Aged Cru Beaujolais (San Francisco): Light ruby. Ripe cherry aroma. Medium to light weight but deeply imbued fruit with excellent supporting acidity and soil. Clean, gently sweet but completely serious wine. Beautiful to drink now but this has plenty left in the tank-impressive!
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Unbelievably lively and fresh, I would have pegged this as a 2020, not a 2009. As I mentioned in my last note from a decade ago, there's not undue weight here despite the warm vintage. Purrs like a happy cat. Ranks among my best-ever experiences with a Beaujolais.
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Excellent, but struck me as too young by at least 5 years and perhaps 10 or more. Tannins are not obtrusive but are present whereas the palate moves to the acidic/astringent side, albeit only slightly. Tobacco, cherry, strawberry, herbs, with bright fruit trying to punch out from underneath a more structured covering. Complexity is there, but this tasted a bit rustic and disjointed now. That is not a bad thing... but perhaps more of a reason to look forward to this wine's future.
I had half a bottle;consumed in 1 night.
Vvv
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Muddled light red color. Strong botanical scents and candied fruits. Light weight. A pleasing combination of ripe red berries and sour cherry. Fine acidity and an earthy, tannic finish. Excellent now, still room to improve.
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Dark cherries, a slightly musty note, wild berries, and a bit of tobacco on the nose. Well balanced with good acidity and ripe berries on the palate along with more dark cherries, and some herbs. Good finish. Similar to last time I’ve had it, this is a nice Burgundian Beaujolais, but I much prefer the carbonic style.
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Out of the bottle, rather four-square and moody. After a night open in the 'fridge, this wine iis n a great place: nicely balanced, beet, blood, gutsy tannins; some tertiary notes, a bit of figgy richness, fine acidity. Miles and miles to go in this wine, but, if you have a few, don't hesitate to broach one now. What a great wine - with a lengthy prior decant.
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This is lovely and has held up well in Greenblanket's new climate change Seattle ambient cellar - which now has more temperature swings than a Kentucky rickhouse. Nice pure fruit, appealing soil and mineral tones and even a bit of tannin. The nearly empty glass brings whiffs of spice. Greenblanket is gonna take his time finishing his last three bottles.
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Another good example of what fine Beaujolais can become --surprising, bewitching and, at times, even complex. Poured out of magnum, I will take the second half to a brown bag tasting tomorrow. I suspect people will think it’s a great village Burgundy. Willus below describes it well, though I am glad it is missing the slate he would have preferred. I am enjoying the fruit, tannin, sweetness and weight of this wine. Didn’t need to open anything else for my filet mignon. Sorry I missed our appointment with CdlR when I was in the region.
ich, lovely and long. Sappy black cherry, with spice and earth notes, wonderful plush mouthfeel, great finish. Pretty much all I could ask for in Gamay. A-
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Another 2009 Cru Beau that's proven itself through the passage of time. This muscular wine remains dominant on the palate with its nose of iron and blood, showing a patina of fruit whereas its core has gone to earth and tertiary matters. I knew this bottling would hold up based on its structure and balance, and what I knew has turned out to be true in this case. I wouldn't mind more freshness and perhaps slate-like qualities in a Fleurie, but that's just not what this offers at present. Whatever, I'm glad I've held on to several of these for the science and art of the whole thing.
I jumped in on a 750 of this wine, based on recent notes by such luminaries as VLM. My bottle tasted thin and weak, and I had a ferocious headache during the following night, suggesting light corkedness.
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My first of these, and I'm not sure what I expected. What I got was Beaujolais meets Ridge Zinfandel. Ripe dark red fruit, brambly even. Good structure, and it did calm down some over a couple of hours so I'm hopeful for the future. I'll wait a couple of years for the next, and drink Zin in the meantime.
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This is in a great spot for me. It hasn't gone pinote but has more spice and earth notes than your normal Gamay. This is driven by plump fruit but it also has a savory side to it, is that the manganese showing itself? The structure seems to be resolving and it's a matter of personal preference when you drink your remaining bottles.
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PnP and slow ox 2 hours in glass & btl prior to dinner. Underbrush and berries on the nose. Tasty enough but lacking a little zip and borderline jammy. Might be the ripeness of the vintage?
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Tasted blind. This was still quite young with mostly dark cherries, a hint of leather, and no sign of carbonic maceration on the nose. Quite structured with medium tannins and more dark cherries on the palate. Good finish. Not exactly what I look for in a Beaujolais, but certainly a good wine.
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Growing up nicely. It's still got the bright, exuberant fruit from release, but has shed some of the additional fat and Gamay sweetness, and now the savoury and mineral depth is much more apparent.
Missing Fleurie character on nose and palate. Neither fruit nor flowers. Black in color. Earth and woody on the palate. Somewhat soft, but not what I look for in a Fleurie.
