WTN: Cote Rotie Jamet Ogier Guigal La Landonne

Notes from a garden tasting of Cote Rotie.

We started with a non-theme wine –

2005 Colombo St. Joseph Les Lauves – ripish nose and that carried through on palate. Good mineral and slightly high terminal acidity. Decent.

2005 Jamet CR – warm Rhone nose with pepper and smoke, mellow balanced wine with good length and a touch of sweetness at the end. Also developed some spice with time. Very good.

2006 Philippe & Vincent Jaboulet Cornas – strong element of mineral in this nose, firm ripe tannins, lots of stuffing and decent length. Typical Cornas rusticity.

1998 Ogier CR – flowers and vanilla in this nose, good colour, sweet entry, long supple wine not at all over ripe, finishing with some nice dark cherry flavours. Liked this one a lot.

We next had a very interesting trio of vintages of Guigal Brune et Blonde Cote Rotie:

1978 – good high fill, but Burgundian pale colour, browning at the edge. Nose of earth and currant, no remaining tannin, long sweet finish. Excellent wine at the end of it’s life, going out in style. Noticed fading in the glass over ½ hour or so.

1995 – some fading in the edges but still showing good colour. Slightly bretty nose that largely blew off with time. Good body, sweet spicy finish. Classic stylish wine.

1999 – darker with fruit driven nose showing some ripeness and anise and dark cherry notes, good levels of fruit on palate, finishing medium long, still youthful.

1987 Guigal CR La Landonne – what a delight when one participant showed up with this wine. Classic Rhone nose, showing some violet/floral notes along with white pepper and hints of blood/iron. Silky smooth across the palate with excellent balance and length. Very, very good. Soft tannins indicate a long life ahead for this wine, though I expect it is now as good as it will ever be.

1998 Santa Duc Gigondas – the crew were still mulling over their performance on the Battle (bocce) field and indicated that they wouldn’t mind something to sip while doing so, so I headed for the cellar and pulled this. After I decanted and tasted it, I felt that it wasn’t showing as well as a bottle drunk a couple of weeks before, so I opened another one to compare and ended up taking both decanters out to the garden with me. Ripe nose with cherries, raspberry and thyme notes, quite a long finish with excellent fruit levels. At peak now. The poorer bottle showed less ripe sweetness, though had I not tasted it recently, I’d probably have served it without questioning condition. Both bottles were from the same case, purchased on release.

[Jenise]

Wonderful afternoon, thank you!!! Some comments:

2005 Colombo St. Joseph Les Lauves – I found a bit of prune on the nose of this wine, and a bit of cooked flavor. I suspect it had some heat exposure early in the chain of custody. It probably showed better when you took your notes, as compared to some evolution by the time an hour or so passed, which is when I got to it.

2005 Jamet CR – What you said.

2006 Philippe & Vincent Jaboulet Cornas – Once again I apologize for bringing the wrong wine! Six of these share a bin with six Cote Roties from another producer, and I just grabbed the wrong bottle. That said, this is the first of these I've opened and I'm absolutely delighted with how well it showed. The remaining bottles will have a fine future.

1998 Ogier CR – What you said, and I adored it.

Re the Guigal trio: Really enjoyed the '78. "Going out in style" is the perfect characterization. The '95 was my favorite of the three, though. Nicely resolved, where the '99 seemed to have more work to do and I'm not sure it will ever be as good as the '95 is now.

1987 Guigal CR La Landonne -- Unfrickingbelievable that Jim brought this. Your description's perfect. Even if one didn't know ahead of time that one was being served a giant among wines, it was totally apparent in the glass that this was no ordinary Northern Rhone. Outstanding.

1998 Santa Duc Gigondas – The two wines, which had to compare, did kind of catch up with each other. The first bottle seemed like it was a year or so further along in evolution, but otherwise didn't have any apparent flaw, and with time, as bottle #2 opened up more, there was less difference. The best glass was (I know you cringed when I did this ), was a blend of the two.

Thanks again for a great afternoon.

And thanks for your tart/pizza - the recipe for that, if you can write one down, deserves to show up in the food section.

Next month, California Bordeaux varietals in (or looking out at, depending on weather) the garden.

[David M. Bueker]

Useful note on the '99 Guigal. Thanks.

[Jenise]

And thanks for your tart/pizza - the recipe for that, if you can write one down, deserves to show up in the food section.

No recipe, I'm afraid. I just 'make'; in this case, I tailored the pizza with northern Rhone flavors. Here's the best I can offer:

Rolled out enough dough for a 'medium' but rectangular to fit a quarter sheet pan thinly, with a sheet of parchment underneath (at least an inch larger in length than your pizza which will enable you to lift it in and out of the pan later without a peel/spatula). I love thin crust. Spread on that a sauce of tomato paste thinned with just a little sake and seasoned with fresh garlic and salt. Scattered two big handfuls of grated mozz on top then a whole fennel bulb, shaved on a mandoline; a third of a Walla Walla Sweet, shaved; a generous quantity of fennel seed, about a heaping tablespoon for intense fennel flavor, some clumps of hot Italian chicken sausage, about two, removed from casings and lightly browned (but not fully cooked, it will finish in the oven), a scant bit more mozz for additional 'glue', coarsely ground black pepper and a handful of grated parmesan. I baked it at 400 for 20 minutes in your oven--it was well browned around the edges and crispy brown all the way to the center.

That's making me hungry again! It might just suit a California theme too, don't you think (hint, hint)

[David M. Bueker]

Oh damn...and I just fixed dinner.

a sauce of tomato paste thinned with just a little sake...

Any reason for sake other than that is what you had available?

[Jenise]

Rahsaan, yes. I wanted a winey complexity in the sauce but didn't have an extra half hour in which to cook the raw alcohol flavor away. Sake's a perfect pinch-hitter for such situations, it integrates immediately. And I was out of dry vermouth.

Rahsaan, yes. I wanted a winey complexity in the sauce but didn't have an extra half hour in which to cook the raw alcohol flavor away. Sake's a perfect pinch-hitter for such situations, it integrates immediately. And I was out of dry vermouth.

Ok, interesting.