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@wineex
The May Stock Report! New online, clickable version -- http://bit.ly/1K27sDn
Sometimes there are deals just too good to pass up. This is one of those times.
First, let’s talk vintage.
“The 2009 is my all-time favorite Bordeaux vintage, and most of those wines will hit their full peak when I’m pushing up daisies. Nevertheless, what a great, great vintage. It is similar in style to 1982, but even richer, with a stricter, more consistent selection by most of the châteaux.” – Robert Parker
Enough said.
Next let’s talk place.
Pessac-Leognan is one of the premier appellations in Bordeaux and Smith Haut Lafitte is one of its premier chateau. In 2009, Smith Haut Lafitte scored a perfect 100 points from Robert Parker, the same score given to Haut Brion and La Mission Haut Brion. Smith Haut Lafitte 2009 currently retails for $270 a bottle.
Now, let’s talk turkey.
The 2009 Le Petit Haut Lafitte is the second wine of Smith Haut Lafitte in their perfect 100 point harvest. It is a true second wine of the chateau, yet is only 1/8th the price.
Made exclusively from estate fruit, Smith Haut Lafitte’s 2009 Le Petit Haut Lafitte Rouge was produced and aged with just as much care as lots that went into the grand vin. The winemaking techniques were identical.
It’s 55% Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% Merlot from the same yields and harvest as Smith Haut Lafitte. Only in the cellar is the wine finally divided.
Let’s talk taste.
The wine is screaming right now. Whenever we put this wine in the hands of even the most discerning palates, they all come back for more. Wine critic James Suckling gave it one of his top second wine scores of the vintage writing, “Gorgeous nose of sous bois, spices, chocolate, and meat follows through to a full body, with velvety tannins and a long caressing finish. Elegant with beautiful length. 93 points.”
That’s only two points lower than the second wine of Haut Brion, Clarence de Haut Brion, a wine we sold out of at $145 a bottle.
It’s within a point of the second wine of La Mission, La Chapelle de la Mission, which sells for $100 a bottle
So let’s talk price.
The 2009 Petit Haut Lafitte Pessac-Leognan is just $34.98. That’s a third the price of La Chapelle de La Mission and a quarter the price of Clarence! Folks, to get a wine of this caliber at this price at this stage of the game, from Parker’s “all-time favorite Bordeaux vintage” is nearly impossible.
Why buy this wine:
Second wine to the 100 point 2009 Smith Haut Lafitte
Made identically to the Grand Vin from the same vineyard by the same winemaking team
93 points James Suckling
A stunning wine for a great price – you need it in your life!
A true must-have. We’ll even sweeten the pot and knock 10% off your purchase of 12 bottles or more for the next 72 hours. We want people walking out with cases, not bottles. Use the coupon code ‘smith’ at checkout.
I know some of this wine will be finding its way into our personal stash…
Our Wine Exchange #EnPrimeur continues! Waking up in the mornings to see what’s newly released in Bordeaux never gets old ... http://www.winex.com/2014bordeaux.html
One of the most enlightening wine experiences Kyle has ever had. That's really saying something given he's tasted at least 70,000-80,000 wines!
Jura Juggernaut Jean-Francois Bourdy is in the house! Over 500 years of history
It Has Begun: 2014 Bordeaux Futures at Wine Exchange! 2014 is a fascinating vintage and there is a reason for this phenomenon - http://bit.ly/1zDd4uP
New video featuring famed Winemaker Eben Sadie! Described as South Africa's first certified celebrity winemaker and by supporters as "one of the greatest and most original winemakers in the southern hemisphere."
The NEW clickable Stock Report! “... a way to call attention to some of the kitschy little finds we can’t market through emails. This gives us an avenue to talk about these cool, limited, sometimes geeky discoveries that don’t necessarily lend themselves to broadcast offers.”
Our Champagne deal of 2014 is back! The well on exceptional quality, value Champagne has run a bit dry recently so we went back to our distributors to see if there was any more of one of our favorite finds of last year. We got the green light so we're re-introducing it to you at the same hot price as our original offer.
For those of you unfamiliar with this compelling Champagne deal, here is our original piece from one year ago:
Raising the Cote des Bar. I had that line all prepped for the leader to this piece, until I found out Champagne guru Peter Liem had already used it in a Wine & Spirits article detailing just how exciting this once-forgotten Champagne region has become.
