Rotem Mounir Saouma Magis CNdP Blanc '11

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey

Peter Creasey
Rotem Mounir Saouma Magis CNdP Blanc '11 --

I'm not sure who this person is, but his review sounds almost the same as what some trustworthy friends have said.

Jack Madrid...

Fantastic. I was addicted upon my first sniff and sip.

Is this really a Grenache Blanc? If tasted blind, I could have sworn it was a Bienvenues-Batard. Intoxicating bouquet of intense minerals, buttered popcorn and honeysuckle. Dense and unctuous yet supple and smooth, this glided down my throat like gold nectar. Impeccable balance of peaches, apples with bright acidic grip. The finish sailed on and on.

Rhone meets Burgundy. Grenache Blanc meets Chardonnay. The best of both worlds.
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I grabbed some of it but don't want to open any now.

Anyone have any thoughts on this bottling?

Thanks!

. . . . . . Pete
 
I have never heard of this domaine, nor can I find it on either the Danish website or in the Harry Karis book. Completely new to me. The wine doesn't sound attractive to me either, but I have a hard time with tasting notes.
 
OK, a little more research shows that the name of the domaine is Clos Saouma. And the wine, as I expected from the description, is only 70% grenache blanc with the rest being clairette, bourboulenc and roussane. It does see barriques as well, although the web site doesn't say what age they are.
 
Jonathan, All of the reviews I've seen have either not mentioned oak or have commented that the oak is very light (perhaps due to their reportedly using barrels that are more neutral). Hopefully, this is the case.

Rotem and Mounir Saouma run a negociant firm in Beaune. The couple have lived in France since 1995. Mounir Saouma got his oenological education at the wine university in Montpellier in France. He went to Burgundy to be a winemaker at a negociant firm there and after dicovering the way of winemaking here he found that he wanted to make wines in a different way and the couple established their own negociant company in 1999 with the name Lucien le Moine.
One thing is to buy wines and elevate them in a more or less personal manner. Quite another matter is to own the vineyards and have full control of the process from soil to wine.
Mounir Saouma has chosen the Chateauneuf du Pape appellation to try his capabilities to make wonders also from Grenache and other local grapes, quite different from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
After purchase of vineyards in Chateauneuf du Pape and renting of some parcels Saouma's vineyards covers 4,5 ha of which 2 ha are situated at lieu-dit Pignan (close to Rayas) when the rest are small parcels at Les Grès, Cabrières, Pied de Baut and Grandes Serres.
The first vintage for the wines from Chateauneuf du Pape was 2009.
In 2012 Mounir Saouma bought a domain between Orange and Serignan-du-Comtat with a suitable cellar and 9 ha of Cotes du Rhone Village.
The Chateauneuf du Pape wines and the Cotes du Rhone Village wines will be made here from the 2013 vintage.
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Clos Saouma

. . . . . Pete
 
Yes, that is the Danish website. You will note the word pieces in the write-up on the white. That is the word for a barrique in use.

I associate buttered popcorn with Chardonnay having gone through full malolactic. But it may also be associated with oak. I certainly don't usually get it from Rhone white grapes. Since this guy started as a negociant in Burgundy, though, maybe it just road down on the car with him.
 
I think there's an element of reduction to the buttered popcorn thing, a wee skosh of sulfide that hasn't got altogether cranky and obnoxious
 
Truthfully, I was a little put off by the perceived (by me) atypicality factor of a CNdP Blanc being like a Grand Cru Burgundy.

But then I chastised myself and decided if the wine: (i) is as terrific as everyone says it; (ii) resembles a Grand Cru Burgundy, especially qualitatively; and (iii) costs less than a Grand Cru Burgundy (albeit not much less), then it is worth taking a flyer on. The fact that it is apparently quite rare was alluring as well. Plus, as a rule, I really like white CNdPs.

If anyone here has had it, I would like to hear opinions, including as to its drinking window.

. . . . . Pete
 
From the Down to Earth Wines site...

For the Chateauneuf project, there are three wines in all:
-A white wine called “Magis”, meaning “more, much more”, comprised of 75% old vine grenache blanc with the balance of bourboulenc, clairette, and roussanne, both fermented and aged on the gross lees for two years! in Jupilles oak barrels with long, naturally protracted malo. It brings to mind instensely chalky Puligny, white flowers and citrus, with a laser beam of bright driving minerality and leesy length. I have never tasted a white Chateauneuf of this proportion, a truly singular wine.

Having tasted the wines, I can whole heartedly recommend them to lovers of Chateauneuf in the more finessed, balanced, “Pinot of the south” style; such producers as : Chateau Rayas, Clos du Mont Olivet, Domaine de Ferrand, Domaine Charvin etc. The white is like no other white Chateauneuf you have ever tasted
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Pretty persuasive...I might have to break down and pull a bottle!

