1989 Verset

C

Claude Kolm

Claude Kolm
I thought I had seen a recent negative post on this wine (from fatboy? although I don't seem to be able to locate it now), and since I had a bottle of 1989 Clape about three weeks ago that seemed unduly acidic (!?), I thought it time to check in on Verset, too.

Wow! The wine is light and elegant but still amazingly young and fresh with gamy, animal, wild dark plum Syrah fruit and a satin texture. I'm sure that Davis-trained winemakers (viewing wine as fans of Hyacinth Rigaud view painting) would find the wine flawed with brett or something else, but this is just one hell of a fabulous bottle that is mature but with plenty of life still ahead of it. It is a good example of how the top Northern Rhnes can achieve the top levels of greatness.

Need I say that they just don't make 'em like this any more?

This is a Kermit Lynch import which, from what Verset had told me, would have been a bottling in the spring after its second winter. UK imports, again relying on what Verset told me, would have been end of summer after the second winter (and thus a second summer in Verset's un-airconditioned, above ground garage).
 
Wasn't Monsieur Rigaud the painter of the Helen Turley Wine Spectator cover? He made her look almost lifelike.

-Eden (my bottle of 1989 Clape two weeks ago was splendiferous, lacking overt signs of undue acidity while maintaining a nice level of fruit with an appropriate and pleasing amount of brett. Exceeding my expectations, it was the vino zenith of the night, inspiring a lengthy, booze-fueled discussion around the table concerning the intriguing contrasts and similarities between the Clape and a bottle of 1996 Guigal La Landonne)
 
I tried both '89 Verset and Clape in the past year or so as well. Verset was good and mature, but more than a little brett showing. I don't normally mind a little brett, but this was in the way.

The Clape, which I didn't find too acidic, was very shy and took a long time to open up, and as Eden did, I thought it the wine of the night at the tasting I was at.
 
Maybe I was off that night on the Clape -- my companions did not seem to mind it at all. Or maybe there was something in the food I had with it that clashed.
 
I've often thought that Jim is filled to the brim with life, so by transference you'd be correct.

-Eden (although Jim's mullet shows more cosmetological craftsmanship than Helen's does)
 
I spotted 5 bottles of the 06 (his last year) at an out-of-state store that doesn't ship. When I finally figured out how to get someone to pick them up and send them to me, they were gone. Quel dommage!
 
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