10/10/2013 - Billy Swan wrote:

There's something very special about Pègau. It's like they've managed to invent the teleportation machine. It only has one destination, but what a destination southern France is. You pull a cork, you poor the wine in a decanter and swoosh; you're in the land of lavender, of garrigue, of sunwarmed stones that somehow are still wet, maybe with juice from grilled meat. You get cassis, raspberries, licorice and fresh tobacco. Mouthwise this manages the feat of being balanced and slender even though the power is enormous. Acidity is bright and fools you into thinking the tastes are light, when they most probably are dark. This will continue to develop, but there is nothing wrong with pulling a cork today or tomorrow either.

7/21/2012 - pete s. wrote:

Tasting room note. Lovely, creamy blackberry on the nose with subtle spice. More savoriness on the palate with smoke, leather, and black raspberry fruit. Full-bodied and still drinking very young.

1/30/2013 - Pipcelot Does not like this wine:

Atrocious by Sojourn standards. Nonexistent nose. Nothing on the mid-palate. Flabby cola. Have had this twice now and, unfortunately, my notes both times are consistent. The worst Sojourn vintage top to bottom.

1/25/2013 - Coupe 60 Likes this wine:

PnP at Pairings restaurant with a braised Short rib dinner. Wow...there must be some bottle variation with this. Almost an order of magnitude better than the last bottle I had over a year ago. Still on the softer side, but way more expressive,dark red fruit is pure, prominent, and nothing short of delicious. Well integrated and finely balanced, no matter how hard you try you cannot drink this wine slowly. The wine just disappears from the glass. Relatively low acidity, Finish is long with soft tannins.

Mrs. Coupe said it might have been the best wine she ever drank. It was definitely up there for me. Too bad it was my last bottle

1/23/2013 - TSBWine Likes this wine:

91+ Points. Honestly, this wine was a real trip and very enigmatic in the glass. Serially tasted over about 3 hours with ever-changing characteristics and seriously dynamic fruit characteristics. My view is that this is a quality wine that is not quite resolved in the bottle. There's a power struggle here between the Syrah and Grenache that feels like a constant wrestling match. At this point neither grape is quite complementary to one another and until the Grenache takes a back-seat with bottle age the only real enjoyment of the wine will come as an academic exercise.

At first pour the wine is intensely "grapey" on the nose with some pleasing meat/animal notes behind it. On the palate the wine the Syrah is very dominant with intensely dark fruit, dusty gravel, graphite and a fine limestone sinew running throughout. Clearly very primary, the fruit can't seem to get out of its own way and pushes off some of the secondary characteristics that seem to be lurking on the midpalate. With some additional aeration the fruit takes on a very wild character that speaks of both ripe blackberry and raspberry. The wine touches briefly touches on some baking spice notes but the wine is a bit brawny to show any sophistication.

Over time the wine evolves in a somewhat unstable way. Fruit notes drift back and forth between wildberries, blackberry, grape, black currant, raspberry, red currant and black cherry. On the mid-palate the gravel notes came and went along with characteristics of limestone, graphite/iron, faint notes of licorice, cola spices, thyme and oregano (never got to "garrigue" for me which is far more distinctive). With extensive aeration there were also some notes that were difficult for me to decipher on the palate. My best approximation is oil cured black olive but at that point many of the characteristics weren't quite delineated.

My perspective is that this is a quality wine with lots of potential but isn't quite "there" yet. It's overly primary at the moment and it needs some bottle age before it comes together in a harmonious way. It's too disjointed and suffers from a lack of focus. At the same time, it has a fine textural elegance that speaks to a finer, more sophisticated wine. There's enough acid here to keep it fresh and a vein of limestone that helps lift it from being too heavy on the palate. An intriguing wine that could be going places. I would give it another 2 years for the Grenache and Syrah to come together in a more harmonious way. Possibly a much better wine with maturation, right now though it comes across as an angst-ridden teenager.