WTN: Trollat 1994 St Joseph - and Voge

Color is medium garnet, rather dark in the center. Initially, the wine is shy notes only of strawberry and raspberry, with some beeswax. With air and significant coaxing, it opens up to stronger raspberry fruit and spicier notes of freesia (?), lavender, mint. There's some tannin here, more than expected for a '94, but it coexists with enough fat fruit for me. On the palate it's all black raspberry and beef leading into a terrific long finish, with the tannin gently but really coating the mouth, and slowly fading after each sip. Saving 1/2 bottle for Saturday dinner. Bottle 1 of 1, sadly none more.

Finer still on second evening, the Trollat remnants are gloriously open with added fennel and earthy blackberry aromas, and exotic wild raspberry flavors in looser structure. The four of us polished this off while making dinner. Hoo-wah !

We had opened a back-up bottle of another '94 Northern Rhone, the Voge '94 Cuvee Les Viellles Fontaines. As usual for us, the Voge label yielded zilch, being a huge disappointment in the glass. I don't know what is done to this wine or these bottles, but every vintage following '91 is such a consistently simple, boring near-cabernet-lookalike, at premium Cornas prices.

Against vintage pattern, this 1994 remained stiffly acid and tannin bound, giving little pleasure. It showed uniform moderate cranberry color (passes light), with nose compressed of light chocolate-cherry, and offered no complexity in the palate at all. The finish is lightly tannic with no impression of fruit, herbs, oak - or pleasure.

This is bottle six of twelve, and every one from the LVF release (and the 97/98/99 trio as well) has shown exactly the same. Daryl guesses that it's showing dilute due to over-cropping, under-extraction, or over-filtering. I have no idea, but it remembles less a great syrah or Cornas than it does a Kenwood basic Sonoma Valley Cabernet. So, this is it for Voge for us. I'm putting all of the remaining bottles from 1994-1999 up for trade with more appreciative Voge devotees. Life is too short to drink simple wine that is this expensive.

I was lucky enough to have a small Trollat St. Joseph tasting last year of the 88,89, and 94 vintages. My note on the 89 read: An outstanding Saint Joseph, this was the best of a mini-vertical of Trollat's '88, '89, and '94 wines. A nose with depth, mint, eucalyptus, pepper and dark red fruits was followed by an earthy flavor profile which remained light on its feet. Medium bodied, this wine went very well with the dinner, especially with its earthier elements (sauteed kale and garlic, mashed beet and potato with garlic, and surprisingly to me with asparagus). A wonderful food wine, this wine was singing. Drink over the next 2-3 years.
I understand that the vineyards have been taken over by someone else, but don't remember the details. Wonderful wines if you can find them. Jim

Jim,

That Trollat trio tasting experience sounds like a really special experience.

I've been able to find only a few Trollat bottles around here or there myself, and have never seen tastings which promoted him. Got none left now rhough.

I was lucky for a while that my Father-in-law was a TWA pilot (with frequent flights to Europe, Britain and Japan). Until his own recent retirement, he would hunt down a few bottles of Trollat, N. Verset and and M. Juge on his trips. With Trollat and Juge both retired now, their vineyards must have passed to others hands as you say; I wonder what lucky producers have these lands now. I heard however that Cornas micro-producers Allemand, Courbis and Balthazar now have Noel Verset's holdings.

I've been able to find only a few Trollat bottles around here or there myself, and have never seen tastings which promoted him. Got none left now rhough.[...]I heard however that Cornas micro-producers Allemand, Courbis and Balthazar now have Noel Verset's holdings.

Jeff,
Raymond Trollat was imported by Kermit Lynch, who used to promote his St. J's heavily. IIRC, '99 was his last vintage before selling off his vines, so your '94 is close to the end of the run. John Livingstone-Learmonth mentions that Gonon got some of his vines and Claude Kolm says Desesteret got some, too. Certainly, Trollat had great vineyards. Verset still has a small plot, but he did sell off most of his excellent vineyards. I seem to recall that Allemand got his Reynard parcel, and Clape got half his property. 'Tis a shame, as those two made some of the most character-filled Syrahs I've ever had.

Mark Lipton

Yes, the wines full of character, made by real characters themselves by all accounts. I never had the pleasure to meet them.

I 'd read in the LA Time a while back that Bathazar got (some of ?) the Verset old vine Chaillot property and the steeper Sabarottes went to Courbis. It is amazing to think Verset is still farming (hell, call it scaling) anything in Cornas ! He must be nearly ninety.

Kermit Lynch's mailer and order system worked against me on the Trollat every year, and I never was able to actual obtain wine from his miniscule Trollat allocation. Oddly but happily enough though, I was usually able to get all the Verset and Clape (even in big bottles most years) that I could buy, right up through 2001. I am just extremely pleased to be sitting on cases of all the good years from both of those guys and Jasmin too, plus several extra cases of 750s and 1.5ls of Verset's 1991 and 1998. I just love his stuff.