5/4/24, 3:35 AM - You *did* like it, didn't you?I love the idea of 'brimming with confidence and conviction' - what a brilliant comment! I know exactly what you mean, natch!Worth giving it some age? L&W say drink before 2030.
4/20/24, 4:23 PM - I drank a bottle of this when it was just released, loved it and wrote it up on Elitistreview that night. The following morning I rang the wine merchant at 09:30 to buy some more. The wine merchant told me that a well known London restauranteur had rang them up at 9am and bought the lot because he'd read a good review of it on some wine website. Bugger.
4/5/24, 3:34 AM - I think it is a good point to make that the winemaker respects and understands his piece of land and manages to take a liquid photograph of it in all its multifacted glory.
4/5/24, 3:46 AM - Great Chenin Turangawaewae indeed.
4/5/24, 3:55 AM - This is certainly true. I this the concept of Turangawaewae fits with wine well. I admit terroir does as well, but why always use the French word?
4/5/24, 4:10 AM - Tip remembered and will be employed in the future. The old Barossa manner for Monastrell Is 'Dog Strangler'. Amusing, but the less I have to do with the Barossa the better.
4/5/24, 4:29 AM - Dare I say it, but being the best comment-poster on CT is akin to being the most well-polished tu… I mean the best Saumur!
4/5/24, 3:39 AM - The balance is one of the key factors here, not so sweet as to seem flabby, but razor sharp acidity to keep it nervy with all that sugar. I feel it would be instructive for you to taste a Foreau Clos Naudin Vouvray Moelleux, luckily I have one in the wine fridge. We shall arrange. That other thing that seems essential to all these brilliant Chenin Blancs is the texture of them. They all seem to have an enveloping, silken yet powerful, umami-like texture; this is amazingly attractive and deeply desirable.
4/5/24, 3:52 AM - Oh yes, my friend, analysis I adore!
4/5/24, 3:32 AM - Doesn’t this deserve a place at the highest of tables for *any* dry whites from anywhere in the world? Stunning. I found the texture utterly profound and, as it enveloped my senses, I am not ashamed to admit that the tiniest hint of emotion gathered wetly at the corner of my eye.
4/5/24, 3:46 AM - I think the first two vintages I had of this were 15 and 19, proper years in Stellenbosch. I was moved.I hated having to pour any to anyone else.
4/5/24, 3:26 AM - “Utterly lovely”? Really? I’ll have to break out a bottle from a proper vintage and see what you think. I’d love to try a 2020, or a 2022 when they are released.
4/5/24, 3:42 AM - Find a date and it’ll happen. And if not on that date, we have all the time in the world…
4/5/24, 3:28 AM - “Avoid” indeed, I really don’t see even a hot vintage raising the interest level of this. “The best Saumur” is really rather like the most well-polished turd.
1/11/24, 12:28 AM - Forgive me for asking such a long time after you tried this, but what do/did you think about ageing this? It was five years old when we tried it, and that is starting to push the limit of a lot of Pinot Gris. As a long-time drinker and serial disappointed tick when I've tried ageing them, Pinot Gris does not age. No matter what Olivier Humbrecht says, the man has disappointed me far, far too many times for me to try with his wines again, it just doesn't age.This had a lot of exciting fruit, there was good acidity - it certainly was not flabby - and there was not a hint of dirt or decay to it. It was bursting with life and energy. Will it last another five years? Ten? What do you see happen to it if one does age it?If your answer is, "It was too long ago", fair enough. I am really interested in your views, though, as you were so *visibly* surprised not only that it was good, but also that you liked it. I know you don't do the bullshit-thing, so you were not trying to butter me up, I was just very surprised by how taken with it you were, hence my interest!I should add, very few Pinot Gris are like this or as good as this. Some may be nice, big, expansive drinks when they are young but, off the top of my head, I cannot think of one quite like this. Francois Sorg is a vastly underrated winemaker and, much as I liked being able to afford a couple of bottles, it seems a crying shame that this costs less than thirty coins in the insanely over-priced UK market.