. . . . Pete
 
Chateauneuf in the ... "Pinot of the south" style? Really? I moved my business to WD five years ago after looking around because I wanted to learn from what were obviously the finest minds of any wine board, this being the only place where drivel like this had no place. There used to be zero tolerance for retard posts; anybody who wasn't from even remotely the same planet was made to feel unwelcome and left. Now, with the Joes gone, the rough one and the gentle one, posting standards seem to be collapsing. Nobody's minding the store anymore, the haters and are all gone (only at times like these do I miss them) and the remaining regulars have gone soft. Pete, for christ's sake stop posting garbage! If you don't realize that this kind of sales pitch is for people born yesterday, then you really have no intuition for what this place is (or was). I don't want to be unkind, but it's hard to believe that you checked out all the wine boards and found this one to be the most compatible with your tastes and temperament. I am not saying that we are better that any other board (though perhaps we still are for those for whom there is a fit), I am talking about compatibility. The people who come here are already vastly different, yet share some vague sense of fit. The stuff you post seems completely out of touch with even this vague fit, entirely oblivious to it. You have absolutely no inkling of that? If you do, is the insistence a kind of masochism? I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this. You seem like a good, kind person, incapable of hurting anyone, so I feel terrible writing this, but I love this place, still, and it saddens me to see it deteriorated by this caliber of nonsense.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Chateauneuf in the ... "Pinot of the south" style? Really? I moved my business to WD five years ago after looking around because I wanted to learn from what were obviously the finest minds of any wine board, this being the only place where drivel like this had no place. There used to be zero tolerance for retard posts; anybody who wasn't from even remotely the same planet was made to feel unwelcome and left. Now, with the Joes gone, the rough one and the gentle one, posting standards seem to be collapsing. Nobody's minding the store anymore, the haters and are all gone (only at times like these do I miss them) and the remaining regulars have gone soft. Pete, for christ's sake stop posting garbage! If you don't realize that this kind of sales pitch is for people born yesterday, then you really have no intuition for what this place is (or was). I don't want to be unkind, but it's hard to believe that you checked out all the wine boards and found this one to be the most compatible with your tastes and temperament. I am not saying that we are better that any other board (though perhaps we still are for those for whom there is a fit), I am talking about compatibility. The people who come here are already vastly different, yet share some vague sense of fit. The stuff you post seems completely out of touch with even this vague fit, entirely oblivious to it. You have absolutely no inkling of that? If you do, is the insistence a kind of masochism? I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this. You seem like a good, kind person, incapable of hurting anyone, so I feel terrible writing this, but I love this place, still, and it saddens me to see it deteriorated by this caliber of nonsense.
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I've always seen it as performance art.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Chateauneuf in the ... "Pinot of the south" style? Really? I moved my business to WD five years ago after looking around because I wanted to learn from what were obviously the finest minds of any wine board, this being the only place where drivel like this had no place. There used to be zero tolerance for retard posts; anybody who wasn't from even remotely the same planet was made to feel unwelcome and left. Now, with the Joes gone, the rough one and the gentle one, posting standards seem to be collapsing. Nobody's minding the store anymore, the haters and are all gone (only at times like these do I miss them) and the remaining regulars have gone soft. Pete, for christ's sake stop posting garbage! If you don't realize that this kind of sales pitch is for people born yesterday, then you really have no intuition for what this place is (or was). I don't want to be unkind, but it's hard to believe that you checked out all the wine boards and found this one to be the most compatible with your tastes and temperament. I am not saying that we are better that any other board (though perhaps we still are for those for whom there is a fit), I am talking about compatibility. The people who come here are already vastly different, yet share some vague sense of fit. The stuff you post seems completely out of touch with even this vague fit, entirely oblivious to it. You have absolutely no inkling of that? If you do, is the insistence a kind of masochism? I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this. You seem like a good, kind person, incapable of hurting anyone, so I feel terrible writing this, but I love this place, still, and it saddens me to see it deteriorated by this caliber of nonsense.
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Bad bottle day?
 
originally posted by Zachary Ross:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Chateauneuf in the ... "Pinot of the south" style? Really? I moved my business to WD five years ago after looking around because I wanted to learn from what were obviously the finest minds of any wine board, this being the only place where drivel like this had no place. There used to be zero tolerance for retard posts; anybody who wasn't from even remotely the same planet was made to feel unwelcome and left. Now, with the Joes gone, the rough one and the gentle one, posting standards seem to be collapsing. Nobody's minding the store anymore, the haters and are all gone (only at times like these do I miss them) and the remaining regulars have gone soft. Pete, for christ's sake stop posting garbage! If you don't realize that this kind of sales pitch is for people born yesterday, then you really have no intuition for what this place is (or was). I don't want to be unkind, but it's hard to believe that you checked out all the wine boards and found this one to be the most compatible with your tastes and temperament. I am not saying that we are better that any other board (though perhaps we still are for those for whom there is a fit), I am talking about compatibility. The people who come here are already vastly different, yet share some vague sense of fit. The stuff you post seems completely out of touch with even this vague fit, entirely oblivious to it. You have absolutely no inkling of that? If you do, is the insistence a kind of masochism? I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this. You seem like a good, kind person, incapable of hurting anyone, so I feel terrible writing this, but I love this place, still, and it saddens me to see it deteriorated by this caliber of nonsense.
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I've always seen it as performance art.
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I still think PC is a fb sockpuppet. Created as an experiment to test the limits of the rest of us.
 
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