The Cote des Bar is way down south, at the very bottom of Champagne, technically probably closer to Chablis than downtown Epernay. For years the region was the home of only one well-known producer of note, Drappier.
I love Drappier’s wines. They age superbly, always deliver on the pleasure front, and are always fairly-priced. But, to be honest, at the time I first started enjoying them I didn’t even know the winery was located in Bar.
Then, I started seeing the name more. Specifically with some of the hottest new Grower Champagnes hitting the market.
Vouette & Sorbée? Cote des Bar
Marie Courtin? Cote des Bar
Cedric Bouchard? Cote des Bar
Jacques Lassiagne? Cote des Bar
Dosnon & Lepage? Cote des Bar
Boerl & Kroff? Cote des Bar
Are you getting the picture? Hot producer after hot producer, all from the Cote des Bar.
Why?
My thoughts? Twofold. First, it really is warmer here. This allows for the fruit to ripen fully, making it an option for many of these producers to follow their muse, making wines with less sugar added at bottling, what they call a lower dosage, making for a purer style of Champagne that accentuates terroir.
It’s much tougher to do up north. Easier down south.
Second, the vineyards can be grown with a minimal amount of chemicals. The warmer and drier the area, less chance of some disease ruining the crop and/or the vines. Thus, healthier, cleaner vineyards for healthier, cleaner grapes. Many of these producers are converting or have converted to biodynamic viticulture. Tougher to do the further north you go.
All this is the big set up for today’s offer. Champagne Moutard is an absolute godsend for lovers of Champagne that want to have the ultimate Grower experience from one of the up and coming regions in Champagne, but don’t have the scratch (or don’t want to spend it) on a bottle of some of these ‘cult’ bubbles.
Moutard uses fruit exclusively from their 10-20 year old Pinot Noir vines in the Cote des Bar for both of their cuvees and all aging is done in-house with a minimum of three years prior to bottling.
We were shocked at how good these wines were for the money. Staggering! We had to confirm with the sales rep that the prices shown to us were for 12 bottle, not six bottle, cases!
The Grand Cuvee non-vintage is a delight. The wine has clarity and precision considering its Cote des Bar roots, and sparkles and shines in the glass. Full of fruit (a Bar signature) the wine radiates joy and good times, but something more serious lurks underneath. If you wanted to put this one in a tasting with wines that were 2-3 times the price I think you’d be shocked at the results.
Scores? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Champagne at this price score 90 points from Spectator, Advocate, Galloni and International Wine Cellar. Good Lord! How much more palate-recognition does one need? Literally the whole wine world loves this stuff! And at $24.98 I love it even more…
For how good the Grand Cuvee is their Rosé de Cuvaison is equally as great! It’s 100% Pinot Noir and produced in the trickier, more hands-on saignée style (the bleeding of the vats) as opposed to the more practical addition of still Pinot Noir to fix color and flavor.
Everything about this pink bubbly screams ‘artisan’, except the price. It has gorgeous strawberry and herb flavors wrapped around a crisp, medium-bodied frame. Antonio Galloni said, “Richness and sophistication meld together beautifully here. “ and called the wine a “standout”. We 100% agree.
These are by far the Best Champagne values in the market. It is hard enough to get anything ’decent’ under $30 on the shelf let alone something of this caliber from a dedicated grower.
Start putting your late spring/ early summertime Bubbly plans together now, and start with Moutard…
“This exceptional value wine may well be the best deal in Italian wine today.” – Monica Larner, Wine Advocate
That pretty resounding statement applied to the 2011 Corvina Scaia from Tenuta Sant’Antonio, an amazing $10 bottle of wine that she rated 90 points.
We’re finding out that Monica is pretty stingy with the 90’s if you’re juice is under $15. This was one of the true anomalies in her reports.
So, if the new 2012 Corvina Scaia from Tenuta Sant’Antonio received 90 points from her again, is it apropos to assume that the same words apply?
We think so. Actually, we know so. This wine is every bit that 2011 and maybe a bit more.
