WTN: 1989 Olga Raffault Chinon "les Picasses"

1989 Olga Raffault Chinon "les Picasses" Red Loire Wine France. 12.5% alcohol. Chambers Street. $43.00. Louis/Dressner Selections, Imported by LDM Wines, Inc. New York, New York.

There are some wines that I love to drink, find so beautiful and delicious that I don't really want to deconstruct my impressions. This is one such wine. 5* in my book.

Here's a note taken from Chris Coad's vast collection of tasting notes that describes what I tasted Friday night, lovely with roasted vegetables and grilled chicken:

Smells warm and lightly piney, dark cran-cassis-toasty fruit underneath. Ripe but rather reserved, there's a lean and lovely composure here. Medium acidity, rather plush for a Raffault Picasses. Supple and expressive, there's good focus, although not the laserlike precision you see in the mid-90s versions. Plenty of lauhala pith here, it's a velvety pool of tobacco leaf-laced cranberry-cassis fruit. Lovely and precise, there's an amiable fleshiness as well. Lovely stuff, a Chinon that Kane approves of, oddly, as it has a piney streak and isn't really in the mold of the more assertive Bretons that are usually the only Chinons to light his fire. (2/26/05)
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Regards, Bob

This is what I hoped for in my one bottle. But not really what I experienced. I guess in 17 year old wines there will be some variation. Mine wasn't bad, just unexciting (much preferred the '89 Breton Grandmonts). Don't think it was just my palate, as some other Raffault fans there were similarly unthrilled. Glad yours showed better!

It was lovely from the getgo and lasted for four hours, Dale. I must say, though, my impression of the wines from Raffault has ranged from so so to wonderful. Always something of a gamble in my book.