Wonder Twins' Powers, Activate!

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BJ

BJ
Brun 09

Fleurie. More deeply resonant, with a spare deep roasted meat mineral core, with a beautiful garden bouquet right on top. Sparkles.

Cote de Brouilly. Violet smoke. Superficially the less sophisticated of the two, but with a bit of time chatting together on the banquette you suddenly realize, wait, no...here she is.

fb is right. Teh 09s just don't taste like they did in la France at release. Is it travel or time or both? I don't know. But somehow, JP pulled through, because these are just lovely. Evolved from what they were a bit...the Fleurie is even nicer, and the CdB not quite as good. But these are so good, and I have a hard time imagining they will shut down. Drink em now or in 20.
 
Not to change the subject too much, but my wife and I tore through a bottle of the 08 CdB with reckless abandon this week. I certainly don't think that wine has a ton left in the tank, but it hit the spot for a midweek bottle. $9 closeout special!

Cheers,

Kevin
 
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:
Not to change the subject too much, but my wife and I tore through a bottle of the 08 CdB with reckless abandon this week. I certainly don't think that wine has a ton left in the tank, but it hit the spot for a midweek bottle. $9 closeout special!

Cheers,

Kevin

This wine is one of my faves year in year out. JP is really put together on the crus in general, but this one stands out for me.

However, there's no way the 08 won't be a delight in 10 years. A different delight perhaps, but a delight none-the-less.
 
fb is right. Teh 09s just don't taste like they did in la France at release.

I think the astute tasters were being too cynical in thinking that 'ripe' equals 'shit'.
 
originally posted by MarkS:
fb is right. Teh 09s just don't taste like they did in la France at release.

I think the astute tasters were being too cynical in thinking that 'ripe' equals 'shit'.

I think that's a really good point, and I've pondered it about the 09s. To the credit of the cynics, though, I have really found many of the 09s to not be nearly as put together here in Seattle as they were in Beaujolais upon release in 2010. There and then they were uniformly wonderful, well delineated, big, yes, but in an exciting way that didn't detract at all - they are no 03s. But back here at the ranch, as the cases have arrived from various places, I've had mixed experiences. I am chalking it up to a combo of travel shock and shutting down, but when I receive a case of Thevenet that is a bretty shell of what it was, and hear rampant reports of brett in the Lapierre as well, it just makes me wonder what potentially dastardly deeds were done along the way as well. It also troubles me that some of the wines' outsized personalities (a couple that really seemed almost like Cotes du Rhones - but these I did not try in France)just don't bode well in any way. Honestly the only 09s that have truly wowed me here in Jet City are the Brun crus.

I do feel some responsibility about the 09s here on WD as I know I wrote a long and perhaps even idealized portrait of the 09s and our trip back in 2010. I still stand by the experiences we had there. But I will also come out and say that except for those wines that had brett problems, I have a strong feeling that the good 09s will win out in the end.
 
originally posted by BJ:
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:
Not to change the subject too much, but my wife and I tore through a bottle of the 08 CdB with reckless abandon this week. I certainly don't think that wine has a ton left in the tank, but it hit the spot for a midweek bottle. $9 closeout special!

Cheers,

Kevin

This wine is one of my faves year in year out. JP is really put together on the crus in general, but this one stands out for me.

However, there's no way the 08 won't be a delight in 10 years. A different delight perhaps, but a delight none-the-less.

I don't doubt it at all, but under plastique, I'd drink while the success rate is high.

Maximizing my chances,

Kevin
 
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:
originally posted by BJ:
originally posted by Kevin Roberts:
Not to change the subject too much, but my wife and I tore through a bottle of the 08 CdB with reckless abandon this week. I certainly don't think that wine has a ton left in the tank, but it hit the spot for a midweek bottle. $9 closeout special!

Cheers,

Kevin

This wine is one of my faves year in year out. JP is really put together on the crus in general, but this one stands out for me.

However, there's no way the 08 won't be a delight in 10 years. A different delight perhaps, but a delight none-the-less.

I don't doubt it at all, but under plastique, I'd drink while the success rate is high.

Maximizing my chances,

Kevin

Oh, well, there you go. What a shame. Hopefully that era is now safely in the past.
 
Oooh, brett's not nice. I've only had a couple of 2009's and didn't have the pleasure of drinking them in France. Ripe doesn't worry me, unless it becomes unwieldy, but brett never gets better. Like faulty corks, it's the kiss-of-death for wines.
 
right from a properly cool cellar (as in your experience in France) brett can be pretty much dormant, and undetected. The '81 Beaucastel, famously bretty here, was pristine when poured by Francois Perrin at the cellar in '90.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
right from a properly cool cellar (as in your experience in France) brett can be pretty much dormant, and undetected. The '81 Beaucastel, famously bretty here, was pristine when poured by Francois Perrin at the cellar in '90.
Good bottles of '81 are glories of the world. I've never had one that came originally to the US.

The US importer had, shall we say, a controversial reputation in those days?
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
right from a properly cool cellar (as in your experience in France) brett can be pretty much dormant, and undetected. The '81 Beaucastel, famously bretty here, was pristine when poured by Francois Perrin at the cellar in '90.
Good bottles of '81 are glories of the world. I've never had one that came originally to the US.

The US importer had, shall we say, a controversial reputation in those days?

My experience as well and with the 83s. 81 Beaucastel tasted and bought at Beaucastel in 1989 changed my thinking of what wine could be. The case I bought in the US was identifiably some version of that wine, but it wasn't the same thing. Until the 90s, Beaucastel always came into the states in July and regularly came in heat damaged. It did terrible things to the 89s.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Beaucastel always came into the states in July and regularly came in heat damaged. It did terrible things to the 89s.

The corks that year did the wine no favors.
 
originally posted by Steve Edmunds:
right from a properly cool cellar (as in your experience in France) brett can be pretty much dormant, and undetected. The '81 Beaucastel, famously bretty here, was pristine when poured by Francois Perrin at the cellar in '90.

Lapierre doesn't usually have problems, but as I've said far too many times here, Thevenet does, and I continue to consider him in the top 3-4 producers there. Since Kermit doesn't seem to want to push him on it, I am going to make it a point to bring it up with him next time we're there. It makes me wince every time the Lynch newsletter mentions the minimal SO2 thing at Thevenet - it's really not something to do, or tout.
 
originally posted by Cliff:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Beaucastel always came into the states in July and regularly came in heat damaged. It did terrible things to the 89s.

The corks that year did the wine no favors.

I've always assumed that the leakers were because of heat and the faulty cork argument was an excuse. My case of 89s was full of leakers and that was one Beau I had to drink young, alas. I have had good bottles of 89 since and it, too, is a great wine.
 
originally posted by BJ:I have a strong feeling that the good 09s will win out in the end.

Well, if last night's Lapierre sans soufre is any indication (or previous bottles from the same source, for that matter) his '09 is in a very nice place now. Very well balanced, some meatier tones underneath now since release, and showing no signs of going anywhere soon. Now if I could only refrain from opening a couple.
 
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