Wines & Stuff

I have a bought a case of Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Les Cailloux each one of the last three years, and this producer has yet to disappoint me.

The Brunels at Les Cailloux produce subtile and gentle CNdPs, not overpowering and top-heavy as some of their competitors in both vintages 2007 and 2009. This is in the style of for example Domaine de la Janasse and Le Vieux Donjon. Expressive without being intimidating in sheer power-fulness. Notes of blackberry and raspberry jam with licorice, pepper, and spices. Mouth-filling with a medium body. Balanced and smoothly integrated tannins with a sensation of dark fruit. Instantly accessible. Just a pinch of Grenache bitterness at the finish, which in this case is desirable since it lends the wine some more grip and structure. Elegant. Perfectly approachable right now. I do not think this will benefit much from prolonged bottle maturing. 91p.

Domaine de la Janasse is a relatively young estate, started by Aimé Sabon back in 1973, and can be regarded as a producer of a “modern” style Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 

The 2008 Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Tradition is just fantastic. One of the best standard CNdPs I have ever had. One of my other absolute favorites is Domaine du Pegau Cuvée Réservé, and it would be difficult to find two CNdPs which are more dissimilar. While the Janasse is easy-going and fruit-driven, the Pegau is meaty and bretty; a barn in a bottle. Speaking of “standard” cuvées in this context may be a bit silly, the 2008 Janasse is 329 SEK and the 2008 Pegau is 399 SEK (released in March) at State-owned Systembolaget, and 2008 is considered a lesser vintage selling at lower prices, so we are not talking inexpensive wines.

However, both Pegau and Janasse come in two premium cuvées in favorable vintages; Pegau produces the Laurence and the Da Capo (for details click the above referenced link). I had the opportunity to try Janasse’s 2009 Tradition as well as the Chaupin being a 100% Grenache from the top-notch vineyard of the same name and the Vielles Vignes producing fruit from vines over 80 years old. These are amazing wines and really something else. Highly recommended. There are a few bottles left at SB. The 2009 vintage produced powerful wines similar to the year 2007. However, I believe most 2009s will benefit from cellaring, because they are generally quite noisy.

2008 on the other hand is instantly approachable and I think most of the 2008s I’ve tried won’t benefit from more than 5 years of cellaring. And there is really no need to store them, many of them are perfect today. The temperature of the vintage was between 1.5 and 2 ° C below season average, giving many of the wines a more elegant – and less edgy- note. Further, it appears as if many of the wines of 2008 has an ABV which is about one percentage unit lower than 2007 and 2009, where the ABV reaches 15.5 and even 16%, which in my opinion simply is a tad too much. However, you may have to go for well-reputed winemakers for the 2008s since not all producers are likely to produce great wine in this relatively difficult vintage.

So…how is the 2008 Janasse CNdP Tradition? On the nose, it has blackberries, a little meat, spices; garrigue and white pepper. Very round and balanced. Perfectly integrated tannins. Deep, deep red and dense with a lovely and gentle taste of licorice. A killer wine. 92p.

Château du Tertre – classified as 5th growth back in 1855 - was long considered an underachiever. However, new owners came in and in 1999 things turned around.

Great nose of black currant, cedar tree, pencil shavings, tobacco and undergrowth; it is vegetal in the best sense. It’s color is very light red. 41% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot och 26% Cabernet Franc. Steven Brook wrote “concentrated but not massive”, and that truly sums this wine up. Very soft and elegant yet with evident backbone and structure, but still barely medium-bodied. This is a gentle and sophisticated wine. In my opinion, it has most of the characteristics I seek in a Bordeaux; subtle but not light-weight, concentrated but not massive; vegetal but not green. Strongly recommended unless you find beefy Aussie Shirazes to be your wine of choice. 92p.

Sauternes had a fantastic streak of vintages in 1988, 1989 and 1990. In particular the 89 vintage is great, with loads of botrytis and high sugar content.

I bought a bottle of 1989 Château Guiraud when on vacation in Bordeaux back in 2006 and had it this New Year’s Eve with some foie gras. Unsurprisingly, the combination was great. There is not a more classical match to Sauternes than foie gras. 22 years in a bottle results in great complexity for a (good) Sauternes. Dark yellow colour. A bit musty on the nose immediately after opening, but the mustiness disappears quickly. I didn’t air or decant it. Deep in structure and shows a nose of saffron, apricots, nuts and oranges, but also some spices, which probably were not present when the bottle still was young. Viscous and long with nice acidity and not too much evidence of residual sugar. Great palate of orange marmalade and honey. I was I had more bottles of mature Sauternes. This is really something else as compared to a young Sauternes. 93p.

