Wood in St. Joseph

i bought 6 bottles of '05 graillot, although it was the crozes hermitage rather than the st. joseph. i've enjoyed both his crozes and st. joe for several vintages and have found the wines consistent and very syrah.

i waited a good while before opening one, but patience can take me only so far, so after i'd had the wine about a year, i relented, and was surprised. the wine was all raspberry fruit and nary a sign of black oilve tapanade or any gaminess or any of the non-fruit complexities that i associate with rhone valley syrah. i didn't get the sense that wood had anything to do with this disconnect, but really don't know what to make of the wine except that it seemed anything but rhone syrah. i will wait a good while yet before opening any more.
 
I have always disliked Graillot's wines young but when aged - they are a whole different story.

As pedantic clarification - in this sense, I refer to "young" as anything under about 5 years from vintage and old would be arbitrarilly assigned above that 5 year mark. Not that I have any specific data to support 5 years as the absolute delineation, but it's my note dammit, so I can be arbitrary.
 
Thor, thanks for the clarification. I really like the 2006s I've tried so far.

Sharon, I wonder if the wine might be closing up a bit. A winemaker I talked with recently recommended drinking their 2006 Cote Rotie the first 6 months after bottling or waiting 4-5 years. Not sure if the same thing applies to the Graillot Crozes Hermitage, but it was an interesting comment.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
the wine was all raspberry fruit and nary a sign of black oilve tapanade or any gaminess or any of the non-fruit complexities that i associate with rhone valley syrah. i didn't get the sense that wood had anything to do with this disconnect, but really don't know what to make of the wine except that it seemed anything but rhone syrah.
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I had a similar experience with the 2006 a couple of months ago. I did get some tobacco and olive but no gaminess. What bothered me was the ripeness, which was crossing the line into licorice and candied raspberry territory.
 
Thought I would dredge up this thread, as I opened a 2006 Gonon Saint-Joseph this evening. Truly smooth stuff, and quite elegant, with nary a splinter anywhere to taste. A bit more foursquare than (a) hipster Dard & Ribo, and (b) my new crush, 2007 Graillot; yet, not to be scoffed at, by any means.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Thought I would dredge up this thread, as I opened a 2006 Gonon Saint-Joseph this evening. Truly smooth stuff, and quite elegant, with nary a splinter anywhere to taste. A bit more foursquare than (a) hipster Dard & Ribo, and (b) my new crush, 2007 Graillot; yet, not to be scoffed at, my any means.
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And prognostication about its future? Surely this wine is still an infant, if not L'Enfant.

Mark Lipton
 
Mark, that's the thing. I don't know if these things age, as I've only had them young - and actually, in such cases, the younger the better. I was absolutely floored by 2007 Graillot St-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage two weeks ago. Along with sheer elegance, there was a vivacity, a perfect shine, a youthfulness that left the taster asmile.

Of course, I suppose if one likes saddle leather or other evolved stuff, one chips in for Cte-Rtie or Hermitage or something?

I am a tyro at this syrah grape, in any event.
 
From well-sited properties (which certainly includes Gonon), the wines can age quite substantially. I enjoyed a 1990 estate Chave about two weeks ago, although it was not necessarily better than it was ten years ago. Generally, I would recommend holding the better red St-Jos until 3-4 years old before beginning to drink, with adjustments one way or the other depending on the vintage.
 
I had the '06 Gonon last night myself, by coincidence. I would not call it splintery in the least, but there is a creaminess to the texture that hints at wood. Perhaps not very new wood, but I've not had anything out of concrete with that texture.

David Lillie is hoping to visit Gonon in a few months, perhaps we'll learn more.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
I had the '06 Gonon last night myself, by coincidence. I would not call it splintery in the least, but there is a creaminess to the texture that hints at wood. Perhaps not very new wood, but I've not had anything out of concrete with that texture.