Stylistically we’d have to put it in the same camp as the Rompicollo 2012 from Tommasi we sold a few weeks back. Which is a wonderful thing. This current trend toward wines that are casually influenced by these producer’s Amarone wines with their deeper fruit cores and fleshier textures is one that we can really appreciate.
Honestly, in this price range there are a number of Italian wines south of $15 that are too sharp, too tangy, too lacking in pleasure. I’ve tasted hundreds, if not thousands of them.
This wine is different. It’s seamless, round, polished, dense in fruit, rich in flavor, but not ‘heavy’. The wine is picked ripe then fermented and aged exclusively in stainless steel. No wood chips, no ‘magic’ in the cellar. Just ripe, delicious Corvina fruit.
Actually, from Monica’s scores it appears she was even more ecstatic when tasting this wine. She writes, “The 2012 Corvina Scaia is an unbelievable deal, and a wine that can be purchased by the case-load for those informal occasions at home when a simple glass of red wine accompanies you as you cook dinner or watch television. This is the ultimate downtime wine. The fruit is fresh and bright with white cherry, cassis, sweet almond and freshly milled white pepper. Its appearance is compact with a light ruby hue. 90 points.”
Don’t know about you but I could use a couple of cases of the “ultimate downtime wine”, couldn’t you?
Come and get it…
Roche de Bellene founder Nicolas Potel is the son of Gerard Potel, the former owner of Domaine de la Pousse d’Or in Volnay, one of Burgundy’s finest estates. When the domain was sold in the 90’s Nicolas, with wine coursing through his vines, established his own line of negociant (using purchased fruit) and estate-bottled wines under the Nicolas Potel label and then, later, as Maison Roche de Bellene.
In Burgundy, Nicolas knows people. He’s a homer, and has spent his whole life tasting wine in the cellars of all the top Burgundy growers, knowing which one’s vineyards and/or wines ‘make the cut’ over time. He’s an Insider’s Insider and that has allowed him to source some pretty phenomenal wines at really attractive prices.
He’s also a restless spirit, always pushing. That applies to the work he’s doing on multiple fronts, be it his library release Bellenum Collection, his Roche de Bellene line or his own estate-bottled wines.
Dude is workin’!
And he’s progressive. Anything you want to know about the unreal Burgundy deal on today’s offer you can simply find out by reading the side label on the bottle.
Who else in Burgundy does this?
Then again, who else is pimping a 2010 vintage Old Vines cuvée of Savigny-les-Beaune when everyone else is running out their 2012’s and 2013’s?
Yup, you guessed it. Nicolas Potel.
Some of you may remember the exquisite 2010 Bourgogne Rouge Vieilles Vignes we sold from Roche de Bellene a year or so ago. This wine is better. Quite a bit better.
The 2010 Nicolas Potel Savigny-Les-Beaune Vieilles Vignes is a stellar Pinot Noir buy for a number of reasons. Among them:
The great 2010 Burgundy vintage. Destined to go down as one of the finest of all time.
This wine comes from 45-58 year-old vines. That’s old, folks.
The wine was harvested by hand and fermented using only native yeasts, with no fining whatsoever, and only a dollop of new oak.
All of this leads to a wine that should conceivably sell for quite a bit more than the price we are running today.
Oh yeah, almost forgot how it tastes!
Gorgeous. We have the freshness and intense concentration of 2010 allied with the density that only half-century old vines could provide, in conjunction with a soft winemaking hand. Loads of fruit, ripe, gentle tannins, very drinkable now, but that bag of cherries will bring more joy after a half dozen years in the cellar.
It’s simply the perfect Burgundy at the absolutely perfect price.
If you’re looking for more ‘love’, Stephen Tanzer noted it had, “Dark aromas of cassis, licorice, violet and mint. Penetrating and delineated, showing a light touch to its intense if slightly lean dark fruit and spice flavors. Finishes with very good grip and length.”
Yeah, that sounds good…especially at this price.
Burgundy fans rejoice. You’re getting your cake and eating it too, thanks to ‘Nicky’ Potel…
I love Petite Sirah. Always have.
I also love its story. Petite Sirah (or, as it’s technically named, Durif) was this wonderful accident. A ‘love child’, born in the 1860’s after a random ‘cross-pollination’ (if you catch my drift) between Peloursin and Syrah vines housed in the vine nursery of French botanist Francois Durif, thus that catchy name.