1/11/24, 2:19 AM - Morning Ricard, thank you for replying! Yes, I agree, 3-8 years (minimum and) maximum. It was such a delicate, refined, minimalist Pinot Gris, as I said there are very few like it in Alsace. Meyer-Fonné’s is a bit like it, but (like EVERY SINGLE ONE of them) fatter. Most, indeed all, I can currently think of, apart from real cheapies that have none of the verve, style or class of the Sorg, are a lot fatter. Even though Jean Boxler is a genius, his Pinot Gris simply isn’t as lively and as god-damned drinkable as this. Francois Sorg is a brilliant, sadly undiscovered talent. Everyone who really knows Alsace passionately is aware that he makes the best Muscat in Alsace. It is scintillating, pure and crystalline as well as floral and elegant. Quite stunning. What fewer people know is that his Riesling (especially), Pinot Gris and Ge-wurst-traminer are also spectacular.Do you know what impressed me most about this wine? That you liked it! I felt I had done so well bringing something you would expect to hate and yet you were clearly quite delighted by it. I think we’d agree that it is not the *most* stunningly serious drink in the world. But delicious? Absolutely! ‘Delicious’ counts for a lot.With regard to your last two points: Don’t go down there and that is a safe choice.
1/11/24, 2:31 AM - One last thing, this was for the Bugger Burgundy tasting (god, wasn’t that Nuits prosaic?). Almost all Bourgogne Blanc of passable quality costs more than the Sorg, I would suggest they have the same cellar-life, and I would further suggest that the Sorg is better than Bourgogne Blanc of similar or greater price. In this regard, it fitted the theme really well.Sure, you can get Bourgogne Blanc of higher quality, but they really cost much in the way of folding and, no matter how much you pay, exactly how fine is a BB ever going to be?
11/26/23, 3:51 AM - Last weekend, Yapp had 25% off magnums and Dani bought me a mag of this as a birthday gift. People very rarely buy me wine, especially things I love as much as this, so I was quite touched!
11/26/23, 3:47 AM - I was quite tempted to try these, but my lack of money kicked in and I thought, "That's quite a lot of money for a white I rarely enjoy terribly much". I've got some good wines from the Soc recently. Thanks to furious saving, and Alex's extreme and quite surprising generosity, I now own 8 x Jean-Luc Jamet 2020 - what wines to own!
11/22/23, 8:42 AM - The more I try them, and the more mature they get, the more I hate 2008 red Burgundy. I find them joyless.
11/21/23, 12:04 PM - So elegant, so refined, yet was bursting with dimension and charged with intensity. Dig that totally integrated and digested oak, man, you have to go searching for oak on a Gran Reserva! This was an extremely fine wine. Indeed, such was its class and beauty I found myself deeply moved by it - and by the generousity of someone who happily opened a magnum of such a wine. I was affected.
11/13/23, 11:42 PM - I thought cat-sized furry mammals, cats, maybe, but that could of been the cats.
11/14/23, 1:03 AM - Voles are violent little blighters! Keep them away from my wine! I'll stop bothering you soon 😊
11/15/23, 6:36 PM - I'm fine, thank you MrOctoberfest, if you ignore the agony in my back - but that'll be fixed early next year, hooray! I heartily urge you to buy this wine, it's fantastic!
11/13/23, 11:22 PM - This is one of the best wines Jeremy has ever made and, indeed, one of the best wines ever made at Dujac. My gob is smacked each time I try it. Vosne is a good village...
11/14/23, 1:00 AM - I tell you what: you buy me a case of this and you can smack my gob as much as you like!!
11/14/23, 1:06 AM - I'd better start toughening up my gob! OK, I'll leave you alone now. We can be silly on Monday😀😉
11/14/23, 1:11 AM - Just one last thing. I know he charges quite a lot for it, but by arse Jeremy does make eye-wateringly good wine. 01 was his first real vintage and the 01 Clos St Denis is one of a very small handful of wines that have bought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion. It shits all over the 01 Combottes, and you rather liked that.
