Cassoulet and Vieux Telegrape 98-01

Mini boy's night... decided to look at a few vintages of VT to get a feel for house style over a couple of different types of vintages... ripe and powerful (98 and 00... 98's more sunburnt/vine stressed in nature), firm and aromatically delineated (01), and a tweener... moderate climate, average depth of flavor (99).

• NV Franck Pascal Champagne Cuvée Sagesse Brut Nature 82 Points

  France, Champagne

  Moderate amount of fine mousse, yellow gold hue. Aromatically simple bruised red apple fruit, moderate amount of toast, a beer yeasty/malty kind of smell. On the palate low to moderate amount of dosage (I guessed it at 7-10 g/l and it is only 3), high acidity, a round and full midpalate, low alcohol. Balanced wine with shortish length, good intensity, low complexity... has decent finesse, a fine texture, good expression of place. A simple champagne with the natural camp's beer yeast/malt aromatic signature that is very Marne and Meunier in nature (simple and round). Good wine, average Champagne with a distinctive natural slant.

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• 1998 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau Flawed

  France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

  This wine’s “corkiness” was not obvious at first and was much more noticeable on the palate than on the nose… One of the tasters could smell “corkiness” more than the others… suspect the culprit was more TBA or fungal must in nature based on what I know about my sensitivities to the most common compounds that lead to a corked wine. A good reminder that taste is as valuable as smell in making the “wine is corked” call.

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• 1999 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau 91 Points

  France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

  Similar to previous bottles… this was the most bretty of the 4 bottles… my TN was largely the same as before though empasized the roundness and sweetness on the palate and that the complexity of this wine has a lot to do with brett… the horsey (4-EC) and smoky (4-EG) kind... Drink up!

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• 2000 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau 90 Points

  France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

  Before decanting this wine seemed a bit overripe in its fruit… with 30 minutes in the decanter it gained a lot more focus and delineation losing a lot of the overripe aromas… my notes were similar to two years ago with a couple of exceptions… noticed less depth of color and less extraction at rim, less brett. This wine still remains very firm in structure for the vintage and a bit adolescent and unevolved but with good underlying depth of flavor and structure. This thing has to flip from adolescent to adult sometime soon?

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• 2001 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau 89 Points

  France, Rhône, Southern Rhône, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

  Very similar tasting note to last bottle though this one seemed less aged/less complex aromatically and more firm on the palate. Certainly had the firmness on the palate and delineation of aroma I expect from the 01 vintage.

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The tasting was a bit disappointing in a number of ways… lack of “awesome” wines, variability in brett, my inability to find a great 98 VT, the 00 continuing to be adolescent in nature and not particularly representative of vintage at this point in its evolution… the cassoulet and company more than made up for what the wines lacked… think my expectations were a bit high to be honest.