Rotating Dinner Series- Bernard Levet Cote-Roties
Rustic House, Chicago IL
Tasted Tuesday, September 30, 2014 by KeithAkers with 729 views
Introduction
This was Jimmy's turn to host, so he decided on doing a Bernard Levet-based dinner. He had told me about this months earlier, so all that was was anticipation time for me. It did get the clock rolling on excitement for me, and this would be one that I was greatly looking forward to.
Flight 1 (17 Notes)
Closing
This was an awesome night. This is a producer that I just love and it's always a treat to have one Levet, much less a dinner focused completely on it. This group has done a lot of fantastic dinners, but, for me, this has been my favorite of them all. This tasting certainly confirmed my love for Levet, and it certainly reminded me that I'm going to need to start snapping these up as it's difficult to find older vintages.
NV Franck Pascal Champagne Reliance Brut Nature 91 Points
France, Champagne
Nose: There is a real precision and freshness to the nose with apples, white fruits, minerals, crushed rocks, and some pear tones. There is excellent depth with a lovely raciness to the minerals.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium/high acidity. The acidity is very noticeable and tart, but it isn't enamel-searing. The freshness and precision follows through with apples, white fruits, crushed rocks, and minerals.
Overall: This was from a 3/13 disgorgement. I love the focus and precision on this while it also has a real freshness to the tones. It handles the zero dosage perfectly and is extremely enjoyable.
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2005 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie Les Journaries / Maestria 89 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is wide open and balanced with black pepper, black olives, earth tones, tobacco, bacon fat, and a touch of funk. There is a real nice rustic-quality to the nose, though it does slightly lack some depth.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium+ acidity and silky tannins. The feel is balanced and the structure isn't too imposing with black pepper, black cherries, tobacco, and bacon fat tones.
Overall: This is a very good Levet. It lacks that extra gear, but it was certainly open and inviting.
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2006 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie Les Journaries / Maestria 88 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is on the tight side and it takes a few passes to get black cherries, violets, black pepper, tobacco, and earth tones. There is decent depth to this, but that could also be a product of the tightness.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium+ acidity and very chewy tannins. The palate isn't too giving right now as the structure is readily apparent. There is a savory edge underneath the structure with black cherries, violets, black pepper, and some earth tones.
Overall: This can definitely improve to the high side. It's extremely young right now, but there are some excellent materials. I would love to see where this is in 5-7 years.
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2007 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie Les Journaries / Maestria 91 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is very aromatic already with black cherries, violets, spice tones, black pepper, leather, some perfumes, and a touch of tobacco. There is very good depth and this shows off a rustic, but elegant side to it.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium+ acidity and silky tannins. The structure is on the sneaky side, but it certainly shows its youth. The elegance from the nose certainly continues through along with black cherries, violets, black pepper, leather notes, tobacco, and earth tones too.
Overall: This is a lovely young Levet. This was a lot more giving than the 05 and 06, but it still can improve too.
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2008 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie Les Journaries / Maestria 89 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: There is a real nice rustic-ness to the nose with black pepper, bacon fat, some funk, black cherries, spice tones, earth and leather. While there is good complexity, the tones are more surface and lacking some depth.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium+ acidity and good supporting tannins. The structure isn't all too big, but one wouldn't say that the tannins are resolved either with black pepper, bacon fat, black cherries, and a good amount of earth tones.
Overall: This bottle is lighter on it's feet than the other vintages. Where the other wines in this flight could benefit from age, this is just fine right now.
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2011 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 92 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: Though the nose is on the tighter side, there is a lot going on with crushed rocks, black pepper, violets, black cherries, spice tones, red fruits, berries, and a touch of funk. It takes several goes to get everything as it just shows glimpses on each pass.
Taste: Medium/full bodied with medium/high acidity and youthful tannins. The tannins aren't massive, but they are certainly there. There is a real sense of class beneath the tannins with crushed rocks, black pepper, bacon fat, violets, and black cherries.
Overall: This can most certainly improve. There is a lot to like here already, but this will need the better part of 10-15 years before it will truly show what it has to give.
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2010 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 90 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is very tight, but there are hints of black cherries, black pepper, tobacco, funk, and some violets. It was tough to get much off of this and it was a bit grumpy.
Taste: Medium/full bodied with medium/high acidity and massive tannins. The structure is huge and the tannins are on the oppressive side with black cherries, bacon fat, black pepper, and tobacco poking through.
Overall: This was a wine that didn't want to give up anything without a fight. There are some excellent raw materials here, but they aren't showing much. This will need a good while before it shows itself.
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2009 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 92 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is youthful, but giving with black cherries, violets, funky notes, leather, earth, and black fruits. There is excellent depth with good balance to the tones too.