11/13/23, 11:40 PM - 2018 Rhône’s are not much fun at the moment. Will they come around? I think they have the fruit but, bof, that tannin. Let’s say, ‘Yes they will’ and try a few in ten years!
11/14/23, 1:01 AM - Paf!
11/13/23, 11:02 PM - Sorry you had to drink this.
11/14/23, 12:58 AM - This is a feeling I am very well acquainted with. Obviously I don't know this wine, as no one would pay me enough to drink it, but with dross such as this I'm sure we both would have an awful lot of gun giving it a pen whipping!
11/13/23, 11:56 PM - Not just because it ended with this beauty, a wine I will forever be smitten with (but will be surprised if I ever try again), I bleeding loved this tasting. I have always found young Northern Rhône wines quite attractive, and they’ve never been more attractive than in this day and age and in vintages like 17 and 20. OK, the 17s may have clearly closed down, but they were still really well-stacked. The 20s were uninhibitedly joyful, if you can deal with scale. There was so much to LOVE this evening. That being said, apart from maybe a single bottle of 2020 (that shall remain nameless for the time being), I think both these vintages need to stay in storage for a period of time (after said single bottle). After they’ve got through their awkward middle age, maybe after I have too, they’ll be pure joy once again.
11/13/23, 11:38 PM - A fabulous wine considering it was obviously from such young vines. Quite the ‘come hither’-aspect despite only being 12.5%. I have some of the 21 and will beg, borrow or break balls to get some 22.
11/13/23, 11:33 PM - The 2017s were definitely closing down, even since my last taste of the Bourg in May and this the previous December. I doubt even the pure lubricity of Lionnet 2017 is less… errr… ‘lubricated’ for the next number of years.
11/13/23, 11:24 PM - Right, now I know about purchasing wines with recommendations from that source!
11/13/23, 11:13 PM - I liked the restraint, that engaged me.
11/13/23, 11:12 PM - By arse this was so delicious when it was just released. 'Emotional', yes, and that emotion was JOY! I always have been untroubled by the varying Brett-influence in this wine, it is so good it transcended shit. Sadly, I cannot have had a bottle in 15 years, pleased it is still kicking.
11/13/23, 11:08 PM - So sad it has gone. In the late-90s it was as divine as anything can be. Such happy memories - goodbye!
11/13/23, 10:59 PM - '[Y]ou just want to die in this.' - Chapeau!
10/21/23, 7:54 PM - Delicious, certainly, but I'm not sure I'd risk buying another of the same age without checking my return options. This cost (DP) about £16 a bottle more than the Ferret 2020 Hors Classé (@ its DP price) and, given a choice, I'd go for the safer(!), cheaper(!!) option and get the white Burgundy.
10/23/23, 2:27 AM - What was wine three of the night? I can guess no. 1...
10/23/23, 2:30 AM - That Ferret Hors Classé 2020 is a bloody brilliant wine, there's so much going on with it. Thank you for them. You should check out Sotanum 20 from that link I sent. They've got the oldest vines in Seyssuel and it's a great wine. Should be marvellous in 2020.
10/21/23, 7:17 PM - This suffered from 2018-syndrome a little - it was a bit tough. But better than Rene was making the wine and they were all painfully over extracted.
10/21/23, 7:13 PM - Good buy, that man! Apart from showing slightly that it was made from young vines, this was just delightful! It would be hard to have a better 12.5% 2020 Northern Rhône.
10/21/23, 7:09 PM - This was definitely in a middle aged hole, shame as not so long ago it was raw sex whilst being spoon fed pan fried foie gras with someone stuffing your wallet full of £50 notes. It'll open up given time, and it'll be beautiful.
10/21/23, 7:06 PM - A bit closed compared to last time we tried it, alas. Next bottle in 4+ years.
10/21/23, 7:04 PM - A wonderful wine - to taste this is to suddenly view Vernay as a serious red wine producer. It's their second best red wine, though. Dazzlingly complex and really svelte. Thoroughly enjoyed it and we will share more bottles in five+ years time.
