France-9 Brunier La Nerthe Usseglio Pegau

Sept 28 – in which we go once again to Chateauneuf and have a very good dinner at a local restaurant.

Brunier

2008 Les Pallieres Terrasse du Diablo Gigondas – good depth in nose, but also a bit stewy. I found this wine to be overly ripe for my taste.

2008 Les Pallieres Gigondas Les Racines – a very similar nose, although not as hot and stewy, better raspberry, better fruit in the mouth, my preference over the Terrasse.

2008 La Roquette CNduP – now this was really good raspberry! Sweet and smooth in the mouth, Very enjoyable.

2008 Vieux Telegraphe CNduP – a bright medium red colour, with the raspberry but also, I thought, a bit of cherry in the nose. Still a bit tannic, it needs a few years but has excellent balance and length right now.

We picked up a bottle of La Roquette blanc (not available for tasting and limited to 2 bb per person) for later drinking chez nous.

La Nerthe

I was glad we stopped here. An historic site where the Nazis established their headquarters in the 1940s. It is a large and very scenic estate and is now once again making good wine after a bit of a dry spell. I will say that I much preferred their original label graphics to the new age version, though, but can’t turn up an old label on the net to compare..

2009 CNduP blanc – a nice tropical nose that made one think of viognier, even though that varietal isn’t allowed in the mix. Pleasant.

2007 CNduP – a quite sweet but not overly ripe nose with a nice hint of pepper, a nicely tuned wine with balance.

2006 CNduP – better acidity, and a bit brighter with better balance. The nose was back to the raspberries we’d been seeing (well, smelling) so much.

2004 CNduP – a ripish nose, with some added meat and mineral notes, balanced and clean

Raymond Usseglio

We’d had his excellent white 2009 blanc earlier in the trip and wanted to seek him out when we were ‘in town’. How delightful to meet the man himself in the tasting room (which we eventually found, swearing at the GPS all the way).

2008 CNduP blanc – great nose with fruit, a hint of coconut, good fruit on palate and clean and very dry finish. I can’t think of any CNduP whites that I would evaluate higher than these wines.

2009 CNduP – just bottled, this wine was red and sappy, and fairly tannic. Should have a good future.

2008 CNduP – funkier bnose and a leaner more tannic profile. Obviously needs a lot of time to come around, and the apparent level of fruit compared to tannin would concern me.

Pegau – finally managed to get in here – last time we hit town they were closed due to work demands in the fields, or the guy that manned it was having a long lunch, or he just didn’t feel like selling wine that day (we aren’t quite sure which).

2007 CNduP – ripe, but not overdone. We started wondering if there is a selection process whereby the agents that think we prefer big ripe (and over-ripe) wines actively select that style, leaving the more mannered examples to be sold in other markets. This is exactly the same thought that has previously occurred to me in regard to the sweet monster Australian wines we keep getting. In any case, this wine skirted the over ripe issues and showed excellent flavour concentration, just avoiding being too sweet. It had great length, lots of herbal content, power and nice black pepper. A very good wine indeed, although not perhaps quite up to the level of the 2003 and 2004. Given my limited space, I opted to bring back only a bottle of the 2007 De Capo, which we were not, of course, able to taste.

With dinner at Les Abbeilles in Sablet:

Yves Delozanne Brut – a bit of bubbly before going down to dinner. Lots of colour (nv so no idea of age) mature yeasty nose good fizz, tasty.

2009 Dom. Chamfort Sablet blanc – went through 2 bottles of this, made close enough to our gite for us to hear the destemmers operating. Labelled as a Viognier, it showed a hint of anise in the nose and was supple on palate.

2005 Dom. Du Cayron Gigondas – a very presentable wine with dark fruit and a bit of rubber in the nose, fairly elegant and with a velvety feel in the mouth. Went well with my rack of lamb, done fairly rare (I ordered saignant, but as so often happened, received closer to a point)

[David M. Bueker]

That sounds like a lovely day.

Have you previously tasted 2007 Pegau in North America and found it wanting? While I am not a huge fan of the vintage, I have not found everything to be over ripe. Vieux Donjon tastes like ripe vintage Vieux Donjon. I felt the same for Mont Olivet (which I know you were not impressed by). I have not tasted 2007 Pegau as yet.

No, I hadn't tasted the 07 Pegau before.

A higher proportion of the 2007 wines that we see are the really ripe style, while a majority of the wines we taste here are more moderate and less cooked.

I think that it would be very hard to make a truly elegant 2009 because of the weather (like 2003) which mandated high alcohol rich wines, but within that description lies a spectrum ranging from ripe but stlll well balanced to frankly cooked or even stewy. Power was dead easy in 2007; balance was a tougher target. I just wonder why we are seeing more balanced than not in France and the opposite - the big in your face ripe monsters that glean high Parker points but which I don't necessarily enjoy as much in North America.

[Jenise]

No, I hadn't tasted the 07 Pegau before.

A higher proportion of the 2007 wines that we see are the really ripe style, while a majority of the wines we taste here are more moderate and less cooked.

I think that it would be very hard to make a truly elegant 2009 because of the weather (like 2003) which mandated high alcohol rich wines, but within that description lies a spectrum ranging from ripe but stlll well balanced to frankly cooked or even stewy. Power was dead easy in 2007; balance was a tougher target. I just wonder why we are seeing more balanced than not in France and the opposite - the big in your face ripe monsters that glean high Parker points but which I don't necessarily enjoy as much in North America.

I bought the Reservee, the Laurence and the Capo myself. A friend called my attention to something about the Capo, that it's not made every vintage but significantly the last vintage produced was 2003. Looking at that and the 15.8, was it, alcohol on the 07 Capo makes me wonder if this wine isn't targetted especially at Robert Parker and the American market.

[David M. Bueker]

Jenise,

There are more than a few Europeans who clamor for the Capo. One of the reasons it was not produced in 2004-2006 is that demand for it had become too much of a hassle for the winery. 2007 was a vintage that so lent itself to the cuvee that I guess they just could not help themselves.

Fun report, Bill. Who was hosting you at Pegau? Laurence, her husband Mark or someone else? We've loved every visit there, but it's been too long since we were last there.

Mark Lipton

I bought the Reservee, the Laurence and the Capo myself. A friend called my attention to something about the Capo, that it's not made every vintage but significantly the last vintage produced was 2003. Looking at that and the 15.8, was it, alcohol on the 07 Capo makes me wonder if this wine isn't targetted especially at Robert Parker and the American market.

Jenise, I was first in CNP in 2000, I think it was, and I remember asking many of the producers why they started creating all those relatively new 'high end' bottlings in the late 1990s, and being surprised when many (not all) answered in a very upfront way, and said they were made for the American market, because many people wanted to pay more money for a premium wine. The idea that people would pay so much for a CNP seemed like a surprise to many of them. How times have changed!

[Jenise]

and said they were made for the American market, because many people wanted to pay more money for a premium wine. The idea that people would pay so much for a CNP seemed like a surprise to many of them. How times have changed!

We Americans are a pathetically shallow lot, aren't we? I know I realized this was happening and that it's a side effect of Parkerization, but in all our travels here I had yet to feel like I'd met it head-on until the visit to Pegau. And yes, I'm sure there are Europeans who get in line for these wines, too, but in general the demand comes from the same place I do and without the grand poobah from Maryland chances are it would never have occurred to anyone here to tweak out, of all things, high alcohol cuvees.