91 Jaboulet CH Thalabert

B

BJ

BJ
Geez. Remind me next time I open something like this to pull out the boar instead of buying a rotisserie chicken.

Just delicious. Really serious wine well into solid CR or Hermitage territory. Great layers of earth, meat, green, smoke, and super acids. 91 was just such a good year. Wonderful old viney complexity. Cool toned, well rounded, and classic.

I paid some ridiculously low price for this, somewhere, fairly recently. Why did they sell it? Perceived leftover cellar scum? Low Parker score? Parker note from 10 years ago says Maturity: Now? It's just such a mystery to me. Do people not love wine?
 
originally posted by BJ:
91 Jaboulet CR ThalabertGeez. Remind me next time I open something like this to pull out the boar instead of buying a rotisserie chicken.

Just delicious. Really serious wine well into solid CR or Hermitage territory. Great layers of earth, meat, green, smoke, and super acids. 91 was just such a good year. Wonderful old viney complexity. Cool toned, well rounded, and classic.

I paid some ridiculously low price for this, somewhere, fairly recently. Why did they sell it? Perceived leftover cellar scum? Low Parker score? Parker note from 10 years ago says Maturity: Now? It's just such a mystery to me. Do people not love wine?
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Not everyone prizes the same things in wine, fortunately. Your "super acids" might be someone's "tart, shrill, dried up and fruitless." Oh, and Thalabert is a Crozes-Hermitage, is it not, so should be abbreviated "C-H" not "CR"? There is also a widespread belief that Crozes-Hermitage can't age terribly long, with Thalabert being the longtime exception.

Mark Lipton
 
My, right you are. About the CR.

Hillside Crozes ages great, not just Thalabert. There's Crozes, and then there's Crozes.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
There is also a widespread belief that Crozes-Hermitage can't age terribly long, with Thalabert being the longtime exception.

Mark Lipton
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Can't comment on Thalabert, but I did have some '92 Albert Belle Cuvee Louis Belle C-H recently that was really lovely with mature fruit and developed flavours and holding together very well.

Do you have any experience with how the Graillot C-Hs age?

Cheers,

Salil
 
originally posted by Salil Benegal:
originally posted by MLipton:
There is also a widespread belief that Crozes-Hermitage can't age terribly long, with Thalabert being the longtime exception.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...
Can't comment on Thalabert, but I did have some '92 Albert Belle Cuvee Louis Belle C-H recently that was really lovely with mature fruit and developed flavours and holding together very well.

Do you have any experience with how the Graillot C-Hs age?
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Graillot, Belle and Thalabert are my reference point C-Hs, with Graillot at the top of the heap these days. I've aged all of them successfully for 10+ years. Indeed, I was not indicating my own preference but rather what I regard as a categorical dismissal of the AC, which is so misguided for the reason that BJ points out: there's good terroir and bad terroir in the AC so it comes down (surprise!) to location location location.

Mark Lipton
 
I had some '04 CH Belle Cuvee Louis Belle relatively recently and was surprised. It was gorgeous aromatically and had a really nice finish laced with grainy tannins. But it tasted a little dilute: almost no fruit, which is fine (better than too fruity certainly), but also not much else in terms of acid or minerality. Air didn't help it too much, though it did improve with time in the glass.

I was wondering whether the '04 Cuvee Louis Belle is shut down, whether I just had a bad bottle, or just a bad vintage? (or maybe CH isn't my thing?)
 
I've had great Thalabert at ~20 years of age. I think there was a quality dip in the '90s (as with the rest of the portfolio), but even the '97s, which I thought wan and ungiving at release, have been a nice surprise recently. Wasn't so keen on the more recent vintages but will give them about a decade before retrying.
 
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