Dinner out with Patrick, Rainer and Remo (first and third bottle from the restaurant's wine list)
Guigal Côte-Rôtie La Mouline 1999
1999 may be my favourite Côte-Rôtie vintage of all time. Why? Because of a combination of ripeness and freshness that even the most concentrated examples embody, and because of the lavender-like tannin quality that this wine and e.g. the Jamet and Rostaing’s Côte Blonde all have in common. Opaque ruby-purple of rare brilliance and freshness, slim watery rim. Gorgeous bacon fat, lilac, citrusy peach, violet, olive. Petrolly and/or olive-oily, complex, deep blackberry fruit based on a core of lavender. Finesse notes of tobacco and fresh banana leaf, soft macerated rose petal and green pepper, complex lightly roasted herbs, tiny espresso/mocha note. Extremely well-integrated coconut oak (maybe it is a function of this wine’s concentration and light-on-its-feet freshness and florality, but in balance, this was the least oaky LaLa I have ever had). Gorgeous lavender-tinged tannin, nicely flavourful acidity. A perfectly balanced, huge wine, fat and oily, and yet, not heavy at all, wholly devoid of alcoholic heat. A wine to satisfy body and soul, or brain and belly, warmth of the fruit with cool precision, perfect structure. Very, very long on the balanced, powerful and smooth finish. Increasingly smokier but also nobler tobacco and bacon fat with airing. Even surpasses the 1991 La Mouline thanks to its unique freshness and focus. “Impossible to fault” is what Rainer said, but there is more to this – he soon added “if I had multiple cases, I would have a bottle every day, starting each morning pouring some into my breakfast flakes!” Rating: 100
Guigal Côte-Rôtie La Landonne 1997
Our BYO bottle. I had been afraid that having this next to the 1999 La Mouline would result in my companions finding it inferior, and in fact try to avoid constellations like this outside of a (comprehensive) vertical tasting. The colour as well as the fruit and overall definition of the 1997 La Landonne were noticeably less brilliant, fresh, precise, and lively than that of the 1999 La Mouline. It is unfair as looked at on its own, the 1997 La Landonne is a very fine effort for the vintage, and a complex, quite profound wine. Plummier garnet-purple colour that looks faintly murky-lackluster only in direct comparison to that modern-day legend. The fruit is jammier and less precise of course, a smokier and plummier raspberry coulis with tobacco and wet earth, with a focus that I found neither exceptional nor blurred. Complex, could be fresher, this is jammy as well as a bit dried-fruity. Nicely sweet and round low-acid wine hinting at rather than exhibiting good earthy minerality. Not too oaky, but in contrast to the 1999 La Mouline, it may turn out in time that the tannin is partly oak-induced (which can result in finesse being partially masked). More tobacco ash with airing, rounder as well as jammier in an admittedly quite profound way. May not have had an easy time in the context of the other wines of the evening, but was showing very well nonetheless. Rating: ~95
Pégau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Da Capo 2003
95% Grenache, with the rest all the other permitted grape varieties. Contains just over 16% alcohol. Deep ruby with a light purple hue. Sweet cranberry juice concentrate and grenadine (pomegranate) syrup with a little Kirsch schnaps, highly concentrated, full-bodied and tannic (the 2003 Réservée’s would seem a tad dry and bitter next to this, though, so no reason to complain). Less animal and garriguey than the Réservée, unevolved and vin de paille-like (Recioto-like is what Patrick said), possibly a wine of greater purity. Lightly curranty cherry, some nicely complex tobacco, if not hemp. Slightly heavy (and heavy-handed) and hot, but still rather fresh wine. Started out a bit short, but did not stop getting longer with airing, and was definitely rather long by the end of the evening. Lovely minerality. More beef juice with airing, a suggestion of old Rayas-like high-toned rowan berry. Dense and quite thick on the palate. I like this as well, if not a hair better even than the best (the first, tasted at the winery at release) bottle of the 2000, minus the alcoholic heat (but note that only Rainer and I thought the alcohol level elevated, and that it may be due to the wine being partly closed). Ended up being rather impressed with this wine’s long-term potential, not sure it makes sense to drink this now, though, even if (same as many partly closed super-concentrated wines) it performs well given some airing. As promising as the 2003 Da Capo may be, it currently strikes me as a rather awful QPR buy compared to the Réservée. Rating: 96+
Greetings from Switzerland, David.
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„J'ai gâché vingt ans de mes plus belles années au billard. Si c'était à refaire, je recommencerais.“ – Roger Conti