January 14, 2024 - Animal notes, heavy Brett and acidity for first 4 hours, then settled in to a big tasty compliment to lamb and beans. Some tar, blue fruit, prune, and tannic. Food helped a lot. Still full of gamey flavors. Nice wine, still getting better at 6th hour. Decanted from the start
Day 2 black cherry and chocolate, absolutely delicious.
August 27, 2023 - I love Gourt de Mautens, but this particular bottle of the 2012 was totally dominated by the animal aromatic signatures of brettanomyces.
July 14, 2023 - Sampler. Out of enomatic.
July 7, 2023 - This bottle took a while to really open up since we were consuming it at a friends' home right out of the bottle. These wines continue to surprise me with their freshness, top-notch fruit, clarity of expression, and mouthfeel. It does need some time to develop so be patient with it.
July 3, 2023 - Drinking well from magnum.
May 21, 2023 - Final bottle of a half case. I again experienced slight carbonation/metallic notes early, which I don't prefer. Generous big black and bold red berries, with early tertiary development. I'm curious how mature tertiary evolution would drink, but my bet is that this wine lacks the structure of the best CdP to handle that. This is a good wine that probably hit its apex 2-3 years ago.
January 31, 2023 - We did not decant this wine properly and therefore it seemed a bit disjointed, but full of red and dark red fruit and a lanolin/shoe polish taste. The shoe polish character usually blows off these wines, but it persisted in this bottle. Overall it was a good companion for our meal and afterwards.
December 23, 2022 - I enjoyed this bottle much more than the last one. The black fruit is complemented with some deep, complex flavors like tar, bramble, licorice. Much bigger and more structured than typical southern Rhone / Rateau Grenache.
August 1, 2022 - I have had previous bottles of the Gourt de Mautens which I have enjoyed but this was a little perplexing like other tasters I did find this have a bit too much funk with a medicinal character and a bitter finish . Disappointing so much so that I really could not drink it.
May 1, 2022 - Third bottle of a half case. I like the big juicy ripe red fruit flavors - very New World - with the right food. (We had a slightly spicy Asian dish tonight, and I wanted red, so we went with bright fruit.) I'd rate this a few points higher if it didn't have a bit of sharp, carbonated/metallic finish like an American cola drink. This type of finish is a pet peeve of mine found all to often on American pinot. I found it here, and it added a sharp edge on otherwise excellent fruit.