6/7/2013 - La Cave d'Argent wrote:

Deep red/garnet at this point and showing nice aromas of dried cherries, allspice and tobacco, this wine fails to deliver a comparable experience on the palate. It is medium-bodied and very tart, with significant residual dry tannins which overpower any remaining fruit. The wine concludes with a medium-length, astringent finish. There is no doubt that this village-level Burgundy, a "forgotten child" in the cellar, should have been consumed at an earlier date. Drink up!

5/17/2012 - lagrein wrote:

A bit of a disappointment: the wine was slightly oxidized and too acid. It didn't improve with airing.

2/18/2012 - Alex H wrote:

More perfumed with hints of spicy black florals. Has more acidity which provides a refreshing lift to the black granite finish. Spices and garrigue. A more elegant expression. Nice and quite complete.

9/20/2011 - Chris Newport wrote:

This is a really good bottle of wine. Delicate pale translucent ruby in color with some of the more mellow colors that I associate with bottle age just starting to permeate. Really nice, expressive and detailed nose with red fruit and the soft forest floor/pine needle aromas that would lead a taster towards Savigny if tasted blind. More detail and finesse on the palate, this is certainly on the delicate side, but with a ton of flavor impact… very nice indeed. The palate has that wonderful Savigny pungency intermingled with some soft red fruited notes. The wine seems to be just starting to enter the phase where the secondary flavors and aromas are entering the picture but aren't taking over the primary fruit quite yet. If you like to drink your burgs at this stage, I would say this is just entering the leading edge of that window. The balance of the wine is impeccable though, this should have no problem making it to old age if you like to wait for more secondary or tertiary flavors to emerge. Nothing earth shattering, but a well made, balanced and detailed burgundy with a ton of flavor impact that really represents where it comes from. Everything I look for in red burgundy. (9/20/2011)

Interestingly, this is quite different than a bottle of ’07 consumed a few months ago. The ’07 was almost monolithic and impenetrable (at least for a cool climate pinot) compared to this. The '07 showed some fleeting hints of what the '02 is offering right after it was opened but then retreated into it's shell. I’m wondering if the time in bottle has caused the ’02s color and flavors to become so delicate and expressive compared to the ’07 or if there was some sort of shift in the winemaking between the two vintages?

5/18/2011 - cboyle_3 wrote:

Great smell off the cork, but I don't like this nearly as much as I do the Lonardi (Giuseppe Lonardi Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore 2006 - MUCH BETTER!). This one is too dry for me.

5/28/2011 - pacificoast wrote:

I'll give it an 89, being at the top end of "Very Good to Excellent". The next higher grade, "Outstanding", above 90, naaah, not so much. To place this wine within 3, 5 or 8 points of the CdP superstars of this vintage is utterly absurd, being such superb works as the Marcoux Vieilles Vignes, Usseglio Deux Frères, Janasse Vieilles Vignes, Clos St. Jean Deus Ex Machina, etc.

A nice wine, but the best I can describe it is "nondescript". It tastes like a very nice typical CdP, but that's about it. Nothing special in the nose, nothing special on the palate. I taste kind of a generic, not terribly tannic, reasonably accessible wine, plus a little bit of pepper, and some alcohol, and not much more. There's a reason why the Beaucastel luxury cuvée, Hommage à Jacques Perrin, or the Deus Ex Machina, sell for $600 and more, and this one sells for $75. Namely, it's a very nice $75 bottle of wine. Nobody's ever going to be chasing after this wine in coming years, and it will never ignite a bidding frenzy at an upcoming Bonham's auction.

4/13/2011 - InternationalWineReport wrote:

Tasted twice. Consistent.

4/5/2011 - DougLee wrote:

Dark ruby. Reticent nose eventually showing scents of licorice, black plum, earth, and violets. Somewhat closed on the palate also, but there was a brief period when the black raspberry fruit shown richly with a deep slash of taut, grippy tannins and notable acidity as well - quite satisfying. Finish moderate and mostly marked by structure and iron. Very promising wine but needs some years yet.

3/22/2011 - WineArchitect Likes this wine:

Dark garnet color. Popped from the cellar to taste and allowed to breath in the bottle. There is evident bottle age on the nose as some of the aromas are a bit baked. The wine has a medium mouthful of Rioja leather flavors with some cherries on the finish. I would recommend drinking extra inventory soon. EG WineArchitect

3/9/2011 - z_willus_d wrote:

