2001 Domaine Santa Duc Gigondas Prestige des Hautes Garrigues

Community Tasting Notes (61) Avg Score: 91.9 points

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  11/25/2023 - Montesquieu Likes this wine: 97 Points

  Third time enjoying this wine at Blackberry Farm during the last two years. It's proof positive that exceptional Gigondas can peak past 20 years. Simply put, this is the best Gigondas we've ever had, and we drink a LOT of Gigondas, since it's my wife's favorite appellation. I'd rate the first taste even higher, a 98, for its wild bramble, garrigue, and Provence herb flavor notes. Great length and complexity. It probably had an hour or more decant before our first glass. After that, it slowly lost steam. Overall, a truly great wine shining now.

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  12/18/2022 - Montesquieu Likes this wine: 96 Points

  Back again for another bottle at Blackberry Farm, and I'll reiterate that this is the best aged Gigondas I've ever enjoyed. Glorious secondary forest flavors complement still-vibrant fruit. If I only knew what Gigondas to buy now that would taste like this when I'm even older....

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  11/26/2022 - Montesquieu Likes this wine: 96 Points

  This particular bottle was the best aged (i.e., 10+ years old) Gigondas I've ever enjoyed. Mrs. Montesquieu's favorite wine is Gigondas, and we drink dozens of bottles per year, including aged. Most are tiring by age 10 and clearly declined by age 15. This Santa Duc, at 21, was vibrant, fresh, and perfectly enhanced by its cellar time. Bramble, garrigue, modest forest floor and mushroom, and a bit of smoke all complement fruit that was still energetic. Based on a single data point, I'd say drink now if you have this and want to experience it at peak. Magnificent!

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  7/14/2022 - JohnSh wrote: 94 Points

  I didn't get a chance to decant this - it was a back up wine at a tasting - but this was firing on all cylinders from the get-go. The excellent nose was quite gamy, with red fruits and garrigue. The medium to full bodied palate was concentrated, well balanced and provided a complex mix of red fruits (cherries and plums mainly) along with some game, olive and garrigue. It had a smooth, velvety texture, but also still with ripe tannins to give it structure and acidity to keep it fresh. Outstanding now, but this still has many years left. 2001 was a great, great vintage for the S. Rhone and it shows in this wine. Very impressive (A).

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  2/25/2021 - Eric wrote: 93 Points

  Mmm, a decade has served this wine very well. This is a pure, spicy, rather precise and highly pleasurable laser of (mostly) Grenache! A little bit of mushroomy funk on the nose moves to loads of white pepper and pine, then cherry and granite. It's a bit drying on the mid-palate, quite spicy, but then finishes out nicely with excellent persistence and length, juicy, cherry, still quite tannic.

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