The dwindling bottles of 05 Bassetti

R

Rahsaan

Rahsaan
I opened one of my last bottles of 2005 ESJ Bassetti last night for a friend, hoping to show him the glory, and was disappointed. Over the years I've had 2 types of 05 Bassetti. Some, like this one, were hard dark and minty and not particularly charming. Others showed riper, more complex and more expressive.

Always tough to know if the difference was stages, or something source-related. I bought some on release, some from Steve's later sales, and then some from post-release retail. I never properly labeled which bottle was from which source, and for a while I thought the charmless bottles were the retail ones. But I wouldn't swear to it in a court of law!
 
Sorry to hear that, Rahsaan. My experiences with that wine were uniformly positive (I’m now down to an 05 W-F and 08 Fairbairn among his Syrahs). Like you, I’m bad about noting the source of my wines, a moral failing to be sure.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
Sorry to hear that, Rahsaan. My experiences with that wine were uniformly positive (I’m now down to an 05 W-F and 08 Fairbairn among his Syrahs)...
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Oh wow, lucky you. I do have a high success rate with ESJ overall, perhaps the most variance with 05 Bassetti. (Although it may also be the only wine I've ever bought more than a case of for home consumption, so the number of bottles has been higher)

I finished 05 WF a while ago. I always liked that wine and it didn't seem like it would age as long. But one learns never to doubt these things.
 
I wonder if the hard, minty ones were stored too well, i.e., too cold. At one time, I thought that wine would maybe never soften, but it seems to have. I have only a few bottles left myself.
 
I still have the four bottles I purchased directly from Steve. Based on his earlier assessments, I haven't opened one yet. Sounds like it couldn't hurt to check in on it.
 
originally posted by Larry Stein:
I still have the four bottles I purchased directly from Steve. Based on his earlier assessments, I haven't opened one yet. Sounds like it couldn't hurt to check in on it.
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Wow. So you bought 4 bottles of 2005 Bassetti on release and haven't opened any of them yet?! That's remarkable restraint. I assume you've tasted friends' bottles. I've definitely gotten lots of pleasure from them over the years. I think I have three left, and will hope for the best!
 
I just went to check my basement (last night) and found a bunch of Steve's wines from the early 2000s. Brought up a 2000 California Syrah, it was delicious and not OTH to my taste at all. I also opened a 1999 Graillot Crozes. Brothers from another mother. ESJ had a bit more acidity but not unpleasant.
 
I met Alain Graillot at a dinner in Davis when he was here to participate in a class there on the grape varieties from the Rhone, and he said to me "we've never met but I really like your wines." I told him I had just been thinking of saying the same thing to him. I visited him in Crozes later that year, and was struck by what seemed to be a very similar aesthetic in the aromatic and taste character of both his wines and mine, which I've come to think of as just being the way we each respond to the character of our raw materials that leads to a similar weight, and texture, complexity and balance.

Alain was a really fine person, and was gone far too soon.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
I met Alain Graillot at a dinner in Davis when he was here to participate in a class there on the grape varieties from the Rhone, and he said to me "we've never met but I really like your wines." I told him I had just been thinking of saying the same thing to him. I visited him in Crozes later that year, and was struck by what seemed to be a very similar aesthetic in the aromatic and taste character of both his wines and mine, which I've come to think of as just being the way we each respond to the character of our raw materials that leads to a similar weight, and texture, complexity and balance.

Alain was a really fine person, and was gone far too soon.
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I can see that resemblance, Steve. The only knock of M. Graillot’s wines I’ve ever heard was that he didn’t have the best terroir (though it’s not clear who in Crozes has better — Jaboulet’s Thalabert?) but we certainly have derived much pleasure from his Syrahs. And, indeed, it was a sad day when I learned of his death.

Mark Lipton

ETA: it strikes me that another feature you two had in common was that you both kept your pricing reasonable in an era when most of my other favorite Syrah producers’ (KLWM’s stable, Jamet, Gonon, Allemand) pricing reached stratospheric heights.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
I met Alain Graillot at a dinner in Davis when he was here to participate in a class there on the grape varieties from the Rhone, and he said to me "we've never met but I really like your wines." I told him I had just been thinking of saying the same thing to him. I visited him in Crozes later that year, and was struck by what seemed to be a very similar aesthetic in the aromatic and taste character of both his wines and mine, which I've come to think of as just being the way we each respond to the character of our raw materials that leads to a similar weight, and texture, complexity and balance.

Alain was a really fine person, and was gone far too soon.
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Nice story, and your California Syrah actually changed over the 3 days it took me to finish it. The second day, I didn't pick up the same acidity, the wine was even more a twin of the Graillot. Then the 3rd day, still good, but the last sip was a bit gritty. Very enjoyable and pleasant comparison. Much like when we blinded the fancy French Sommeliers in Lyon on one of your wines around Bocuse D'or time years back. They all wanted to go visit the producer that made it. Until I told them about the 5 hour plane flight.
 
I opened that first bottle of 2005 ESJ Bassetti Syrah tonight. This one was pretty monolithic. The balance is there, no question. You'd think that tasted blind, this would be at most 10 years old. Not as tannic as a young wine, but there are barely any secondary characteristics, both on the nose and palate.

The cork looked new. There was absolutely no wine streaking down the length of the cork.

Based on this bottle, I think Steve is right. It'll outlive us folks who are in our senior years.

About 1/3 of the bottle is left in the decanter. My wife really likes it so it's doubtful there will be any left for tomorrow. I'll check back in 30 minutes or so.
 
I have 4 bottles each of all of Steve's Syrahs back to 2008 and Rocks & Gravel back to 2009. Those 4 bottle lots were what was purchased when those wines were released (5 bottles of '09 R&G). I haven't opened any. I’m gonna start opening a bottle of each. Normally, I wouldn’t because they’re no doubt too young. They are...I’m not...

Then there's that magnum of 2011 R&G...
 
originally posted by Larry Stein:
I have 4 bottles each of all of Steve's Syrahs back to 2008 and Rocks & Gravel back to 2009. Those 4 bottle lots were what was purchased when those wines were released (5 bottles of '09 R&G). I haven't opened any. I’m gonna start opening a bottle of each. Normally, I wouldn’t because they’re no doubt too young. They are...I’m not...

Then there's that magnum of 2011 R&G...
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Let me know if you any help with them, Larry. That might be inducement enough to purchase a plane ticket.

Mark Lipton
 
I honestly never warmed to Graillot's Crozes - agree flatland terroir is not the greatest. His St. Joseph, which I believe I only had once, is a different story.
 
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