2006 Domaine Pierre Usseglio & Fils Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée de mon Aïeul
Community Tasting Note
KPB wrote:
Monday, September 1, 2014 - Nearly black, this wine has a nose that evokes "very ripe Zinfandel" and seems atypical of CDP to me. A medicinal note overlays super-ripe blackberry aromas, with a very oaky background; I initially wondered if the bottle was bretty, but in the end I think just overoaked. Bitter on the front palate, then sort of silky and rich with very ripe fruit and clear signs of surmaturite, but then bitter again on the finish, which is surprisingly short. Hot finish led me to recheck the nose for VA, but in fact I don't find any VA. Still, a bit like a cocktail made with blackberry compote, liqueur, and oak chips. Drink up if you own this; it isn't improving. I gave this wine 91 on release and thought it could merit a higher score. I guess I was wrong.
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Comment posted by junglejuice:
9/4/2014 2:12:00 PM - This wine was aged in 80% Cement and 20% old/used barrels. I think you may have dealt with a flawed wine rather than an overly oaked one.
Comment posted by KPB:
9/5/2014 8:37:00 AM - Interesting that they didn't use much oak. There could be a brett issue -- one of the forms of brett gives a kind of oak-resin flavor almost like retsina. I usually can tell, but perhaps in a mild case it would seem this way. At any rate for me it came off as oak, and not such mild use of oak either. I doubt that the bottle was flawed in a significant way, because I know this wine pretty well (I've gone through several bottles and I have the mon Aeuil from many vintages). But I guess it is possible that the wine has a slowly developing brett problem that affected this bottle.