2016 Tardieu-Laurent Condrieu

Community Tasting Notes (4) Avg Score: 90 points

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Lagrange68's profile
  • Report Issue

  4/10/2020 - Lagrange68 Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Honey, flowers, ripe pear, stone, some noticeable, but not dominating vanilla taste, full body, long aftertaste. Paired well with salmon and asparagus. Excellent showing

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View forceberry's profile
  • Report Issue

  3/14/2019 - forceberry wrote: 83 Points

  Aged for 10 months in new and once used Allier and Tronçais oak barrels. 13,5% alcohol. Tasted half blind.
  
  Pale lime green color. Rich, spicy and vibrant yet not over-the-top nose with aromas of exotic fruits, some ripe pear, a little bit of perfumed floral character, light notes of apple jam and gummi bear cnadies, a smoky hint of toasted oak and a touch of savory wood spice. Overall the nose feels somewhat woody, but not excessively oaky. The wine is very rich, full-bodied and noticeably viscous on the palate with youthful, vibrant flavors of pear jam, toasty wood spice, some savory exotic spices like turmeric and saffron, a little bit of candied gummi bear character, light caramel notes of oak and a hint of vanilla. The overall feel is very round and soft with quite low acidity. The finish is soft, round and oily with relatively short flavors of toasty oak spice, some pear marmalade, light apple jam tones, a little bit of peachy stone fruit, a sweet hint of caramel oak and a touch of vanilla.
  
  A rich, oily and somewhat candied Condrieu that feels just too soft, dull and ponderous for my taste, lacking heavily in the acid department. With this big body and ripe fruit the wine could be relatively high in acidity and still risk feeling too dull and ponderous. Despite the relatively high proportion of new wood, the wine isn't fortunately excessively oaky, but those sweeter notes of toasty oak still boost the rich, jammy and candied flavors a bit too much. Perhaps the wine will benefit from a few years in a cellar in the hopes that it'd lose its most obviously sweet primary fruit tones, but I wouldn't wait too long with a wine this low in acidity. Impressive in its own right, but not really my thing. Add 10 points to my score, if you like big, super-rich and somewhat oaky whites but don't appreciate acidity.

  1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Comments (3)

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Bathtub58's profile
  • Report Issue

  7/12/2018 - Bathtub58 wrote: 89 Points

  Popped and poured. Nose of nutmeg. Baking spices up front, nutmeg finish. Very long finish. Medium body.

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

• Options

  • Post a Comment
  • View Wine Ratings's profile
  • Report Issue

  12/7/2017 - Wine Ratings Likes this wine: 91 Points

  Aromatics galore, and a sumptuous palate to match – such a treat from start to finish! I was given a small taste of this while perusing the shelves at Vine Arts, and was instantly hooked – naturally it couldn’t have just been a great $25 find they had opened, but rather something a little more extravagant. Regardless, once that first sip passed my lips I had no choice but to grab a bottle. Certainly on the fuller side of Viognier, the wine provided a typical oily texture with mouth-filling viscosity, all the while remaining exceptionally drinkable rather than overwrought or flabby. Honeysuckle and ripe fruit (pear, peach, pineapple, melon, banana) were at the forefront immediately and over the course of tasting, with touches of honeycomb lingering throughout. Under the big body and all of that rich fruit, the wine showed a fresh, zesty streak of lemongrass and orange peel which provided a nice (if not subtle) balance to each sip. Hints of pepper and fennel also came through with time, though ultimately the finish was full of cream, vanilla, and brown sugar. As I said – a genuine treat all around. Given the weight (and price), I wouldn’t call this an everyday sort of wine…but I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to every other day!

  Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Comment

Professional reviews have copyrights and you can view them here for your personal use only as private content. To view pro reviews you must either subscribe to a pre-integrated publication or manually enter reviews below. Learn more.