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Out of a mag. With a 60 day aged Prime rib. just jamming in ever way. Found strawberries to be striking taste here. Really enjoyable. A wine with depth that just drinks really well. Will age well. 92
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Starts out really juicy for a Coudert, which I attribute to the year. After an hour or so, the structure perks up only to calm down after another hour. It's cool to drink this from the 3L to watch it change over the course of several hours. I've found that Beaujolais is an excellent foil to NC whole hog barbecue. BTW, this is also awesome out of 750.
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2017 Cru Beaujolais with a Few Slightly Older Wines: Ruby center with lightening. Round for the varietal, great fruit/soil balance with a chocolatey richness. None of the 2009 excess. Sappy and Burgundian. Splendid with many more years in hand.
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Glad to still have a magnum of this left, will have to revisit in 10+ years. Does not show the 09 vintage as much as you'd think. Lots of iron/blood on day one, day two shows a touch of astringency and violets.
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I finally took the effort to shuffle several bottles in the Eurocave to allow access to my small cache of this '09 Beaujolais. Some respected reviewers have indicated this may have lost some of its youthful sparkle in its mid-age. Speaking on the bottle in front of me, I get the essence of what I remember of the wine in its youth with greater depth, complexity and with silkafied edges. There is a fine intensity to the bouquet that calls to mind bitter, intense insect blood, molten tar, black raspberry, and floral vegetation. Underlying all of that is a core of iron minerals. One envisions a bloody field of battle from the iron age, or a scene from the Gladiator motion picture fought atop a raspberry and loganberry brier patch. This all transitions to the maturing fruit-full palate with grace and ease. To my mind, this wine has been set in an opaque, irony stone and has not much changed through the years, save that the stone has been polished over time, revealing a bit more of the gem held within it. If this wine traded some of its raw strength, fruit and stony intensity for a measure more transparency, it would rank among one or two peers at the very top of the totem or hill. As it is, for my palate it's a micro-notch below the one or two best, but who knows what more time will reveal. This certainly has the stuffing and structure to tolerate many more years of polishing without fear of internal dimming.
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My first taste of this since the time of release, and it hasn't aged much. It's not that it tastes the same but it still tastes like a wine that's fresh out of the gate, with that crunchy gamay fruit and juicy thirst-quenching factor, finishing with some crushed rock on the back end. Maybe it's a little more angular and a less silky than it was, as though it shed a little '09 flesh but the fruit at the core stayed in suspended animation. This has more of what I think of as a 2010 vintage profile than 2009.
PnP and slow ox an hour in glass & btl prior to dinner. Started with a little funk on the nose but cleaned up. Tasty enough but lacking a little zip and borderline jammy. I have one left and may roll the dice with further age but not sure this will improve. Might be the ripeness of the vintage.
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Difficult to score at this stage - still way too young. I had the "basic" cuvee of this wine some time ago (also 2009) and it was much more accessible than this wine. Patience required!!
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Black in color and no noticeable nose. Mostly mineral on the palate with some blackberry. Fleurie characteristics missing. An ok wine, but missing what I look for in a Fleurie, i.e, fruit and flowers.
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Dang this is amazing. Cooking the base and tare for a Tokyo Shoyu ramen for the Seahawks game. Took longer than Greenblanket planned so he and the Mrs had to order a pizza and open this bottle of Tardive from the cellar. The amazing thing is that the earthy core of this wine almost matches the umami that Greenblanket was trying to build into the ramen base with country ham and niboshi and katsuobushi. Greenblanket has learned that umami is umami no matter where it comes from and he hopes his guests on Sunday night agree.
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This still seems as if it was a recent release. A beautiful ruby core with minimal bricking and a rose rim leading to a clear meniscus. Scents of earth, cherry, and herbaceous notes waft up from the glass into the nostrils. There's a bit of a burn on the nose that seems like alcohol...but may be more a reflection of the warmth of the vintage. The palate is medium bodied, with med+ acidity, and med+ fruit intensity with flavors of bing cherries, wild strawberries, and blueberries awash across the palate and finish that lingers on the palate for a medium length of time. While this is easy to love right now...I think I'll be trying to ignore the rest of my bottles for another 3-5 years. The structure of this wine is clear and the wine is a clear representation of the warmth of 2009. Outstanding...and I'm glad I still have a few bottles left to see what this is like in another 6-8 years.
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Great time drinking. young without being too bold and big. Exceeded my expectations in terms of elegance and joy. Found the red fruit, cherries and berries, to be well integrated. Time should show more but highly enjoyable.
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Haven't liked this wine much lately but this bottle shoes so well, elegant and controlled and joyous with rather rich Sunday dinner at an Italian red sauce BYO joint.
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A very nice magnum indeed! No need to wait for more complexity;it does not appear to be in the cards (or bottle). Well integrated medium red fruit, mostly cherry and raspberry with some pepper--but much less of the Fleurie pepper tones now. Unlike the magnum of 2011 recently consumed, the 2009 was a bit more viscous, elegant, restrained but also less vivacious.
