is dark and smoky, with full-bodied and creamy-textured flavors of sour cherry, black raspberry, earth and tea that are generous and rounded. It feels mature and largely tannin-free, yet with effortless power and depth to it. It is a complete mouthful of wine drinking very well right now.
1995 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie. This is a rather dark-toned nose, with blackberry, black olive, dried blood, charcoal, peppercorn, animal pelt, toasted herb, juniper and menthol leaf aromas combining quite nicely. In the mouth, it is more aggressively acidic than the previous two wines, with a dark, tangy, sour-fruited core supported by additional flavors of earth, brine, white pepper and forest notes. It flows across the palate quite nicely and finishes with excellent length and persistence, but overall I think it is much less ready to drink right now than either of the two previous wines. I like the length and energy, but I’d like to see that acidic, sour core flesh out a bit more with additional time in the cellar.
Flight 2:
1997 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie. This wine is considerably stemmier on the nose than anything else on the table, featuring aromas of mushrooms, toasted grape stems, birch, ground black pepper, fur, forest ferns and mixed berries. In the mouth, it is loaded with flavors of bacon fat, white pepper, savory leather, smoke, tobacco and earth that push the black currant and blackberry fruit way into the background. The acidity is also right up front and runs the full length of the palate, giving the wine verve and cut that are impressive in such a mouth-filling wine. This is an excellent wine, but relative to some of the other beauties on the table, it just isn’t quite as appealing to me personally.
2000 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie. The nose here smells of crushed gravel stones, pimento loaf, green herbs, iron ore, animal hide and suede leather in a very nice mix together with assorted red fruit aromas. In the mouth, it is very creamy and smooth, with a sweeter and more fruit-forward personality than most, but still with an earthy underpinning showing from time to time. The acidity is present but not nearly so forceful as in the previous wine—just enough to provide fine balance for the pretty cherry fruit filling. Although it is very rounded and rather pleasantly fruity in the mouth, the complexity and distinctiveness aren’t quite on the same level as some of the other vintages. But I do think it would be a great wine to share with a newer wine drinker to slowly acclimate them to this producer.
1997 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie Cote Brune. This wine has my favorite bouquet of the flight—showing off absolutely gorgeous aromas of white pepper, jalapeno, smoke, toasted herb and limestone to go with fine black cherry fruit. It comes across classy as hell, with a refined, earthen character that is quite appealing. In the mouth, it is again all about class and distinction, with a feeling of finesse and balance from start to finish. The texture is beautifully-knit and the tone of the wine derived from the acidity and structure is just spot-on perfect. There’s nice medium weight to the red and black cherry fruit, and pleasing accents of sarsaparilla and salinity. It finishes on the dry side, but with very manageable tannins. It is a wine to drink now or hold without problem. My wine of the flight.
1997 Michel Ogier Cote-Rotie. This wine is a darker, denser color than the others in the flight. And it is also much richer, more densely-textured, and more fully-blown aromatically—with impressive scents of coffee bean, herbs, shaved pencil, volcanic soil and blackberry fruit. In the mouth, it seems riper and more richly-fruited than its predecessors, with a thicker texture and fuzzier tannins. The glossy fruit is sweet and juicy, with a nice mouthwatering quality all the way through. There’s just great density, length and persistence to this wine and it gives the others on the table a true run for their money.
Flight 3:
2001 Eric Texier Cote-Rotie Vieilles Vignes. Like the other two ringers in the tasting, the ’01 Texier also acquitted itself extremely well on this night. The nose is extremely smoky and ashen, but also wonderfully fleshy–with engaging aromas of black cherry fruit, white pepper, leather, tobacco, sea spray and bacon fat. In the mouth, it is fresh, tangy, driven and generous. It is full-bodied wine with exceptionally generous and fleshy flavors that echo the nose. The finish is finely-balanced and the wine as a whole is simply showing quite well.
