'99 Pegau + Boeuf Bourguignon

D

drssouth

Stephen South
With Boeuf Bourguignon from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking

1999 Domaine du Pegau Cuve Rserve, alc 13.5%...nose is of stewed prunes..fairly sweet with a little smoke...on the palate, there is a tiny amount of a metallic taste that disappates as the wine warms...the palate is on the overly sweet side with prunes and chocolate...the finish is fair but a little short...

I'm not sure if this was a problem with this bottle or shared problems from this vintage...no good leather or garrigue notes that I have found in other Pegaus...
Nonetheless...it did well with the great rich dish on a very cold (23 degree) NC night
 
originally posted by drssouth: '99 Pegau + Boeuf Bourguignon
I'm not sure if this was a problem with this bottle
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D, I would think that your bottle was atypical.

Where in NC are you?

. . . . . Pete
 
Hard to tell if it's differing taste or a meandering bottle. I've always liked the 99, as I do the 94, better than most. And the last time I had a bottle (this past fall) it was doing great and I would say, tasting fairly fresh. But if I squinch up my eyes a little bit, I could see someone reacting this way.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Hard to tell if it's differing taste or a meandering bottle. I've always liked the 99, as I do the 94, better than most. And the last time I had a bottle (this past fall) it was doing great and I would say, tasting fairly fresh. But if I squinch up my eyes a little bit, I could see someone reacting this way.
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Hmmm... I'll have to break into my cache and see what I make of it. The few '99s I've had were much to my liking, lighter and fresher than many recent vintages. DrSSouth: which importer brought in your bottle?

Mark Lipton

ETA: I just realized that I brought one to Toledo last year. It was just as one would predict for a '99 Pegau and quite different from what DrSSouth describes.
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
originally posted by drssouth: '99 Pegau + Boeuf Bourguignon
I'm not sure if this was a problem with this bottle
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D, I would think that your bottle was atypical.

Where in NC are you?

. . . . . Pete
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Greensboro (North Carolina)
 
which importer brought in your bottle?

Imported by Bordeaux Wine Locators, Rainier WA,
bought at Seaboard Wine in Raleigh NC
 
99 Pegau Cuve Rserve has been a polarising wine in several threads I can recall over the past few years with some posters finding their bottles bretty to the point of undrinkability. Others found the wine good to very good.

On request Laurence Feraud in October 2007 confirmed to me that there were a minimum of 2 bottlings shipped to US. The first bottling was a regular Cuve Rserve and one later closer in style to Cuve Laurence 99.

Between these bottlings they made one or two that were delivered in Europe.

The threads in the US and UK were both polarised and there was a general conclusion that the main differences in experience were 'lot' dependent. Some attempt was made to check bottles for ink print codes to try to tie things to lots but I cannot recall if that yielded a conclusion. I recall some positive discussion about the wine imported by Dan Kravitz in which there was apparently no prominent brett.

Of course brett can bloom in bottle with remaining brett yeast cells utilising any residual sugar if storage conditions are warm and this might explain some of the more extreme experiences.

I had bought a half case of the 99 and have enjoyed the first 4. Mine have been good but not great Pegaus with a little brett character which frankly I find pretty normal for the wine. Apart from the metallic aspect my experiences have been similar to drssouth's originating TN.
 
originally posted by drssouth:
which importer brought in your bottle?

Imported by Bordeaux Wine Locators, Rainier WA,
bought at Seaboard Wine in Raleigh NC
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Interesting. I wasn't aware of any authorized importers other than Kravitz and J et R. I wonder if this may not be a gray market bottle, in which case storage may have been an issue at some point in its sojourn.

Nigel: did you too get aromas of stewed prunes and find your wine overly sweet? Neither of those characteristics do I consider normal for Pegau, nor did I get anything remotely close to that in the one bottle of '99 that I have breached. Brett, yes, but nothing unusual for the domaine. The '98 Pegau, on the other hand, was the Brettiest Bottle of the Year (BBOTY) for me in '09. All my bottles come via J et R (they are the bottling that is closer to the Cuve Laurence).

