WTN: Chateauneufs Beaucastel, Mont Olivet, Sabon, Grand Veneur

Short notes from an all Cheteauneuf du Pape lunch at La Cabanne French restaurant. Wines graciously provided by Jojo.

Chateau de Beaucastel 1999 - Chocolate and leather nose. Very young, tannic, full. Lots of sweet ripe fruit and a bit of menthol. Preserved Chinese plums as well. Well balanced and seamless. Going back an hour and a half after opening, there was a pronounced acidity coming through in the finish which seemed jarring to me. Still, excellent wine.

Clos du Mont Olivet Selection Reflets 1998 - Floral nose. A lightweight wine and a bit musty. A bit of chocolate comes out after some airing. Dry. A little sour berry candy flavor also coming out of this. Better with food but not too interesting.

Roger Sabon Cuvee Prestige 2003 - Cherries. Rather soft. A deep, meaty wine. Substantial. Long, sweet finish. Already good to drink but needs time to develop. It seems like there's more stuff locked up in this.

Domaine Grand Veneur Les Origines 1998 - Smells like my dad's machine shop - oil, metal, wood shavings. Soft and drinking perfectly now. Has a long finish that seems to alternate between sweet and dry, strangely enough. At first, most of us didn't particularly care for this wine but some air gave it depth and character.

All the wines were quite good except for the Mont Olivet which showed weakest in this company. The Beacastel was probably the favorite although towards the end of the meal, the acidity caused it to suffer a bit while the Sabon and Grand Veneur were developing more depth and character.

A very good tasting which prompted Jojo to promise the group a taste of some Pegau da Capo next time.

Clos du Mont Olivet Selection Reflets 1998 - Floral nose. A lightweight wine and a bit musty. A bit of chocolate comes out after some airing. Dry. A little sour berry candy flavor also coming out of this. Better with food but not too interesting.

Interesting. I don't drink lots of Chateauneuf, but the bottle I had last month was not lightweight, musty, or sour, and while I don't know what the level of rs was, I would hesitate to proclaim "dry" as a prominent feature of its relatively rich mouthfeel.

Bottle variation?

[David M. Bueker]

Well there's no RS in the Mont-Olivet, or not enough to be tasteable RS. It is a dry wine, but there's plenty of that '98 ripe fruit.

I will say that Jay's bottle does not sound representative. I've had much better results with the '98 and '99 recently.

Thanks for your observations. Knowing what a great year '98 was for Chateauneuf, I was a bit surprised by how this turned out. All of us at lunch agreed, though, that this wine was a lightweight. I'm not sure if it just suffered in comparison to the other bottles or if the bottle was flawed. Maybe I'll ask Jojo if he's up to opening another bottle to find out.

As to the RS bit, my candy comment didn't mean the wine was sweet. It just reminded me of sour candy in dark berry flavors like blackberry or cassis.

As to the RS bit, my candy comment didn't mean the wine was sweet..

I know. I was more responding to your descriptor of "dry" - because while the wine is probably technically dry, to me it had so much ripe sweet fruit that one could be forgiven for thinking that it did have rs. Hence my suspicion that your bottle was off.

Thank you, Jay, for the notes. The Manila group continues to drink very well.
I have a few of the 99 Beaucastel that I haven’t had since about 4 or 5 years ago and which I will hold off based on your datapoint.

Ramon

Hi Mon,

There's a possibility I might be in New York around the end of June or beginning of July. Perhaps we can meet up and share a few bottles then. I'll let you know when my schedule is firmed up.

Jay

Sounds good, Jay. Let me know of your schedule when you know it.

RC