1998 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie. Boy, I love the nose here, which is wonderfully savory and features aromas of fur, dried sweat, cracked peppercorns, roasted meats, foresty greens, dark cherries and blackberries. In the mouth, it delivers a whole lot of flavor, filling the mouth dark fruit and earth flavors but also sliding across the palate with ease. It has a real sense of presence and stamina, but feels perfectly-balanced within its medium-weighted framework and tangy acidic underpinning. There is a lot of life ahead for this wine and even though the tannins grow and grow as the evening goes on, I love drinking it now.
2001 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie. This was my bottle, but I would never have known it from this showing. The last bottle I had 4 years ago showed a whole lot like the 1999 Jamet a lot of this same group shared a few months ago—intensely wild, animalistic and barnyardy. However, tonight, this was like the Dr. Jekyll to that previous bottle’s Mr. Hyde. This was a clean-shaven gentleman of a wine—with great class and distinction, smelling of fresh and lifted scents of cherry and blackberry fruit allied to olives, leather and pencil shavings. There is a lot going on and even after the 4 hour decant I gave it, it is constantly shifting and actively evolving all night. In the mouth, it is clean, brightly acidic and wonderfully red-fruit-driven, with earth and barrel spice notes playing fine supporting roles. It is drinking perfectly right now, with hardly any sense of tannin interference, even though I do have to say the finish gets a bit tacky and grippy later in the evening. I loved both this and the 1998 in this flight, but the Texier was also fantastic, so I didn’t really have a true wine of the flight (oh, poor me!).
2001 Domaine Jamet Cote-Rotie Cote Brune. The bouquet of this last wine really stands apart from most of the others we’ve encountered this night—with more of a pomegranate and leafy sensibility to it. In the mouth, though, the first thing one notices is the cashmere-like smoothness of the wine’s texture–as layers of plush fruit and earthy flavors just seem to coat the tongue. So, too, do the big youthful tannins after a while, though, so I am inclined to strongly suggest another 5 -7 years in the cellar for this promising specimen.
Overall, this was an amazing three flights of Cote-Rotie. I cannot think of a single wine I would not happily drink again and there were several I absolutely adored and wish desperately to have an opportunity to drink again. I’m not sure Jamet necessarily out-kicked any of the interlopers (indeed, I had the ’95 Jasmin as my wine of the night), but it sure seems like a domaine that produces a distinctive wine in just about any kind of vintage. I was deeply impressed and certainly richly satisfied with the entire line-up!
Sweet wines:
1989 Huet Vouvray Moelleux 1ere Trie Clos du Bourg. This wine is fairly dark caramel in color, and it also smells of caramel, to go along with notes of praline, roasted nuts and some sherried overtones. After a while, though, it also starts to smell a bit musty and moldy, and sure enough, out of the fridge the next day it is reeking of TCA. In the mouth, it is a bit of a struggle, and I guess that could largely be due to the contamination, as well. It seems pretty volatile and aggressively acidic, which is a shame because the core of burnished apricots, ripe peaches, waxy citrus and caramel surely should have yielded a nice wine.
1989 Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Scharzhofberger Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel. However, the absolute beauty of this wine makes up for the disappointment of the corked Huet. Oh man, the nose here is just gorgeous—brimming with wonderful aromas of blue slate, orange peel, apricot, peach, kaffir lime and diesel that show amazing levels of complexity and layering yet also a nuanced power and push. It is simply radiant stuff to sit and smell–pretty much everything I would be looking for in a wine of this style. And I love it just as much on the palate, too. It is not especially sweet, but it is full and languid and richly-textured. It features tons of apricot and peach flavors that have a wonderful fullness of flavor but also exhibit great tension and drive in response to the wine’s acidic underpinning. My only nit would be a slightly shorter finish than the wine deserves, but I just love the flavors, texture and balance of this beauty.
1990 Trimbach Pinot Gris Vendanges Tardives. This is a rather richly-sweet wine to smell, with a dense core of orange, apricot, creamsicle and crème brulee aromas coating the nostrils. In the mouth, the spun sugar/crème brulee topping flavors come to the fore first, followed by dense and rounded flavors of spiced apricots and peaches that are quite strong and plush. It is kicking out the jams and is deliciously-flavored, with a surprising amount of youthful punch to it at this stage. An outstanding way to put a bow on a very special evening!
-Michael