Is there a great difference in quality between St Émilion and its satellite appellations? Well, I couldn’t really give you an exhaustive or even general answer, but telling from the two wines I had this evening, it certainly is. So is the money.

Both wines are from 2003, which is considered a good to excellent vintage but an irregular one; you generally can’t just pick a wine at random. There are great variations, even among the top châteaux. The vintage is warm, meaning that the wines are generous at their best and jammy at their worst.

2003 Vieux Château Palon is from Montagne-St.Émilion, one of the four so called satellite appellations located north of St Émilion. Montagne is one of two satellites which actually borders on the more esteemed St. Émilion appellation. I bought this and the next wine when on vacation in Bordeaux in August 2006 and the Palon only set me back a modest €13, which is extremely good value, in particular for Bordeaux. After all, these are arguably the finest wines in the world. The price parameter is certainly the upside for the satellite wines: they are generally a good bang for the buck. The 2003 Palon is a quite dense and rich wine, with notes of plum, coffee and tobacco. It actually is slightly smoky, but not in a negative South African manner. It has some attack and is well balanced. Not overly long and complex, though. 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Franc. Again, amazing value for your money. 85p.

Unfortunately, the Swedish Systembolaget doesn’t have loads of these lesser Bordeauxs. But it’s really worth looking into their e-store (“Beställningssortimentet”) for gems. There’s lots of of them, and you’ll have your e-order sitting in your store of choice within a couple of days. Use the state monopoly to your advantage!

2003 Tour du Sème from St-Émilion is a completely different ball game, in particular when it comes to complexity. It certainly seems to be affected by Brettanomyces, the tiny yeast which is so helpful when it comes in small doses. The wine really reeks of stable. There’s also sensations of tobacco and leather. It is very balanced and elegant with a nearly perfect balance striked between fruits and tannins. It’s a masterpiece in its price range, I paid €20. It just comes to show that you should buy Bordeaux and have them cellared. There is so much to gain in the wines; I strongly doubt that this particular wine possessed this complexity as a baby. 91p.

Domain Pegau from Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a highly esteemed producer. Certainly one of the best in the area and, judging by the extremely high marks awarded in wine reviews, this may very well be one of the best producers period. They generally make three red cuveés: the Réservée and the Laurence is made basically every year, and are the same wines with the difference that the Laurence is kept in wooden cask for another 18-24 months. The prestige cuvée da Capo is made in exceptional years only. To my knowledge, the da Capo is the only wine to ever have scored a full 100 points by Robert Parker in all its vintages so far (1998, 2000, 2003 and 2007).

Their “standard” cuvée – 2007 Domaine Pegau Réservée – is great, but then 07 is considered an exceptional year in the Southern Rhône. This is truly an amazing CNdP. I aired it for an hour, and perhaps it would fare even better with another couple of hours, because this is essentially a powerful wine in a typically powerful vintage. It will certainly improve in another couple of years or even in five, ten or fifteen years. This wine really packs punches and is truly old-school. Not very fruit-driven. Very dense on the nose with fresh herbs, spices minerals and dark fruit. Compact on the palate but still manages to open up and is long and complex and the taste of licorice and garrigue is just magnificent. There is so much going on here. Balanced but still slightly to noisy. Intense. This may be the best CNdP I’ve ever had. Luckily I have another five bottles, but I will stuff them in the cellar for another two or three years. At 450 SEK, this is still good value for money. For the same money in Bordeaux, Burgundy, Piemonte, Tuscany or California you rarely get 94p.

Me and my wife also had a
1998 Grand-Puy-Lacoste from Pauillac. This is really an old Bordeaux fifth-growth work horse; it always manages to deliver and I don’t think this wine have ever disappointed me. Normally this is as typical a Pauillac as a wine gets with a black currant nose and a chewy, big and dense body. However, this being a 1998, there is not much fruit left, but spices, pencil shavings, cedar tree, game and leather. It can certainly be attributed other characteristics than its ordinary ones due to 13 years of maturation. This is what you really appreciate about a nice Bordeaux. Powerful, spicy, full-bodied and long. I bought this years ago via a negociant (Beyerman) in Bordeaux. Still four bottles left! However, it surfaced at the Systembolaget the other year for about 600 SEK. 90p.