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we drank this after a 2013 (non-tardive) regular bottle with turkey. this was a bit grainier and showed more earth but was quite nice. agree with others that this will benefit from further development in bottle
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opened by mistake, thinking I was taking out the regular cru. This can still use (a good deal of) time. Okay at first, with several hours of air (esp. on the second night after pungoing the first night) it transformed, and for about an hour it was really singing, then lapsed back into something flat and hard.
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Oops, I opened my last bottle. Showed about the same as the last bottle. Glad I decanted this for about 3 hours today as the plummy note began to recede a bit and some nice floral notes and some pomegranate fruit tones took center stage.
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Enjoyed this a lot over the course of the evening. Had some stemmy/plummy notes at first that seemed to freshen up to feature some nice floral accents along with some berries. Undertones of wet earth emerged, too, which I liked. Great structure is present, so there's plenty of life ahead of this one.
There's a good wine in there, but right now it doesn't want to come out and play.
Decanted for about an hour, then consumed over an evening. The quality is quite evident, but this needs more time in the cellar. Quite closed down compared to release.
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An awkward drink right now for me. Starts off way too ripe. With air, it lightens up with its minerality coming through. Basically, I just wish I drank more of these earlier. I still have the bulk of the case, and I'm certain these will be better in a while, but a few more consumed a few years ago wouldn't have been a crime...
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Just great at this point - fresh and full with a complex set of dark fruit and savory flavors. Lots of tannin still in play. Greenblanket had this and another wine set up to go with roast chicken but his pals screwed that plan by raiding his liquor cabinet turning his well planned evening into Chicken and Whiskey Night. Oh well, at least he gets to follow two nice Beaujolais over several days.
Impressive! Stunning! so much more open for business then 2 years ago. Has the stuffing to age, but man this tasted good (licorice, minerals, fruit, freshness, richness, length, balance, acid/tannin, vibrancy) I love Lapierre, and had about 24 bottles of his 2009 (still a couple to go), I preferred it to this Tardive, but if this bottle is an indication of where this is heading then this may turn out to be far greater than lapierre's morgon in 5 years time.
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Color: Ruby with a crimson core Smell: Floral notes with red and blue fruits with mineral notes Taste: Blueberries, blackberry, clove, and mincemeat pie Overall: Outstanding, light-medium in body, med+ fruit, med- acidity, and a lovely complexity that I could see going well with most foods or alone. Drink now - 2024
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2009 Fleurie Vielles Vignes: Cherry red with violet rim. In the nose, it's dense, but fine, very meaty, but also with stony aspects to it, it seems cool and clear like a mountain stream, there's some raspberry at the back end of the nose. On the palate, this flows nicely, it's very delicate with just ripe blackberry and notes of Earl-Grey-Tea. The tannins are slightly rustic right now. The finish begins with slightly metallic notes and ends on clear fruit (raspberry and blackberry). This will likely be extremely rewarding with five to ten years of additional bottle age. It's currently far away from its peak. 89++
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Needs a good 2 hours of air before it starts to taste good. First glass is blocky with gritty tannic structure. After air it becomes much better, solid core of dark ripe fruit, nice aromatics. Decent acidity for the year and big tannins. Would rather wait on this for now.
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More refined aromas than a bottle opened in 2010, displaying a masculine side still, but less broth and more black raspberry and nutmeg/spice elements. Great depth on the palate, such a serious and structured wine.
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A few cru Beaujolais !: Vines from the Moulin-a-Vent border used to be sold as Moulin-a-Vent before. Bright fruit, fresh acidity and soft tannins with some mineral intensity very elegant. Great balance!
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Much more expressive tonight after being open for 24 hours. Red fruits, violets, granite, and potpouri on the nose. Vibrant red fruits with pretty prominant tannins still. I may have to let the rest of my bottles rest for a few years. OUTSTANDING!
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This should gain weight in 2 / 3 years time. Packed with minerals and quite tight. Definitely better on day two. This is ridiculously cheap for the quality in the glass.
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Still awesome from magnum. Layers of fresh red berried fruit, black cherries and savoury earthy and herbal elements combining seamlessly and conveyed with a sense of remarkable finesse and purity. There's plenty of structure here; fine grained tannin lurking on the back end and good acidity, but it's still incredibly easy to drink.
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Dinner With Alain Coudert, Francois Pinon, Marc Ollivier, and the Baudrys (Hundred Acres NYC): Alain Coudert explained that the grapes for this wine come from a specific plot with the vineyards that go into the regular Clos de la Roilette bottling, but that the grapes were picked at the same time as the "regular" grapes. This was not happy to be consumed. Closed down on the nose and the palate. What was there though was obviously of high quality, with a sappy quality on the palate that seems to differentiate itself from the regular bottling (from the older vines perhaps?). This should be really good down the road...
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Miscellaneous Notes from France; 11/5/2011-11/11/2011 (Paris and Burgundy): Dark, sappy, and ripe. Tremendous palate presence. Not the most focused 2009, but impressive nonetheless for its profound volume and black cherry fruit. I think this will regain structure with further aging, not that it wasn't great to try it again now.