Almost immediately the grape found its way here to California, having been first planted in the 1880’s. Farmers loved its big color and big everything, using it as a prime blending component for a number of years in many of Napa’s earliest and greatest wines.
Though it fell out of vogue in the ‘technocrat’ winemaking 1980’s, it quickly found its way back by the 1990’s, when wineries like Ravenswood, DeLoach, Rosenblum, Biale, Turley and so many more helped to rejuvenate these old vine vineyards, of which Petite Sirah was a big part, saving them from the bulldozers.
It was also in the 1990’s that many Cabernet producers found out that a little ‘Pets’, as the locals call it, can go a long way. There’s been many a 95 point Cabernet turned into a 97 point Cabernet with a percent or two of ‘stealth’ Petite kicked into the mix!
Accordingly, prices on grapes from the top Petite Sirah vineyards have skyrocketed as Napa’s finest Cab producers have put the pressure on. Thus, it’s hard making really outstanding Petite Sirah without charging big bucks.
Rob Mondavi Jr., son of Michael Mondavi, is also a huge fan of Petite. He loves it so much that in 2009 he launched his Spellbound Petite Sirah Napa Valley Reserve, sourced exclusively from the family’s hillside Oso Vineyard, as an homage to the classic Petite Sirah wines that helped to establish the Napa valley as a force decades ago.
This is a gorgeous, powerful, monster wine that harkens back to Napa’s old days. It is literally black as night, bubbling over with perfectly ripe blackberry and blueberry flavors, minerals, and intriguing florality that takes this one over the top. The grape’s signature tannic backbone is there but meshed together nicely with all that fruit and ‘stuff’, manicured by some really nice French oak.
Rob obviously knows his Petite. This is one of the finest I’ve tasted from the valley and I’ve had most of ‘em.
It’s why we were so excited when this deal came through.
This wine retails for $45 on the winery’s website but we were able to cut a deal to get it down to $24.98 at Wine Exchange. That’s already 45% off!
But, for a limited time, if you log in and checkout with the wine in your cart on winex.com you’ll have the chance to buy the wine at an even better price that you won’t believe (the super low price shows up at the end of the checkout process).
It’s simply too low for us to publish. Regardless, when you see it we think you’ll be very happy.
A fantastic opportunity to capture a little bit of Napa history at an incredible price…
If the temps combined with the glorious sunshine are any indication. Spring has sprung here in SoCal and, with it, comes the first yearnings for white wine.
But not just any white wine, let’s celebrate with some seriously tasty white wine.
I’m talking Premier Cru White Burgundy level gear at not-so-Premier Cru prices.
Today it’s Last Call for some of you First Call for many of you, on a quintet of remarkable whites from the Maconnais.
The Maconnais is located in the far south if Burgundy, just north of Beaujolais. At the heart of the Maconnais, dead center, lies the areas of Pouilly Fuisse, St. Veran and, just to the north of those two areas, the newer appellation of Vire-Clesse.
The vines here are old, the soils, pure, the farming meticulous, the winemaking clean and conscientious.
People are really taking notice. The Macconais is starting to take a bite off the plate of even the most prominent of neighboring villages like Meursault, Puligny-Montrachet, and Chassagne-Montrachet. The result of all this? Some of the greatest Chardonnay you’ll ever drink at more than reasonable value.
Domaine de la Croix Senaillet’s 2012 St. Veran Les Rochats is from a 5 acre vineyard on the border of Solutré-Pouilly. Croix Senaillet’s parcel is a patch of 50 year-old Chardonnay located on stony, well-drained soils. Proprietor Richard Martin says this site gives the most complex and refined of this power trio.
Neal Martin noted it, “…has quite a complex bouquet that you have to really pause while nosing, with subtle notes of white chocolate and dandelion infusing the citrus lemon and dried apricot aromas. The palate is crisp and fresh with a fine thread of acidity and great tension on the finish. 92 points.”
Their 2012 St. Veran Les Pommards comes from one of the most storied vineyards in the region. Savvy drinkers of white Burgundy will recognize the name as it’s the only parcel of St. Veran bottled separately by the great Domaine Robert-Denogent. Croix Senaillet’s vines are 40 years old and work hard ripening fruit in the shallow, limestone-rich soils of this cru. The wines from here are more generous, with a fabulous candied lemon meringue quality that fleshes out this vineyard’s stonier nuances.