David Lillie is hoping to visit Gonon in a few months, perhaps we'll learn more.
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I haven't had the '06 Gonon St. Joseph yet, but have bought the wine in most vintages in the last 5-6 years. There's no doubt the wines see some combination of oak (ok, I may regret that sweeping statement), but it has been done in recent years in a very retrained, sensible way. I've found, like many wines, that there's often a period maybe 6 months to a year after release during which, for a relatively short period, the wine is very shut down and the oak is more apparent.
 
originally posted by scottreiner:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Graillot is one of the relatively few left in the No. Rhne who uses stems, which sometimes also can be confused with oak.
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I believe that Texier is no longer destemming.
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I may have heard something to the contrary last month, but I am not entirely sure as the conversation was taking place in strange tongues. Perhaps someone ITB could verify.
 
originally posted by Bwood:
originally posted by SFJoe:
I had the '06 Gonon last night myself, by coincidence. I would not call it splintery in the least, but there is a creaminess to the texture that hints at wood. Perhaps not very new wood, but I've not had anything out of concrete with that texture.

David Lillie is hoping to visit Gonon in a few months, perhaps we'll learn more.
Click to expand...

I haven't had the '06 Gonon St. Joseph yet, but have bought the wine in most vintages in the last 5-6 years. There's no doubt the wines see some combination of oak (ok, I may regret that sweeping statement), but it has been done in recent years in a very retrained, sensible way. I've found, like many wines, that there's often a period maybe 6 months to a year after release during which, for a relatively short period, the wine is very shut down and the oak is more apparent.
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I still haven't dug out my notes to check, but I see that on his website, Livingston-Learmonth agrees with my recollection: "No new wood in sight."
 
As long as this thread is resurrected, what do the Gnomes here suggest is
the difference between Saint Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage? Both seem like middling efforts, compared to say Cote Rotie or Cornas, and I don't think I
could really tell the difference in a blind tasting between them. To me, the best ones express an soft syrah-ness, with a little bit of iron, refreshing acidity and perhaps the alcohol might be a little lower than Hermitage or Cote Rotie cousins.
 
Saint-Joseph is a tremendously unequal terroir, but at it's best (a small percentage of total production) can produce truly outstading wines with great minerality to them. Crozes is mostly not a good terroir with only a couple of producers having terroir to allow them to make anything more than just good Syrah.

Pretty much the same for the whites, too. (And while we're in the region, Saint-Pray is getting quite interesting from the right producers.)
 
I found the importer notes on Gonon, on elevage the notes say:

Elevage: Following the primary fermentation, the wine is transferred to oak barrels,
barriques, demi-muids, and large casks, foudres, ranging in age from 3 to 15 years,
where it stays for 14-16 months. During this time it is racked three times, and
fined using egg whites before being bottled without additional filtration.

My guess is like most places that the wines here might seem slightly oakier, at least when the wines are young or shut down, when they rotate in somewhat newer barrels to replace the older ones. The '01 Allemand was that way when Allemand switched in '01 to some newer barrels. While you could taste the oak on release, now there's hardly a trace of oak on the'01 Reynard (not that I'd say the wine is quite ready to drink just yet).
 
As I've written several times before, Syrah can have naturally-occurring aromas and flavors that are similar to those one gets from new oak. The proof: I have experienced this in Syrahs in stainless that have never seen oak of any age.
 
originally posted by .sasha:
originally posted by scottreiner:
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Graillot is one of the relatively few left in the No. Rhne who uses stems, which sometimes also can be confused with oak.
Click to expand...

I believe that Texier is no longer destemming.
Click to expand...

I may have heard something to the contrary last month, but I am not entirely sure as the conversation was taking place in strange tongues. Perhaps someone ITB could verify.
Click to expand...

If the affirmation is "Texier is destemming 100%" then is not true.

'07s from the northern Rhone are 100% whole cluster
'08 Pergault and Cte Rotie VV are also 100% whole stuff.
Saint Jo la Croix and the plain Brzme were partialy destemmed "au pif", which a very precise way to do it.

But the truth is that Texier would love to keep all the stem, and will do if possible.

Eric

(Texier's cellar rat)
 
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