After a morning round of golf last month with a couple of fellow wine lovers, the three of us grabbed some lunch and sat down with a small sampling of Chateauneuf du Pape bottles.
1998 Château de la Gardine Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The bouquet of this wine is warm and gentle—with fairly complex aromas of brandied cherries, cranberries, mulled cider, spice cake, rawhide leather, pencil lead and a nice pretty streak of lilac. It is neither invigorating nor lively, but instead rather relaxed and mature. In the mouth, it is medium-bodied and sports a lot of tingly spices, small but slightly grainy tannins and some dry acidity around the edges. It is earthy and dry, and a bit thin on the red currant and sour cherry fruit at this point—showing more topsoil and other earthy notes. I enjoy some of its aged complexities, but it seems like it is time to drink up.
2000 Château Fortia Châteauneuf-du-Pape. In comparison, there is a lot of aromatic life to this wine, with abundant and appealing scents of lifted maraschino cherries and kirsch tinged by various minor earth tones. In the mouth, it has a creamy, somewhat open-knit texture to it and sports a notable coating of glycerin. It is black and blue-fruited, medium-weighted and shows plenty of tanginess through the middle. The finish, though, is a bit austere and also gets a bit chewy after a while. It may not be particularly deep or long, but it is a whole lot better than some of the professional reviews that came out upon its release would lead one to believe.
2003 Château Fortia Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée du Baron. There are deep and wide open notes of plums, dates, blueberries, incense, cedar wood and saddle leather on the very appealing nose of this wine. The balsa and cedar aromas and fresh blue fruit tones grow stronger the longer one stays with it, and the wine never shows any signs of heat or over-ripeness that some associate with the vintage. On the palate, it is very well-fruited, but not overly so, displaying some good structure and interesting angularity at times. The acidity is a bit languid and easy-going, allowing the dark red fruit to drape over tongue through the middle before some charred wood notes and drier tannins come in at the end. Overall, it is quite tasty and is drinking well right now (as it has been for a while, in my experience).
2004 Domaine du Pégaü Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Réservée. Well, this just raises the roof. It features a fantastic bouquet of blackberries, plums, spices, mince pie, cedar and fireplace ash that is so nice to smell right now, but also seems to be holding back even more in reserve. In the mouth, it is silky-textured but utterly powerful. It shows off impressive concentration of flavor, beautiful dark fruit, very good length and fine lifted acidity. It has a big-boned structure to be sure, but also comes across as sexy and lithe despite the thick, chocolaty tannins on the end. On the whole, this is just a delicious wine that I’d have a lot of trouble keeping my hands off of if I owned any, even knowing that it is destined to just get better and better down the road.
-Michael