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Slow ox'd for 24 hrs and drank on back-to-back flower nights with Coudert's basic Clos cuvee. The Cuvee Tardive is a darker, comparatively more brooding wine than the Clos, with a high-toned nose of black pepper and thyme. On the palate, it is deeper and denser than the Clos, tasting of darker fruits, creme de cassis, mineral and herb. Zesty, tangy acids contribute to a long, pulsing finish of mineral and garrigue. Although still quite primary and somewhat unintegrated with a bitter nutskin component on the mid-palate, this wine possesses great structure, depth, and polish, and promises to develop into something rather marvelous... but for now, pop the regular clos and hold the Tardive.
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Drank alongside the Foillard "Cote du Py" and Jadot's "Chateau des Jacques" Extremely sophisticated stuff! High toned nose of minerals and cranberries. Palate delivers wet stones and more red fruit and blue fruits on a high acid backbone. Fine tannins. Amazing balance.
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Seemed pretty tight on the palate but the nose was interesting. Popoed and poured. Drank over 2 hour period and stayed about the same. Better wait on the btl for a couple years or so. Might have drank a little too cold too.
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Fantastic stuff once again. Fresh, exuberant Gamay fruit combining seamlessly with a graham cracker-like savouriness in a very polished, almost weightless package that's impeccably balanced and all too easy to drink.
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Ruby color. I spent an over an hour with a first pour glass of this just checking in on the nose every or so several minutes. At first, I didn't pick much off the nose other than a background beefiness that called to mind boeuf bourguignon; with time I added dried apricots, ripening lily flowers, white pepper, sage, candy apple, and cherry juice to my list. It was truly a treat to experience the "nasal" evolution this wine brought about, from closed and dull to completely evocative and riveting an hour on -- beef replaced by the essence of deep floral. This wine had a fine silty mouthfeel that increased what otherwise would be a light-medium weight palate presence, almost as if the wine had been co-fermented with herb stalk resin or the nectar serum taken from the tip of the male sex organ of your favorite lily flower. This was one of the less "fruity" gamay wines I've tried, emphasizing on the meaty, savory, and more vegetative (herb and flower fauna driven) areas of the flavor palate. This was also the most complex of the several '09 Beajolais I've had. What fruit there was came across in the mid-palate as dried cherries, apricots or tropical fruits. This had the sour tang of green apples leading into its medium length spice denoting finish. An above average level of silty tannins caressed the whole of my mouth throughout. The second glass out of the corked bottle was sappy too but with more cream and fruit (more delicious); black raspberry and pepper on the palate, yet the nose hadn't woken up yet. This was a very dynamic, complex and interesting wine that I look forward to following over the next decade. Oh, did I mention? This might as well have been Pinot from somewhere very serious for all it's bringing. 93+ pts.
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Katherine Hepburn as a wine. It's firm and structured right out of the gate, with an upright, formal bearing that keeps you at arm's length; you have to admire it from afar at first. Soon enough it turns more inviting, whereupon you can banter with its complex beauty. Strawberries and crushed raspberries, polished stones, savory spices, black pepper, red floral elements, and a touch of smoke, all delivered with suave sophistication. Concentrated, with fine and structured tannins, but with little weight.
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Not to get too formal, but I think this falls into the "holy crap this is good" category. This wine is sneaky; it's not overly flashy or big or spoofy or even really different. Just distilled, concentrated Beaujolais. My guess is this will require a lot of time for this wine to show its best. Definitely a wine to buy by the case.
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Very accessible Tardive! This is pop and pour deliciousness (after a 15min fridge chill). Dark cherry fruit yet is very lean and exciting. Nicely tart, smoky, earthy, and fairly serious. This is historically a very ageable wine and this vintage is up there with the best I’ve had from ’09. Not “best” from the most drinkable right now perspective (like Lapierre) but more from overall structure and where it should head.
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Heerlijk toegankelijke fleurie. Vol rood fruit (bramen, kersen, aardbeid) met diepgang en volheid. Sappig met mooie ronde tanines. Wellicht beter nog te decanteren; zal haar goed doen. Kan nog vele jaren mee. Minimaal 10 tot 15. Blij dat er nog vele flessen kunnen volgen.
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The wine started out a little thin and tight, but with about twenty minutes of air, it really began to blossom. It had nice, sappy fruit with a nice acid spine. A little meatiness to it as well with air. A nice wine to have with turkey and stuffing, but probably will not open my other bottles for five years or more. I wish I had a couple more on hand because I think this would be interesting to follow over the next 10-15 years. 2009 really is a great vintage in Beaujolais.
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Stacked and packed. Yet enjoyable now. This has it all, with depth to its sappy fruit and meaty/brothy/saline flavors. Definitely a brooding masculine wine.
