Steve Edmunds
Steve Edmunds
I got invited to dinner by a friend and colleague who just returned from his first visit to Chateauneuf du Pape, and seems quite smitten by it. He brought a couple of wines to share, one of which, the '96 Rayas, was really captivating.
I can't remember the last time I had Rayas, perhaps 18 or 19 years ago, and my memory of it isn't clear, because the context was a bit overwhelming (long story). I'd had a few vintages very early in my time in the wine business, when my sense of Chateauneuf felt entirely unformulated, and remember liking the '59, A LOT.
'96 was an odd, very cool vintage in the Southern Rhone; I spent some time there at mid-Summer that year, and was amazed at how cold it was. The '96 Rayas was lovely, quite restrained, and finely structured, seemingly the antithesis of the big wines I've come to expect from CdP. Almost muscatty-floral, and surprisingly youthful and fresh for what seemed like such a light wine. I found myself returning to it repeatedly with a kind of astonishment that it seemed so very unlike any other Chateauneuf in my memory. Such fun!
I can't remember the last time I had Rayas, perhaps 18 or 19 years ago, and my memory of it isn't clear, because the context was a bit overwhelming (long story). I'd had a few vintages very early in my time in the wine business, when my sense of Chateauneuf felt entirely unformulated, and remember liking the '59, A LOT.
'96 was an odd, very cool vintage in the Southern Rhone; I spent some time there at mid-Summer that year, and was amazed at how cold it was. The '96 Rayas was lovely, quite restrained, and finely structured, seemingly the antithesis of the big wines I've come to expect from CdP. Almost muscatty-floral, and surprisingly youthful and fresh for what seemed like such a light wine. I found myself returning to it repeatedly with a kind of astonishment that it seemed so very unlike any other Chateauneuf in my memory. Such fun!