Martin’s note: “It has a brisk bouquet with attractive scents of citrus lemon, white flowers and just a faint hint of sweet nougat/white chocolate that lends a touch of exoticism. The palate is well-balanced with crisp acidity and plenty of substance. It is tightly wound at the moment, the finish rather closed, but there is certainly good intensity here with a touch of white pepper lingering on the aftertaste. 91 points.”
The 2012 St. Veran Sur-la-Carriere is considered perhaps the finest of these three very special sites. It’s a tiny (less than an acre) plot of 50 year-old vines on the edge of an old limestone quarry (carriere) which gives a more intense minerality to the wine. Only a scant 800 bottles or so are produced every vintage.
Neal Martin writes, “This has always been one of my go-to Saint Veran wines and the 2012 does not disappoint. It has a detailed bouquet with subtle scents of lemon curd, white peach and touches of yellow flower that blossom in the glass. The palate is very well-balanced with crisp acidity, great tension, well-integrated oak and a very harmonious, saline finish that lingers long in the mouth and begs another sip. This is an utterly delectable Saint Veran. 92 points.”
Then there’s the great Daniel Barraud’s 2012 Pouilly Fuissé Alliance Vergisson. It’s exactly what the name implies, an alliance of several parcels from the outstanding Vergisson section of Pouilly Fuissé, all from 40-60 year old vines. It’s the perfect opportunity to taste for yourself that wicked combination of power, precision, finesse and sense of place at a pretty remarkable price. Allen Meadows noted its “…solid concentration and an abundance of dry extract on the seductively textured, lush and fleshy medium weight flavors that possess average depth at present but very fine length.”
A step up, Barraud’s 2012 Pouilly Fuissé En Bulands Vieilles Vignes is awesome. A wine of even greater power and tension that begs for a year or two in the cellar to allow this cuvée, sourced from 78 year-old vines, to collect its thoughts and unleash them upon the world.
From Allen Meadows, “…elegant and pure aromas of apple, citrus zest, acacia blossom and spice are easily appreciated. As is often the case this is a big, powerful and seriously concentrated effort that oozes mouth coating dry extract before culminating in a dry but not really austere finish that delivers strikingly good length…excellent.”
Martin wrote, “It has a sensual bouquet with touches of white chocolate, nutmeg and orange rind that is reticent at first, but soon develops great intensity with minimal encouragement. The palate is very well-balanced with touches of mandarin, orange zest and a hint of nutmeg. It is very well-defined with a powerful and intense finish that lingers on and on in the mouth. 93 points”
Finally, we’re featuring Guillemot-Michel’s astounding 2013 Vire-Clesse. This wine, in plain wine talk, is flat-out sick. How they can extract this outrageous candied lemon peel thing, the richness, the intensity of flavor, the lemon meringue and citrus, and still build so much minerality into the wine is simply beyond me. The wine is 100% Chardonnay and goes through 100% malolactic fermentation with no use of oak. The vines average 45 years of age and are farmed biodynamically, with a typical yield of only 2.5 tons per acre. There are only a handful of great producers in Vire-Clesse, Guillemot-Michel is one of them and the wine should not be missed. Astounding!
“The Tous Ensemble range delivers outstanding value…” – Antonio Galloni
“Readers on a budget should be sure to check out the Tous Ensemble range, as those wines deliver tremendous quality for the money.” – Antonio Galloni
Hmmm. I think Galloni digs Copain’s Tous Ensemble wines.
And why not? They are terrific everyday wines from a winery that does not produce everyday wine.
Wells Guthrie, founder/winemaker of Copain, has finally found his mojo, his way, his raison d’etre, and we’re reaping the benefits.
He started out making ‘big’ wines, built to impress the press. He stopped that a few years ago. Now, while his wines do not want for weight, they are certainly more refined, layered and built for the dinner table.
Wells cut his teeth working with the great Michel Chapoutier, essentially learning from one of the best. When he returned home, his heart was still in the northern Rhone, but the sunny California terroir didn’t necessarily compute when it came to his idea of Condrieu and Cote Rotie in the North coast. It’s a bit warmer here, a bit sunnier, the wines have more fruit, more richness.