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Twenty Bottles of ('08 and '09) Beaujolais on the Wall (Arlequin Wines, San Francisco): A big step up from the regular cuvee in concentration, soil, and tannin. Here the fruit clearly veers toward blackberry. At the top of the heap for me along with the Thevenet, but completely different, much more foreboding, serious style that begs for time rather than sliding down effortlessly now.
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Strawberry and cherry, medium to full, silky on the palate. Has some tannin not a early drinker to me. Complexity here, with the fruit and mouthfeel it is great gamay!
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Don’t tase me bro, 'cause I can’t take another stupendous 2009 Cru Beaujolais. This one is gorgeous with black and red fruit, amazing soil inflection, meaty savory notes and that sheer old vine texture so well described by Keith Levenberg. And where the hell do those sweet haunting wisps of the autumnal backyard burn pile of our childhood come from? The best red wine I’ve had in months.
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Day 1: Something was wrong from the get-go. Hardly drinkable and one of the worst wines I've ever tried. I recorked the bottle and stored it in my normal fridge over night.
Day 2: Totally different wine. Not sure what happened yesterday, but today it's quite lovely. There are fantastic cherry, roasted mushroom, fresh herbs and floral components - none of which are obtrusive. Their integration is seamless and the mouthfeel is wonderfully delicate.
Cannot begin to fathom what was wrong yesterday, but there separate people found it undrinkable. Luckily, the bottle bounced back! Happy to have a bunch more of these and am looking forward to aging them.
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I'm with Dale. I've been having these on release since the late '90s, and I don't recall one that was remotely so open-knit. It will be interesting to see where these go. Recent bottles of the 1998 have been stunning.
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Massive concentration and length along with great precision, elegance and purity. Densely packed dark fruits, smoke and spice, but all held around a clearly focused center. Incredible length. Huge upside.
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Lovely wine. I remember the 05 and 02 Tardives on release as being a bit tight and austere, but this seems quite friendly and open. Black cherries with a little cranberry tartness, some tannins hiding in background, nicely structured. Nice acidic tang on long finish. Some smoke and damp soil. Sure this will age well, but I'll have trouble keeping hands off unless it shuts down. Drinks as well or better on night 2. A-
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From magnum, and I can't add much to Keith's earlier description on this - this just bursts with exuberant Gamay fruit with savoury earthy and brothy elements beneath, conveying flavour with remarkable finesse and elegance. Just glad I bought some (though I'm sure I'll soon be complaining it wasn't enough, given how delicious this is).
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This is my first taste of 2009 Beaujolais so I don't know if some other examples are bearing out people's speculation that the vintage may be marked by fat, overdone fruit. That is emphatically not the case here. Steve Martin had a memorable line in his novella Shopgirl: "When you work in the glove department at Neiman's, you are selling things that nobody buys anymore. These gloves aren't like the hard-working ones sold by L.L. Bean; these are so fine that a lady wearing them can still pick up a straight pin." The 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvee Tardive is made out of the same material as those gloves. This is the old-vine cuvee from Coudert and indeed what makes this special is that unique ability of very old vines to deliver intense flavor out of physical material that is so sheer and fine it's practically not even there. This is practically waifish with a refinement that is already very pinot noir-like in the fashion of Burgundies with an Audrey Hepburn figure, but the flavors show gamay's tart wild-berry side seasoned with something I find myself calling "mealy" for lack of a better term, kind of reminiscent of cereal and multigrain, already past the primary.
If you've ever wondered what wines available for the taking today have the potential to turn into tomorrow's sought-after collectibles that you'll kick yourself for not picking up when you had the chance, this is a pretty damn good candidate. It's an iconic Beaujolais, costs a whopping $5 more than the basic bottling, and has a production level somewhere around the quantities of Roumier Musigny. Only one of two things can happen. The first possibility is that it remains an insider's wine and the only way to experience a mature bottle will be to cellar it yourself, because the people who have them won't be selling. The other possibility is that collectors of top Burgundy realize they ought to have some top Beaujolais in their cellars, with the usual price consequences. Either way I'm glad to have stocked up.
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12/26/2023 - DaleW wrote:
Killer Gamay - taut black cherry fruit with coffee, loam, and an almost curry-like spice note. Complex and long. A-
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12/10/2023 - drwine2001 wrote:
Aged Cru Beaujolais (San Francisco): Light ruby. Ripe cherry aroma. Medium to light weight but deeply imbued fruit with excellent supporting acidity and soil. Clean, gently sweet but completely serious wine. Beautiful to drink now but this has plenty left in the tank-impressive!
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11/12/2023 - Vas19 wrote: 90 Points
Showing a little bit of age but this could definitely go longer. Lacking some elegance in this vintage. Decent but not a wow wine.
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6/13/2023 - Wicker Parker Likes this wine:
Unbelievably lively and fresh, I would have pegged this as a 2020, not a 2009. As I mentioned in my last note from a decade ago, there's not undue weight here despite the warm vintage. Purrs like a happy cat. Ranks among my best-ever experiences with a Beaujolais.
