Our house
Tasted Saturday, August 9, 2008 by pgm with 578 views
I'd been wanting to do this for awhile: match pairs of syrah and marsanne from two wineries representing two different regions. The Veraison's Black Bart label creates a somewhat rare possibility outside of the more obvious tradition represented by St. Joseph in Chapoutier's Les Granits bottlings. All wines were from the 2005 vintage.
The Castaneda family came for dinner, and J.'s preparations featuring black tiger shrimp, corn, coconut, and pork in a variety of presentations ended up being almost ideally matched with the wines. We also started with Champagne and opened another bottle at the end of the evening.
It turned out that the chosen examples syrah and marsanne were excellent for the experiment. Interestingly, the Black Bart wines are both reported as 15.2% alc. by vol. while the Les Granits are both reported as 13.5%; however I'd guess the latter wines to be closer to 14.5, as there didn't seem to be that much difference in noticeable heat or body, especially in the two syrahs. Overall, the two marsannes were a real revelation, convincingly great examples that showed varietal characteristics in common, but demonstrated winemaking differences. In fact, the whites stole the show. Even though we're all primarily red wine drinkers (and Rhone fans, especially), the wines that surprised and delighted us most were the two marsannes.
All the wines were really excellent, with not a single disappointment among them. In fact, I'm slightly embarrassed by the sameness of these ratings, all in the 91-93 range, but there you have it: outstanding wines, none of them quite mindblowing, but all of them wines that induce a "wow, that's great."
These wines were served at around 45-50 degrees F, poured from the bottle about half an hour after opening.
These were both decanted about ninety minutes before they were served, and around 65 degrees serving temperature. I think the Les Granits might have benefitted from three to four hours decanting, but the Black Bart was good to go.
NV Charles Heidsieck Champagne Brut Réserve 91 Points
France, Champagne
(Mis en cave 2000, disgorged 2007.)
Delicious, exciting, the kind of champagne that makes your guests smile unabashedly. Notes pretty consistent with the bottle from earlier in the week, but I think a slightly better showing (hmm---great week, having this twice!).
Vigorous bead with very fine bubbles, yeasty nose, apple and pear aromas and flavors, some nuts and sweet spices on the finish.
This is currently the best Champagne value I know of.
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