It took Wells a little time to figure it out but, when he did, boom. Not BOOM, because that would imply bigness, but boom, which implies balance and a quiet richness.
The 2013 Copain Tous Ensemble Anderson valley Chardonnay is sourced from two very special vineyards in the Anderson Valley. The Ferrington Vineyard came to prominence when the gang at Williams-Selyem started making some terrific single vineyard wines from this site. And, some of you may recognize the DuPratt Vineyard as the source of some of Jed Steele’s finest Chardonnay he ever produced.
Wells combines the reticence of Ferrington with the fruit of DuPratt, ages it all in neutral French oak, and produces a remarkable bottle of citrus and honeysuckle-tinged Chardonnay that can go toe-to-toe with names costing twice as much. The alcohol’s a modest 13.1% but the wine is perfectly ripe.
The 2012 Copain Tous Ensemble Mendocino Syrah is terrific. For you Francophiles, this is a wine to buy by the case. It’s full of spicy, white pepper-laden black fruits. Punchy, medium-weight, the wine, like the Chardonnay, sees no new oak, only older French barrels.
The wine is sourced mainly from the High Rock, Hawks Butte and Halcon Vineyards, from which Copain produces a number of single vineyard offerings. Again, at 13.5% alcohol, this one will perk you up, not drag you down.
Today we’re offering both of these super-tasty wines with a special incentive to make this one your house wine.
Order a mixed six bottles or more of Tous Ensemble and we’ll happily include ground shipping anywhere in the continental US (where allowed) at no additional charge. Just use the coupon code ‘copain’ at checkout!
Now that’s a deal…
We’re all looking for a deal. Doesn’t matter how much money you do or don’t have. We are all on the search for “the” wine shop. You know the one.
Another wonderful surprise from South Africa.
If SA keeps this up I may eventually have to road trip down there just to see what the heck is going on!
Then again, I don’t know if I’d want to if I had to deal with…
“Our isolated farm is high up on the edge of a Wilderness Nature Reserve…The site is very challenging with bush fires, extreme weather, wild animals and natural dangers ever present during the growing season. It feels like we are on the fringes of the frontier.”
Fire, lions, heat stroke, frostbite, poison oak, isolation. Sounds faaaan-tastic!
Maybe I’ll just hang out here and crack another bottle of these exceptional Fable Mountain Vineyards wines instead. Safer…and certainly less time-consuming than the 2 day plane trip…Tulbagh?
I guess it shows just what a madman the very busy Charles Banks is. Seems he wasn’t happy enough with just hanging out at his properties in California (Mayacamas, Qupé, Wind Gap, etc) or reminiscing on his past acquisitions and sales (Jonata, Screaming Eagle). Nope, old Charles had to go and buy himself a couple of South African wineries. One, Mulderbosch, we’ve already talked about in these pages. The other, Fable Mountain Vineyards, we had not…until now.
This was the quieter of the two South African acquisitions by Charles and his team, though it’s most certainly the louder when it comes to the quality of the wine.
There’s a reason why somebody put this vineyard out in the middle of nowhere with snakes, lions, leopards, caracals (look that one up), baboons and fires. Because it’s some seriously rocking dirt for growing grapes. Little topsoil and a base of ancient vertical shale provide a mineral-rich, nutrient-poor foundation for these vines to struggle in, coaxing all the stony goodness out of the soil they possibly can.
The winery produces two wines from their estate Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre vineyards, with a third, the Jackal Bird white, sourced from top sites around the Western Cape.
The 2012 Jackal Bird White is a blend of 45% Chenin Blanc, 20% Grenache Blanc, 17% Roussanne, 9% Chardonnay and 9% Viognier. In my mind, winemakers Rebecca Tanner and Paul Nicholls have constructed this wine as the prototypical South African white Rhone blend (whatever that may be!) with a classic Swartland/Cape Chenin edge to it. I’d describe it as a cross between something Eben Sadie or Mulderbosch would craft with a strong hint of Beaucastel’s Chateauneuf Blanc. I know, that sounds wine dork-y.