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1/11/2023 - Andydna wrote: 90 Points
I more enjoyed the 2010 bottle of this than the 2009. The 2009 has a similar but lesser nose. I was hoping for the stunning aromatics of the 2010.
That said, the 2009 palate is a bit better than the 2010. The 2009 has more strawberry, herbs, and tobacco.
I think I'd recommend aging these longer.
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7/10/2022 - Beachfan Likes this wine: 87 Points
Better than the last bottle, as there was some fruit and decent balance, but not as delightful as they were a few years ago
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5/20/2022 - gregg g wrote: flawed
Mildly corked. Aromatics muted but palate is giving some fruit. This should have been singin! Darn!!!
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12/24/2021 - Rossodio Likes this wine: 91 Points
Excellent, but struck me as too young by at least 5 years and perhaps 10 or more. Tannins are not obtrusive but are present whereas the palate moves to the acidic/astringent side, albeit only slightly. Tobacco, cherry, strawberry, herbs, with bright fruit trying to punch out from underneath a more structured covering. Complexity is there, but this tasted a bit rustic and disjointed now. That is not a bad thing... but perhaps more of a reason to look forward to this wine's future.
I had half a bottle;consumed in 1 night.
Vvv
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11/18/2021 - drwine2001 wrote:
Muddled light red color. Strong botanical scents and candied fruits. Light weight. A pleasing combination of ripe red berries and sour cherry. Fine acidity and an earthy, tannic finish. Excellent now, still room to improve.
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11/13/2021 - Andydna Likes this wine: 91 Points
It was a bit closed on day 1, but the next night it was great. Great dark red fruit and spice.
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10/9/2021 - glou.sf Likes this wine: 91 Points
Dark cherries, a slightly musty note, wild berries, and a bit of tobacco on the nose. Well balanced with good acidity and ripe berries on the palate along with more dark cherries, and some herbs. Good finish. Similar to last time I’ve had it, this is a nice Burgundian Beaujolais, but I much prefer the carbonic style.
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9/1/2021 - fitzi wrote:
Out of the bottle, rather four-square and moody. After a night open in the 'fridge, this wine iis n a great place: nicely balanced, beet, blood, gutsy tannins; some tertiary notes, a bit of figgy richness, fine acidity. Miles and miles to go in this wine, but, if you have a few, don't hesitate to broach one now. What a great wine - with a lengthy prior decant.
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8/9/2021 - greenblanket Likes this wine:
This is lovely and has held up well in Greenblanket's new climate change Seattle ambient cellar - which now has more temperature swings than a Kentucky rickhouse. Nice pure fruit, appealing soil and mineral tones and even a bit of tannin. The nearly empty glass brings whiffs of spice. Greenblanket is gonna take his time finishing his last three bottles.
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8/7/2021 - Beachfan Does not like this wine: 86 Points
Downhill from my last bottle, not much fruit at all, nothing else of interest to replace it
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8/6/2021 - Simoncino wrote: 93 Points
Another good example of what fine Beaujolais can become --surprising, bewitching and, at times, even complex. Poured out of magnum, I will take the second half to a brown bag tasting tomorrow. I suspect people will think it’s a great village Burgundy. Willus below describes it well, though I am glad it is missing the slate he would have preferred. I am enjoying the fruit, tannin, sweetness and weight of this wine. Didn’t need to open anything else for my filet mignon. Sorry I missed our appointment with CdlR when I was in the region.
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6/14/2021 - DaleW wrote:
ich, lovely and long. Sappy black cherry, with spice and earth notes, wonderful plush mouthfeel, great finish. Pretty much all I could ask for in Gamay. A-
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5/4/2021 - z_willus_d wrote: 92 Points
Another 2009 Cru Beau that's proven itself through the passage of time. This muscular wine remains dominant on the palate with its nose of iron and blood, showing a patina of fruit whereas its core has gone to earth and tertiary matters. I knew this bottling would hold up based on its structure and balance, and what I knew has turned out to be true in this case. I wouldn't mind more freshness and perhaps slate-like qualities in a Fleurie, but that's just not what this offers at present. Whatever, I'm glad I've held on to several of these for the science and art of the whole thing.
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12/20/2020 - fitzi wrote:
I jumped in on a 750 of this wine, based on recent notes by such luminaries as VLM. My bottle tasted thin and weak, and I had a ferocious headache during the following night, suggesting light corkedness.
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12/8/2020 - bags wrote:
excellent. won't get better, I think; drinking as well as it can.
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12/3/2020 - cweiss wrote:
My first of these, and I'm not sure what I expected. What I got was Beaujolais meets Ridge Zinfandel. Ripe dark red fruit, brambly even.
Good structure, and it did calm down some over a couple of hours so I'm hopeful for the future. I'll wait a couple of years for the next, and drink Zin in the meantime.
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7/24/2020 - vulgar little monkey wrote: 92 Points
This is in a great spot for me. It hasn't gone pinote but has more spice and earth notes than your normal Gamay. This is driven by plump fruit but it also has a savory side to it, is that the manganese showing itself? The structure seems to be resolving and it's a matter of personal preference when you drink your remaining bottles.
