Joguet 05 Petites Roches

I

Ian Fitzsimmons

Ian Fitzsimmons
We've opened two of these in the past couple of months, with about the same experience both times. The first day they were acidic, stern and vous-voyant, the second they were cuddly teddy bears of wine, all fuzzy charm and intimacy (sans drool). The slight Loire cab greenness of last year showed as a note of freshness and complexity, which, to my buds, distinguished this cab from those blended near the Dordogne. Good experience for $15-16.

Is Joguet thought to be a spoofer in these parts? I don't read much about him here.
 
Spoofer? I don't think so. But not hangin' with 'the In-Crowd' either.
The domain went through a bad spell during the 90's, but I had a beautiful 2003
from them (Clos de la Dioterie, I think) that was gorgeous ripe cab.franc fruit but with the necessary Loire elements as well (herbs, tobacco, etc.).
I also had the Petite Roches from 05 last year and thought it a lovely wine, esp. for the price.
 
Because ... ?

I have a couple of 03 Dioterie: we should open one this weekend. Thought I saw a discouraging word about it recently - maybe from Jim?

Someone wrote praisingly here not too long ago about the 05s - I'll seek.
 
originally posted by MarkS:
Spoofer? I don't think so. But not hangin' with 'the In-Crowd' either.
The domain went through a bad spell during the 90's, but I had a beautiful 2003
from them (Clos de la Dioterie, I think) that was gorgeous ripe cab.franc fruit but with the necessary Loire elements as well (herbs, tobacco, etc.).
I also had the Petite Roches from 05 last year and thought it a lovely wine, esp. for the price.
Click to expand...

Great vineyards, good wines. Not spoofy, but a bit slick.

I don't turn them down, but most of my Chinon needs are met by other producers.
 
After Joguet sold out, the new owners were seen as just businessmen, ruining the franchise. The wines, supposedly, were never the same. But I have little personal experience, and others here are much more qualified to comment.
 
not spoofy, but they pick them quite ripe

so in 05, for example, I preferred the low end bottlings
 
Not sure how the denizens here think about Liquid Memory by Nossiter but he has an interesting piece on Joguet and the downfall. I have been brainwashed by David Lillie, and then backed up by my own palate. I loved the '88 Dioterie, and some post '96 Chene Verts. But I have tasted them every year from 2000 on and nothing has rung my bell. A touch slick, not Alliet slick, but slick, and lacking energy I thought. The '05 Franc de Pied I bought two bottles of and was very unimpressed. Big fruit, extraction, but not much Chinonisty.
 
I haven't found a recent wine where I wouldn't have rather had Baudry. Not your Paolo Bea soul tune, more your elevator Chinon.

OTOH, a recent '90 Chene Vert was gorgeous, and Varennes du Grand Clos also lovely.
 
Old school Joguet is fantastic. The newer stuff is passable, and not really worth devoting a lot of time to in an already overstuffed book.
 
Let me have a go at this. I've tasted the older stuff SFJoe is referring to, and I thought it was fantastic. But it was also very rustic, in a nice way. I don't know where that rusticity came from, whether it was inherent to the vineyards, or was a consequence of the in-house formula. Based on Baudry, Breton and a couple of other producers I've been lucky enough to taste, I am assuming this type of rusticity is not characteristic of the entire appellation.

As I attempt to navigate my way through their recent impressive but rather voluminous offerings, I am struck by a dichotomy between the generosity and overall size of the wines and an inherent rustic simplicity which doesn't seem to have gone away. It takes a while for the rusticity to get betrayed, given ( to borrow a term from an earlier post ) the slick ripe fruit, but ultimately it is, due to clear lack of nuance. There is a prevailing feeling of an absence of finesse. And yet, in the old format, with much less polish but less volume, a finesse of sorts was achieved through different means, not unlike the way it is for some old-fashioned nebbiolo.
 
I had the '05 Petites Roches and Dioterie. I thought both were pretty good. Both were HUGE by Loire Cab Franc standards but they had lots of lush fruit. Probably not rebuys for me unless I see them deeply discounted but drinkable. Gilman recommended the '05 Dioterie as one to cellar for younger collectors starting out and I think it probably will age nicely for a decade or two.
 
On .sasha's note, I'm probably oversimplifying his meaning, but I recall chats on other boards criticizing some reds for which the grapes were picked ripe as being unified in the 'international' style that washed out the nuance of individual source. Based on my limited personal sampling of some of these wines, I came to think this to be true when they were young, but felt that with age or lots of air a different kind of personality would emerge from the wine. I'm not well-versed enough to say that the wines with age/air suddenly became true to their terroir, but there was a distinct sense of a kind of masking effect going away.

Anyway, thanks for all the thoughtful response.
 
Hmmm, should I add? I loved the 80's versions, which has the rusticity of feeling like the old Tempier Bandols (along with a smidgen of brett), and I like the current releases, which -- to me -- are not slick, but a more fuller-fruit expression of cabernet franc, more volptuous, but not dolled-up. Of course, I am in the minority here. I'll happily drink from both the Dressner camp and Joguet.
 
I drank the Petite Roches 07 recently and thought it was pretty good; clean and enjoyably leafy. Then I drank it against Baudry 07 Domaine which just trumped it on all levels.
 
My problem with some the more recent wines was an apparent willingness to combine stemminess and oakiness for a distinctly unpleasant mouthfeel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top