10/21/23, 7:01 PM - This was coruscatingly brilliant. Generally, I think the 20s showed better than the 17s which seemed to be going into a bit of a hole.
10/21/23, 6:59 PM - It was bloody awful. It smelled and tasted of dirt and decaying vegetation, there was more than a hint of rot to it and it was completely lacking focus. It was just horrible and I managed two sips, which is about two too many.
7/10/23, 3:25 AM - It was fabulous, the kind of wine (especially given the circumstances it was consumed in) that one will remember forever. Once cash returns, I will get more and we shall drink it together, at least once, again; it may have to be from bottle, alas, rather tha from the most god-damn cool looking magnum we had all of the holiday. What a wine! Cheers, old chap!
4/25/23, 3:55 AM - I realise this review is nearly a year old, but based on a bottle of the 2019 I was given blind a few weeks ago (I got it as 2019 Cornas (result!) but guessed it as Clape), I would not open another bottle in a year’s time. It is very closed at the moment and will not be opening for business that soon. Keep your next bottle for a minimum of four more years. I promise you’ll be richly rewarded! It has a long life of fantastic pleasure delivery ahead of it, so don’t worry about drinking it before it gets too old.
9/5/22, 1:14 AM - It was also probably the booziest wine of the night!
9/6/22, 1:20 PM - I decanted it at 4pm to drink with dinner at 8pm. Drank it with a pasta and sun-dried tomato sauce dish. I absolutely adored it!
9/5/22, 2:23 AM - I loved this, it was great stuff!
9/5/22, 2:23 AM - This was piss boring and I feel like a fool for buying it. Dani has talked me around to thinking it was perfectly acceptable, but on a night with stars as explendent as those we drank that just didn’t do…
9/5/22, 2:20 AM - If I had more of these I’d be tempted to kept at least one for five more years. But, yes, this did offer up an enormous amount of pleasure on the evening; could that have been because it was the last wine of a very jolly event?
8/4/22, 1:13 AM - Just to say, L old bean, that this was actually a pretty good Savennieres. Firstly, they can be prone to oxidation, especially if they are made in a sweeter style (which is easy given the legally required maximum yields and late harvest dates) or if they have been aged in small barrels with too much enthusiasm. Secondly, again given the legally controlled late harvest date and the fact that these wines are grown in a cold mud bath where it rains all the time, rot can be an issue. Sometimes this works, Coteaux du Layton and Quarts de Chaume are right next door. Sometimes it can result in truly horrible wines. This had good fruit, was clean and expressive, had good density and was very long and complex. Definitely one to age which is what I will be doing with my two remaining bottles (please continue to speak to me so I can open a bottle for you in a decade or so!).
7/5/22, 5:08 AM - Get it from Yapp. If they still have mags of the Guiraude 17 and the standard red 19 you should be picking them up as a matter of urgency.
9/6/10, 4:50 PM - Now this is a hilariously fine Burgundy. I found it a lot more accessible than I expected for a serious Nuits 1er cru 2002. Glad you enjoyed it.
9/6/10, 4:47 PM - Yeah, Cedric Bouchard's Champagnes are top bunny all right. They may be wines of scale but they have real vineyard character and a trolley-load of style.
6/22/10, 8:41 AM - Now that is a seriously fine wine, but the 1997 vintage was just so fleshy, buxom and approachable I can understand you enjoying it at a 'mere' 13 years old. Cheers, cheers to Mr Gaja.
6/19/10, 7:01 AM - I have a somewhat different opinion about Santa Duc Gigondas PdHG. I was given a few bottles of the 1998 by someone who'd read a gushingly positive review; I hated and despised every drop that has passed my lips. It is far beyond any realms of enjoyment due to its inordinate level of alcohol coupled with its grotesquely stewed and ungainly set of flavours. Moreover, as it aged it went downhill from that already woefully low starting point. I've got a note up on Elitistreview.com (which is here: http://tinyurl.com/35gfgk9 ) of the last bottle I popped.I'm not trying to be needlessly argumentative,I just think it reasonable to point out that a behemoth like this might not be to everyone's taste.Cheers,David.
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