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7/12/2020 - chablis28 wrote: 89 Points
PnP and slow ox 2 hours in glass & btl prior to dinner. Underbrush and berries on the nose. Tasty enough but lacking a little zip and borderline jammy. Might be the ripeness of the vintage?
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5/11/2020 - glou.sf Likes this wine: 91 Points
Tasted blind. This was still quite young with mostly dark cherries, a hint of leather, and no sign of carbonic maceration on the nose. Quite structured with medium tannins and more dark cherries on the palate. Good finish. Not exactly what I look for in a Beaujolais, but certainly a good wine.
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3/26/2020 - salil wrote: 93 Points
Growing up nicely. It's still got the bright, exuberant fruit from release, but has shed some of the additional fat and Gamay sweetness, and now the savoury and mineral depth is much more apparent.
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1/18/2020 - cos82 wrote: 85 Points
Missing Fleurie character on nose and palate. Neither fruit nor flowers. Black in color. Earth and woody on the palate. Somewhat soft, but not what I look for in a Fleurie.
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12/24/2019 - fatboi Likes this wine:
Out of a mag. With a 60 day aged Prime rib. just jamming in ever way. Found strawberries to be striking taste here. Really enjoyable. A wine with depth that just drinks really well. Will age well. 92
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10/19/2019 - vulgar little monkey wrote: 92 Points
Starts out really juicy for a Coudert, which I attribute to the year. After an hour or so, the structure perks up only to calm down after another hour. It's cool to drink this from the 3L to watch it change over the course of several hours. I've found that Beaujolais is an excellent foil to NC whole hog barbecue. BTW, this is also awesome out of 750.
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8/3/2019 - Beachfan Likes this wine: 88 Points
Was expecting more fruit
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6/28/2019 - drwine2001 wrote:
2017 Cru Beaujolais with a Few Slightly Older Wines: Ruby center with lightening. Round for the varietal, great fruit/soil balance with a chocolatey richness. None of the 2009 excess. Sappy and Burgundian. Splendid with many more years in hand.
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6/23/2019 - redwhiteandrich Likes this wine: 92 Points
Glad to still have a magnum of this left, will have to revisit in 10+ years. Does not show the 09 vintage as much as you'd think. Lots of iron/blood on day one, day two shows a touch of astringency and violets.
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5/2/2019 - z_willus_d wrote: 93 Points
I finally took the effort to shuffle several bottles in the Eurocave to allow access to my small cache of this '09 Beaujolais. Some respected reviewers have indicated this may have lost some of its youthful sparkle in its mid-age. Speaking on the bottle in front of me, I get the essence of what I remember of the wine in its youth with greater depth, complexity and with silkafied edges. There is a fine intensity to the bouquet that calls to mind bitter, intense insect blood, molten tar, black raspberry, and floral vegetation. Underlying all of that is a core of iron minerals. One envisions a bloody field of battle from the iron age, or a scene from the Gladiator motion picture fought atop a raspberry and loganberry brier patch. This all transitions to the maturing fruit-full palate with grace and ease. To my mind, this wine has been set in an opaque, irony stone and has not much changed through the years, save that the stone has been polished over time, revealing a bit more of the gem held within it. If this wine traded some of its raw strength, fruit and stony intensity for a measure more transparency, it would rank among one or two peers at the very top of the totem or hill. As it is, for my palate it's a micro-notch below the one or two best, but who knows what more time will reveal. This certainly has the stuffing and structure to tolerate many more years of polishing without fear of internal dimming.
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1/26/2019 - Keith Levenberg wrote:
My first taste of this since the time of release, and it hasn't aged much. It's not that it tastes the same but it still tastes like a wine that's fresh out of the gate, with that crunchy gamay fruit and juicy thirst-quenching factor, finishing with some crushed rock on the back end. Maybe it's a little more angular and a less silky than it was, as though it shed a little '09 flesh but the fruit at the core stayed in suspended animation. This has more of what I think of as a 2010 vintage profile than 2009.
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1/10/2019 - chablis28 wrote: 89 Points
PnP and slow ox an hour in glass & btl prior to dinner. Started with a little funk on the nose but cleaned up. Tasty enough but lacking a little zip and borderline jammy. I have one left and may roll the dice with further age but not sure this will improve. Might be the ripeness of the vintage.
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11/6/2018 - RichardsFLX wrote: 88 Points
Okay. Big and fruit forward. Miss the freshness of it’s youth.
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8/14/2018 - aknot13 wrote: 90 Points
Difficult to score at this stage - still way too young. I had the "basic" cuvee of this wine some time ago (also 2009) and it was much more accessible than this wine. Patience required!!
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8/12/2018 - sawira wrote: 93 Points
Wow. Super spicy, earthy and tasty. Buckets of dirt infused in the wine. I agree with Gilman, this will last for decades. Glad I have four more!
