1999 Pallieres

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BJ

BJ
This finally came around and is very pleasant. Definitely one dimensional, but just went into tertiaries and is soothing. This would be nice with sausage or some sort of slow roast/braise thing.
 
This vintage has always fallen just a little bit short of my expectations, but then I never had particularly high hopes for it in the first place. IIRC it was the first vintage released under the Lynch/Brunier partnership and they had no involvement in the farming, buying the joint only in time to modify the élevage of the 1999 vintage. It was a little on the soft and diffuse side on release and never really held up very well alongside other Gigondases (Gigondai?) of the same vintages. Trying to sell it over the 1999 Cayron or Ch de Trignon releases was a vexing challenge to say the least.

Although I've relegated the '99 Pallières to the "wine to drink on Tuesday with monolithic food" category, it's gratifying to see that ten years on, Pallières has been turned around and is a whole different animal.

-Eden (maybe comparing "apples and different apples", but I still prefer Le Sang des Cailloux to Pallières during that 1990-2003 era)
 
Any historical references for how good the stuff can be? I very much liked the 2008. I missed 2009; the current version, 2010, looks good but was not showing that well recently. It's priced within a Euro or two of Charvin, though, which seems like a stretch.
 
So is recent Pallieres good? I honestly was put off enough by the 99 and 00 at release that I never returned... Are those special cuvees really that special?

I am a big fan of 99 CNP but I haven't had enough Gigondae to comment.

I have some St. Cosme 99 so I'll check that out.
 
2008 was as good as anything from the AOC, so I'm a believer. I especially liked the style, restrained, with a lovely, red-fruited profile. I think it has room to grow, though the back-label claim of twenty years in a good vintage seems pretty optimistic in the absence of a track record. The 2010 had good density and texture, but it was pretty shut down the times I tried it.

I have not been happy with the handful of St. Cosmes I've had lately.
 
St. Cosmes was somewhat less objectionable in the late 90s than it has become since, and it has aged decently. But even then you could tell the direction the wine as going in.

I found the 99 and 00 Pallieres to be OK foursquare wines. As they got pricier, I failed to see the point and so haven't kept up. If the new separate cuvees are really that good, maybe I should pop for a bottle, but it's hard to imagine.
 
I'd be curious to know what you make of the 2010. To get a read on it, I think you'll need to spring for a bottle and follow it over a couple of days -- with all the people in the house, open bottles disappeared quickly. At this point, it's not showing much right when you pull the cork. You could get lucky at the Caveau, if they have a sample that's been in one of those little bottles a couple of days. They opened a new one both times I went.
 
I'll give it a try. I have a problem with the little bottles at the Caveau. Even though they say they change them every couple of days, I get a lot of tired wine there. But we'll see.
 
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