WTN: Beaucastel for New Years

We got together with friends for a lunch and cribbage game on new year’s eve.

Started out with:

2004 Champalou Vouvray Cuvee des Fondraux - a waxy honeysuckle and honey nose, and quite delightful in the mouth with apples and lively acidity and good length.

Then with local beef, done rare and sliced, served with pasta with an Oregon black truffle sliced over it, a couple of Chateauneufs we’d wanted to revisit:

1995 Ch. de Beaucastel - excellent nose without a hint of brett, based in dark fruit and mushroom and cassis. Classic. Still significant tannin on palate which became even a bit more prominent with time, and very good length. While pleasurable now, it needs time. It was interesting that when I tasted this, I saw no flaws that could compromise a long enjoyable life for the wine. Then we tasted the 98 and both said - Gee - the 95 seems short on fruit now! I don’t think it is, that’s just an impression given by tasting a new style with a traditional style.

1998 Ch. de Beaucastel - totally different nose on this one, and something I don’t recall seeing before on a Beaucastel - pronounced dark chocolate! There is also cassis underneath, that came to the fore as the cocoa slowly abated with airing, but at the beginning if you just nosed this and someone told you it was an American Merlot, you have been in full agreement. The nose picked up some black cherry as well and in the mouth the wine was smooth and supple - surprisingly so, with lower tannin than the 95. This is a pairing I’dlike to repeat in about 5 years to see what these wines are doing.

With cheese, an Italian wine:

1998 Maculan Acininobili - if it matters, this wine is made from 85% Vespaiola, 10% Tocai, and 5% Garganega in Veneto. It showed a lot of colour, about the same as a Malmsey Madeira, and the nose was a sort of rancio thing that was a bit surprising. Not too sweet on palate, it featured orange marmalade flavours and had excellent length. Fascinating wine.

In honor of the occasion, I chose to take my notes with a 1909 Waterman model 52 ½ black hard rubber fountain pen, still working beautifully after a century. Hope we can all say the same thing!

Coop’s cooking was great and he put up a heck of a fight at the crib board. A great way to spend a new year’s eve day!

Thanks for the nice notes, Bill. Just a one thing that struck me as odd:

1995 Ch. de Beaucastel - excellent nose without a hint of brett, based in dark fruit and mushroom and cassis. Classic.

I just wonder, how it can be classic if there is no brett...?

Happy New Year and good luck for the future with your superb fountain pen!
Anders

I just wonder, how it can be classic if there is no brett...?

Anders

It's funny, but I fiond this highly variable. Even 1989 and 1990 have shown bretty or clean on different occasions.


I intend to do a vertical this spring - maybe that will update my notes on those wines.

This was a great way to spend an afternoon before the most over rated night of the year. As Ed MacMahon called it Amateur Night.

Sharon and I had been sick over the holidays and this was the perfect cure.

To compare these two great Beaucastels again was very interesting. The 95 was very traditional and should keep going for a while. The 98 was a huge fruit bomb new age Beaucastel. I think the higher Greanche content Parker and others speak of gives us a wine that shows so rich and voluptuous at this point. I like to think it will continue to inprove over the next 20 or so years.

An article I read by John Gilman speaks of this new style in CdP. I think I can see a more approachable style at Beaucastel starting with the 98. I'm good with it but people like Gilman hate it. I'll need to do more afternoons like this to form an opinion.

Thanks Bill for taking it easy on me at crib. Your wife seems to have picked up the game pretty quickly. Happy New Year!

2004 Champalou Vouvray Cuvée des Fondraux - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Vouvray (1/1/2009)
Clear yellow. Honey, apples and wax. I even thought a bit of mineral. Just beautiful to drink. A bit sweet but lots of acid to balance. I think this wine is a great aperitif and would go well with cheese or white meat.

1995 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (1/1/2009)
Medium red, not as dark as the 98. Very much more traditional Southern Rhone nose. Lots of raspberry, black pepper and earth. Great flavours but not as rich as the 98. Lots of tannin left. There is enough fruit here though after 13 years to hope for more improvment. Just a beautiful Beaucastel. Not in anyway hard or rough. Even when drank next to the voluptuos 98 this was excellent. I see Gilman and Fass both hate this wine. They must have had bad bottles.

1998 Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape - France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape (1/1/2009)
Dark red. Nose is huge, showing dark chocolate, cassis and cherry. No real hint of the gamey Mouvedre or peppery Syrah. The flavours are very rich and there seems to be little in the way of tannins but I'm sure they are there. Long slightly sweet finish. Not in anyway typical of Cdp or Beaucastel at this time. After a few hours in the decanter and glass the nose showed some more cherry and a hint of pepper. It will be interesting to watch this one evolve.

1998 Maculan Acininobili - Italy, Veneto (1/1/2009)
Beautiful aged brown amber. Just a hideous nose though. Bill called it rancio. I call it rotting garbage and bad breath. What happened here. None of the notes I've ever read on this wine mention it. Nice orange flavours and perfect balance but the nose!

Posted from CellarTracker
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David Cooper

2004 Champalou Vouvray Cuvee des Fondraux - a waxy honeysuckle and honey nose, and quite delightful in the mouth with apples and lively acidity and good length.

I used to buy these in the early 2000s but then stopped. Sounds like this was relatively successful for the 'difficult' year. I guess there was some rs? Will you be holding on to more bottles?

Champalou is still in these parts but have passed by. Think I saw a 3rd trie as well as the Brut.

I used to buy these in the early 2000s but then stopped. Sounds like this was relatively successful for the 'difficult' year. I guess there was some rs? Will you be holding on to more bottles?

I'm not cellaring any - this was one of the bottles Dave brought.

I'm cellaring a few of the 05s. I like the drier wines Champalou does. We don't get much selection of Vouvray here.

[David M. Bueker]

The extra Grenache of the '98 Beaucastel has not been repeated since IIRC. The '99 is certainly classic Beaucastel, as is the 2001. The 2000 is quite open and friendly, but then almost all 2000 CNdP is open and friendly.

Really enjoyed the 95 Beaucastel during a Rhone tasting here in NYC last month. I think it has more good things ahead of it with more cellar years. It went head-to-head with the 95 Pegau Reservee which happened to be drinking better that night, imho.

Ramon

Thanks for posting your notes, Bill; coincidentally, a few of us had
excellent examples of the '88 and '90 Beaucastel the other night, as good
as either vintage has ever shown for me.

I've only opened one of my '95s so far, mostly because none of the notes
I'd read over the years indicated it was ready. This bottle, last
Spring, I think, turned out to be very, very good but only by the second
night (decanted on the first night into a 500 ml bottle right up to the
top); the first night it was ok, but still on the hard side.

I agree with David; I'm not sure if Beaucastel has adopted a new style since the 1998
vintage. The 2001 strikes me as pretty classic Beau. Maybe all that
ripeness in 1998 made it an atypical vintage for them.