Taste: Medium/full bodied with medium+ acidity and youthful tannins. The structure is there, but there is a rounded quality to the tannins. There is an elegance to the feel with black cherries, crushed rocks, tobacco, violets, leather, and earth tones.
Overall: This was a gorgeous young Levet. Time is certainly needed, but one could poke in right now and enjoy it's youthfulness.
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2008 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 91 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is showing off the dirty side with black pepper, bacon fat, leather, black cherries, earth, and a good dose of funk. There is a beautiful savory quality too that draws you in.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium+ acidity and silky tannins. The structure is there, but it doesn't interfere too much. The feel is balanced and savory with black cherries, black pepper, bacon fat, earth, and leather tones.
Overall: This leaned much more towards the dirty and earthen side. It was beautifully balanced and it feels like it has some room to grow too.
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2007 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 93 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is absolutely gorgeous and flowing with black and white pepper, black cherries, bacon fat, floral tones, and some bits of spice and funk. There is a lot of depth and class that really makes you take notice.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium/high acidity and youthful tannins. The structure is there, but it doesn't detract from the feel. There is excellent balance and depth with black and white pepper, spice notes, bacon fat, black cherries, and a touch of funk.
Overall: There was a real elegance and poise to this while still showing a rustic side. This is a beautiful young Levet and I would love to see where it goes with age.
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2006 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 90 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is a bit unforgiving at the moment. It's not completely shut down with black cherries, licorice, bacon fat, black olives, and some crushed rocks.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium/high acidity and chewy tannins. The structure is imposing and certainly youthful. Beneath the structure there is black cherries, licorice, white pepper, and bacon fat.
Overall: It's hard to get much of a read on this as it is very coarse right now. The raw materials are very good, but this doesn't want to show right now.
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2005 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 91 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: Though the nose is on the tighter side, it is somewhat giving with violets, spice tones, black cherries, licorice, earth tones, tobacco, and funk. The complexity is certainly there, it just isn't in full flow yet.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium/high acidity and youthful tannins. The structure certainly shows off the youth, but it isn't too rough. There is a lot of balance and poise with violets, black cherries, black olives, earth tones, and tobacco.
Overall: This is clearly youthful, but it feels like it's starting to come out of its shell. There is a long way to go, but there is a real lovely wine that is there.
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2004 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 93 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose just flows from the outset with black cherries, black olives, white pepper, crush rocks, violets, funk, and tobacco. There is real depth and elegance with a layering to the tones.
Taste: Medium/full bodied with medium+ acidity and silky tannins. The structure is still very much there, but it is balanced with black cherries, white pepper, violets, funk, tobacco, and some crushed rocks.
Overall: This is starting to drink, and it's a beautiful wine. This will easily provide a lot of pleasure for a long time.
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1999 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 94 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: From the word go, the nose is on a different level from the other wines. The nose was ethereal and perfumed with red florals, violets, white pepper, black olives, black cherries, spices, funk, and bacon fat.
Taste: Medium/full bodied with medium+ acidity and silky tannins. The feel is polished, sexy, and deep with red florals, violets, white pepper, funk, black cherries, black olives, and bacon fat.
Overall: This was gorgeous. It showed a next level from the previous Levets. This showed off elegance and rusticity at the same time.
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1998 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche / La Péroline 95 Points
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Nose: The nose is gorgeous, seamless, and savory with white and black pepper, black olives, black cherries, spice tones, earth notes, violets, roses, and tobacco tones. There is a lot of depth and layering too that adds to it.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium+ acidity and silky tannins. The structure is still there, but has pulled back a bit. The feel is silky and gorgeous with white and black pepper, black cherries, leather tones, violets, funk, and black olives.
Overall: This was easily my WOTN. There was a real elegant side to it along with it having a lot of depth and class. While this was the oldest Levet, it felt like it was only just starting to drink.
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1985 Château Lynch-Bages
France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac
Nose: The nose on this bottle was fading slightly with bell peppers, cedar, spice box, dark red cherries, cranberries, and some tobacco. There was also a bit of soy starting to poke through as well.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium acidity. The tannins are resolved with bell pepper, cranberries, dark red fruits, cedar, and some tobacco.
Overall: This didn't feel like an on bottle. It was fading somewhat and just didn't have a joie de vivre to it that I've had in the past.
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2004 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Auslese Goldkapsel 92 Points
Germany, Nahe
Nose: There was a real attractive succulent-ness to the nose with mangoes, peaches, green apples, pears, caramel, and honeydew. There is excellent depth with there still being more of a primary take to the tones.
Taste: Medium bodied with medium/high acidity. The acidity is crisp and more on the refreshing side and is well in balance. There is an underlying sweetness with mangoes, peaches, green apples, honeydew, and some pears.
Overall: This was a great way to end the evening. There was a real succulent side to this. It does still feel rather primary and it could need more time to really get better.
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