So eager was I to try this that I fully disregarded the concept of bottle shock, not that I'm a particularly strong believer in such effects, particularly when applied too young Beaujolais. The back-label read: "M09TR S 19/7/10", which indicates this wine saw a little Sulfur as opposed to the Normal nil. I poured a glass out of a slightly below room temperature bottle (~63F); little to no aeration at initial tasting. The wine has a bright semi-translucent ruby red color. Right off the bat, this has me thinking of barbie dolls in the closet bin or maybe the way a gussied up 16-year old's hair would smell on PROM night -- it's that kind of delicate, pretty, flowery, perfumed, scratch-n-sniff strawberry esprit of freshness this lovely bouquet spreads forth. Moreover, light blueberry fragrances and then sugar cookie dough followed by savory, charred animal fat. Absolutely amazing nose! Shows a little carbonic on the palate with all those bouquet descriptors. This is very very concentrated but manages to remain "en pointe" and oh so pretty, floating like a cloud made of evaporated cherry and strawberry gas in the cerulean blue sky of the most sanguine and Zen planet your Spring season, Saturday morning imagination could ever hope to construct. Elegant, silky mouthfeel and weight. Fruit is sweet yet incredible pure and "non-confected." Perfect acid balance. Has just a little "heat" on the back throat, but the expression is more of spice than of alcohol burn. Medium-plus to long length finish. Tannins? If any, are completely imperceptible to me. I'll admit, this lacks the tannin structure, minerality, and traditional terms of complexity that I've found in other top producers of the vintage. This is ultimately a very delicious style of Beaujolais, incredibly balanced, and drinking remarkably well right now. This wine has me questioning the relative importance of good tannin structure to aging as opposed to sheer balance. I have 11 more bottles of this wine to follow through the years to try and come to an answer. In this case, my score reflects (among all the usual "objective" elements) my pleasure in this bottle as it drinks Today; this as opposed to the more regular calculation that more accounts expectations of ability for mid and far term aging/evolution - I just can't say with my limited experience in the SubRegion and with this producer. Extraordinary concentration of beautiful fruit merged with grace, agility and poise defines this wine.

2/15/2011 - GETRENNT wrote:

This really really (obviously) benefits from a massive decant. It tends to be hot, thinner than anticipated fruit juice until hour one,. then shows its stuff from hour 1.5 through 4, then starts rocking from there.

A: reddish purple, young, opaque
N: Med/med plus intensity, a bit dumb currently, heavy mineral, mustard seed, jammy and hot, forest floor/wet moss, eucalyptus and a ton of leafy lingonberry jam
P: M+ acid, Hi- intensity, M++ body, Lo+ tannin, med finish

Hot, prickly, white bread, doughy, red currant sauce, candied red fruits, evergreen needles, warm hickory

Well done for a fruit bomb, on account of the (decanted) complexity.
aegisepolis@hotmail.com

2/17/2011 - pkatz wrote:

A delicious fruit forward rich blueberry and blackberry flavored wine. I am surprised by the notes reporting cherry as I find none of that here. I associate cherry with certain Pinot Noir and maybe some Grenache. Lacks complexity and structure and so becomes a bit cloying, but still a terrific bottle of wine at this price. Ultimately, however, its lack of finesse or elegance reveals its price range or lack of pedigree.

2/16/2011 - RajivAyyangar wrote:

Havana South Wine Club - Wines of Veneto (Havana South): Medium+ ruby in the glass. Very funky nose of huitlacoche. Not much fruit. Med tannins. Med+ body, med alcohol. nice. $32

2/13/2011 - CWilliam wrote:

2009 Beaujolais Outside (Beebe House): Notes after bottle being open for 4 hours. On pop & pour nothing there. Afer 4 hours, black cherry / tobacco / saline / blackberry on the nose. Medium + body. Black raspberry / black cherry / tobacco on palate with long finish. If I did not have the luxery of tasting this wine over a number of hours I would have written it off. Lots of potential and showing better than a few months prior - very suprising that this is a beaujolais - shows potential of the region. 92+ points.

9/25/2010 - pbaek wrote:

One of the most restrained and shy young bottles of Lapierre I've had - even after a couple of hours of decanting. There is more concentration of fruit than usual that's for sure, this is a 2009, and within the first hour I almost found the fruit too extracted. Polished cherry fruit in my Morgon? But then slowly the wine began to settle down, the tannins firmed up a bit and the wine started to show firm garden fruit along with those chalky minerals I so often find in Lapierre's wines. There is clearly a lot going on here, but today it's mostly hidden under a shell of firm tannins, though with great promise for the future. This is a wine to lay down for a while. The potential is there.

9/24/2010 - Vinomane wrote:

Pulled from wine locker in darkness; identified by feel and location as 1995 Corino Barolo Giachini, decanted out of sight. "Did you say Barolo?" "I said it, but maybe I lied. Where is that bottle?" OK, so it's 2001 Contino Rioja reserva. Impressive stuffing but ten years away. Some have reported it ready to drink. Well, not this bottle. Slams a door in your face when you've barely got your nose in. Needs time and plenty of it.

8/31/2010 - Keith Levenberg wrote:

Started off musty and I put it aside to let it air out. Left it in the cellar overnight and came back to it the next day, and the mustiness is gone, so it wasn't a cork problem. But it's not performing like I'd expect, either, and I hope this bottle isn't representative. It has a sharpness to it both in its somewhat spiky acidity and in an alcoholic bite that continues on to a warm, spirity finish (even though it's only labeled at 13%). It does have fairly fresh, crunchy fruit, but it needs more finesse. I liked the 2005 on release much better than this. I'll have to try another bottle and hope for a better showing.

8/26/2010 - Troon wrote:

Pop and pour. It is ready to drink now. A very enjoyable wine. More subdued than a domestic Pinot. There was blue fruit on the palate, but it was not loud.

8/30/2010 - Rieslingfan wrote:

Ok, I don't trust this low-sulfur wine to remain stable, but darn it hardly matters, as it's so good now! Ripe, fleshy yet also possessing an acidic backbone that hides in the background until it is absolutely needed; all this makes for a delicious drinking experience. Outstanding!

8/9/2010 - boodra wrote:

Very soft and mature. A little brownish color. Dont think it should be kept for to long? Not really what i expected from a Brunello, made me think a little of a good Rioja with its soft red fruits paired with some oak vanilla.

One its own a very good wine, but still somewhat disapoints me