Neal Martin’s tasting note was nearly spot-on when he wrote, “It has a light fresh pear and wet-rock-scented bouquet that just needs a little more vigor (perhaps a conflict of several grape varieties.) The palate is crisp on the entry with touches of quince and lemon curd, a fine line of acidity and plenty of freshness toward the finish that just needs a touch more persistence.”
My only difference in opinion is that, to me, the wine had all the ‘vigor’ it required, and then some. A terrific South African white.
The winery’s 2011 Night Sky Rhone Blend is 60% Syrah, 25% Mourvedre form their estate and 15% Grenache, a part of which comes from the Swartland. I was really impressed by the deep yet light-handed touch of this one, with nary a hint of that South African ‘iodine and grill’ character that marks so many of these wines. Great purity of fruit here.
Neal wrote, “The nose needs some encouragement, but it is worth the effort with some gorgeous blackberry and mulberry aromas emerging, interlaced with white pepper and fennel. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, fleshy in the mouth with sweet, ripe cassis and blackcurrant toward the finish. What a delightful wine to enjoy over the next 4 or 5 years. 92 points.”
Finally there’s the winery’s spellbinding 2011 Syrah. What a wine. I would actually risk a leopard attack to grab a case of this stuff.
Neal writes, “The first word that springs to mind on the nose is “Clape” – a Cornas doppelganger that has wonderful definition. The palate is very intense and minerally, with layers of ripe blackberry, cassis and white pepper and enormous structure on the salted licorice finish that manages to maintain finesse. This is one of the best South African Syrah that I tasted during my tasting – bravo. 94 points.”
“Clape”?
“…one of the best South African Syrah that I tasted during my tasting”?
Serious words, for serious wines.
We bought all there was. Quantities are tiny. What you don’t buy, me and the baboons are going to split…
It’s ‘Last Call’ on a wine that was a constant source of consternation for years.
I can’t tell you how many times customers of ours would come back from a trip to Bordeaux, having visited all the top chateaux, but with only one wine on their mind.
Pauillac de Chateau Latour.
How can I get some? We had it at the Chateau and it was like drinking a much more approachable bottle of Chateau Latour at 1/15th the price!”
We would inquire for our customers through the many top wine merchants we work with in Bordeaux and the answer would be the same…. “sorry, not available”. For years, due to the fact it’s the smallest production wine in the Latour line-up, it was only obtainable from the chateau by a few exclusive accounts throughout the world. It was almost mythological in its rarity in the United States. People had heard of the third wine from Chateau Latour but had never actually seen a bottle unless they actually visited the place… us included!
After years of inquiry (most certainly by more than a few American retailers), Chateau Latour recently relented (for want of a better word) and decided to send a small amount of Pauillac de Chateau Latour to the U.S., of which we are one of the fortunate few to receive an allocation.
What is Pauillac de Chateau Latour? I guess, technically, you could say it is indeed the third wine of Chateau Latour but in fact the story is a little more interesting than that.
Basically, the vineyard at the heart of Chateau Latour is called the l’Enclos, which is the 100 or so acres of vines directly around the winery. The vineyards adjacent to the l’Enclos go into the production of Les Forts de Latour, which is Latour’s second wine.
As many Bordeaux aficionados know, Les Forts now could be considered a second growth in its own right, with a $250 price tag to match! And we’re sure the young vines from the heart of Latour find their way into that wine in addition to the parcels surrounding the l’Enclos.
The wine is made in the same facility, by the same winemaking team, following the same brilliant quality control that makes a wine like Chateau Latour so incredible.
Pauillac de Latour is more than a little piece of the Chateau Latour experience at a ‘bargain’ price. All the classic lead pencil, cassis, crushed rock, power and intensity is there, but the usual addition of an extra dollop of Merlot makes for a more accessible wine. But undeniably, very Latour!
Considering that Chateau Latour consistently makes what many collectors consider the greatest red wine in the world (and the fact that 2009 was one of the greatest vintages ever for the estate with multiple 100 point scores), I’d propose that having a little ‘Latour Light’ at $90 as opposed to the Grand Vin at $1500 would be a real no-brainer.
Kyle chats Stelvin, Diam, and corked wine with Andy Harris of the SoCal Restaurant Show on KLAA AM 830 radio.