Northern Rhone Dinner at Marc's
DC/Silver Spring MD
Tasted April 27, 2019 by ericindc with 145 views
Introduction
The 8 of us got together at Marc's for a Northern Rhone dinner. Always a great time.
Flight 1 - Hermitage Blancs (2 notes)
Probably my favorite flight. Both bottles showed well, but the Guigal was just more refreshing. Served with breads, brillat saverin, and a soft goat cheese.
White
1984 E. Guigal Hermitage Blanc
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage
Younger, sweet yellow fruited nose. Really young seeming for such an old wine, color was still pretty pale yellow. Sharp acid, great complex fruit, a hint of mature notes, some ever so light herbal quality. Really refreshing. Stunning wine.
White
1984 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage Blanc
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage
Slightly bretty stink on the nose with apricot and sherry notes. Darker color (kinda apple juice colored). Some earth tones, browned fruits, fuller body. Good acid. Almost a tannin-like grip. A bit tiring to drink after a while though. Held up pretty well over 5 hrs.
Flight 2 - Young Hermitage (2 notes)
This was a hard flight for me. Stylistically, just not my bag. Served with ratatouille pie.
Red
1999 Delas Frères Hermitage Marquise de la Tourette
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage
Plummy nose. Mostly primary, plum and other black fruit. Light earth starting to poke through. Balanced with solid acidity and grippy tannins. Solid wine, but needed a bit of time to open up.
Flight 3 - Aged Hermitage (4 notes)
This was a great flight of wines. Served with Beef stew and manchego cheese. Chave was my fav, but wow it took a long time for the brett to start to blow off. It was pretty undrinkable when opened.
Red
1990 E. Guigal Hermitage
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage
Sweet black fruit on the nose. Black fruit, some light earth notes, olive, blood. Sharp acid with modest tannins that still have structure. Still pretty young, long life ahead of this.
Red
1991 M. Chapoutier Hermitage La Sizeranne
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage
Muted nose, but just some heat. Rather normal black fruit profile. Not super complex and sorta mundane. Mostly primary. Still has good grippy tannins. Maybe some more time open would have helped.
Red
1983 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage
Just horribly horribly stinky when opened. It gradually faded over a couple hours, but holy brett bomb. Browing rim. Once it started to blow off, the mature notes took over. Super complex, light/medium body, solid acidity, and light tannic structure. Without all the brett, this would have been much higher rated.
Red
1989 Domaine Belle Hermitage
France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage
Strong eucalyptus on nose. Lighter, body low tannins, with balanced acidity. mostly red, but some black fruits, less intense, but quite complex. Nice wine. No hurry to drink this one.
Flight 4 - Dessert (1 note)
Served with a raspberry cake and an assortment of chocolates. Didnt pair great with the wine, but it was all good. I didnt pay as much attention to this wine as I should have as it was at about this time the Chave from the previous flight started to show better.
Closing
Marc provided most of the wines and we appreciate his generosity. Also, his beef main dish he made for the dinner was fantastic!
Generally I am not a fan of young syrah, so I generally preferred the aged wines. My favorites of the night was the 1. Guigal blanc, 2. Chave Rouge, and 3. Belle Hermitage. Wonderful night.
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