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by drssouth:
which importer brought in your bottle?

Imported by Bordeaux Wine Locators, Rainier WA,
bought at Seaboard Wine in Raleigh NC
Click to expand...

Nigel: did you too get aromas of stewed prunes and find your wine overly sweet? Neither of those characteristics do I consider normal for Pegau, nor did I get anything remotely close to that in the one bottle of '99 that I have breached. Brett, yes, but nothing unusual for the domaine.
Mark Lipton
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Mark, perhaps my use of the word 'similar' should have been qualified by 'somewhat'.

I find most CDPs somewhat sweet [and alcoholic] with some having a plum/prune-like [but not prune juice] nose and flavour. My 99 Pegaus have had those characteristics although the alcohol was not high or obtrusive. Indeed I might have used the words 'slightly dilute' for the 99 Pegau versus e.g. the bigger 2001s but I don't mean 'dilute' in the normal, pejorative sense. Perhaps 'lower key' would be better. Certainly easy drinking although others have had a very different experience.

As I said I have liked my 99 Pegaus so far and my main reason for posting was to mention that that there are different lots in play which [together with possible transportation/storage temperatures] might explain why this wine has featured controversially a number of times in US and UK threads over the years - with excessive brett being a main polarising feature.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by drssouth:
which importer brought in your bottle?

Imported by Bordeaux Wine Locators, Rainier WA,
bought at Seaboard Wine in Raleigh NC
Click to expand...

Interesting. I wasn't aware of any authorized importers other than Kravitz and J et R. I wonder if this may not be a gray market bottle, in which case storage may have been an issue at some point in its sojourn.
Click to expand...

It is my understanding that BWL brings in quite a bit of grey market wine.
 
I have tasted both lots of the 99 Pegau, though I believe I own only the first one. The main difference between them when I tasted them some years ago was that the second lot (surprising for its Cuvee Laurence like treatment) was more closed and in need of more aging (I expect that would no longer be the case, now). Brett occurs in Pegau, but I think that is bottle variation. The wine Drssouth describes might be a good bottle of 99 Pegau that he just doesn't like (these things after all happen) or it might be a heat damaged bottle. It depends on what he means by overly sweet and pruney. Given that all Pegaus are polarizing, it's at least a reasonable guess that this wine isn't to his taste.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by drssouth:
which importer brought in your bottle?

Imported by Bordeaux Wine Locators, Rainier WA,
bought at Seaboard Wine in Raleigh NC
Click to expand...

Interesting. I wasn't aware of any authorized importers other than Kravitz and J et R. I wonder if this may not be a gray market bottle, in which case storage may have been an issue at some point in its sojourn.
Click to expand...

I'm not really sure that authorized importers do much better than grey marketers all the time.

It's a long and fragile supply chain. Sure you can put it on a reefer and pick it up in Norfolk on a reefer and your forwarder can say they pick it up from the domain on a reefer. But did the vigneron leave the pallet on the loading deck all day? Did the driver turn off the reefer to save gas and pocket more cash. Or your consolidator can go out of business or customs can decide to check your container and unload it out of your reefer on a hot summer day.

I know for a fact that all these things have happened.
 
originally posted by VLM:

I'm not really sure that authorized importers do much better than grey marketers all the time.

It's a long and fragile supply chain. Sure you can put it on a reefer and pick it up in Norfolk on a reefer and your forwarder can say they pick it up from the domain on a reefer. But did the vigneron leave the pallet on the loading deck all day? Did the driver turn off the reefer to save gas and pocket more cash. Or your consolidator can go out of business or customs can decide to check your container and unload it out of your reefer on a hot summer day.

I know for a fact that all these things have happened.
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Of course, you are right. The point of my comment, though, is that whatever knowledge and experience with a particular importer's practices you have goes out the window when you've got a grey market bottle (unless you have particular knowledge about its supply chain, not an unheard-of situation). In the case of J et R, I have had many of their wines over the years and have spoken at length with JC Mathes, the J of J et R. I have a lot of confidence that they strive to do the right thing, but as you say even the best of intentions can be undone for various reasons.

Mark Lipton
 
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