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6/9/2018 - cos82 wrote: 87 Points
Black in color and no noticeable nose. Mostly mineral on the palate with some blackberry. Fleurie characteristics missing. An ok wine, but missing what I look for in a Fleurie, i.e, fruit and flowers.
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11/3/2017 - greenblanket Likes this wine:
Dang this is amazing. Cooking the base and tare for a Tokyo Shoyu ramen for the Seahawks game. Took longer than Greenblanket planned so he and the Mrs had to order a pizza and open this bottle of Tardive from the cellar. The amazing thing is that the earthy core of this wine almost matches the umami that Greenblanket was trying to build into the ramen base with country ham and niboshi and katsuobushi. Greenblanket has learned that umami is umami no matter where it comes from and he hopes his guests on Sunday night agree.
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9/14/2017 - Kirk Grant wrote:
This still seems as if it was a recent release. A beautiful ruby core with minimal bricking and a rose rim leading to a clear meniscus. Scents of earth, cherry, and herbaceous notes waft up from the glass into the nostrils. There's a bit of a burn on the nose that seems like alcohol...but may be more a reflection of the warmth of the vintage. The palate is medium bodied, with med+ acidity, and med+ fruit intensity with flavors of bing cherries, wild strawberries, and blueberries awash across the palate and finish that lingers on the palate for a medium length of time. While this is easy to love right now...I think I'll be trying to ignore the rest of my bottles for another 3-5 years. The structure of this wine is clear and the wine is a clear representation of the warmth of 2009. Outstanding...and I'm glad I still have a few bottles left to see what this is like in another 6-8 years.
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4/20/2017 - cweiss Likes this wine:
Passover. Young but promising
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1/7/2017 - slanum wrote:
Might be OK for cooking but I don't think it drinks very well.
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12/20/2016 - frogwine Likes this wine: 87 Points
Wine is solid if a bit of a monolith. Simple, straight forward black fruits and some saddle leather. Drink it up.
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8/12/2016 - fatboi Likes this wine:
Great time drinking. young without being too bold and big. Exceeded my expectations in terms of elegance and joy. Found the red fruit, cherries and berries, to be well integrated. Time should show more but highly enjoyable.
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3/20/2016 - brooklynguy wrote:
Haven't liked this wine much lately but this bottle shoes so well, elegant and controlled and joyous with rather rich Sunday dinner at an Italian red sauce BYO joint.
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12/31/2015 - Sotto325 wrote: 90 Points
A very nice magnum indeed! No need to wait for more complexity;it does not appear to be in the cards (or bottle). Well integrated medium red fruit, mostly cherry and raspberry with some pepper--but much less of the Fleurie pepper tones now. Unlike the magnum of 2011 recently consumed, the 2009 was a bit more viscous, elegant, restrained but also less vivacious.
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11/28/2015 - slanum wrote:
No charm or interest here for me. I'd echo the 11/26 note. Wish I hadn't drunk the critical Kool Aid and bought a bunch of 2009 Beaujolais.
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11/27/2015 - chcook Likes this wine:
we drank this after a 2013 (non-tardive) regular bottle with turkey. this was a bit grainier and showed more earth but was quite nice. agree with others that this will benefit from further development in bottle
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11/26/2015 - brooklynguy wrote:
Not a great showing - inexpressive, hard, no fun.
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10/6/2015 - bags wrote:
opened by mistake, thinking I was taking out the regular cru. This can still use (a good deal of) time. Okay at first, with several hours of air (esp. on the second night after pungoing the first night) it transformed, and for about an hour it was really singing, then lapsed back into something flat and hard.
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10/4/2015 - tooch wrote: 91 Points
Oops, I opened my last bottle. Showed about the same as the last bottle. Glad I decanted this for about 3 hours today as the plummy note began to recede a bit and some nice floral notes and some pomegranate fruit tones took center stage.
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7/31/2015 - tooch wrote: 91 Points
Enjoyed this a lot over the course of the evening. Had some stemmy/plummy notes at first that seemed to freshen up to feature some nice floral accents along with some berries. Undertones of wet earth emerged, too, which I liked. Great structure is present, so there's plenty of life ahead of this one.
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4/5/2015 - drfloyd wrote: 90 Points
No formal notes but really nice here - lovely soft cherry nose and great acidity to balance the fruit - very enjoyable to drink. Still young but fun.
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2/23/2015 - Chris Newport wrote:
There's a good wine in there, but right now it doesn't want to come out and play.
Decanted for about an hour, then consumed over an evening. The quality is quite evident, but this needs more time in the cellar. Quite closed down compared to release.
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1/20/2015 - ghood wrote: 91 Points
91+? Really closed, not giving up much at all. Seems like there's good stuffing looming there, but impenetrable right now.
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6/26/2014 - chablis28 wrote: 89 Points
Had over a picnic and didn't pay very close attention to it other to say it was tasty but still relatively young with some baby fat.
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4/28/2014 - collin wrote:
An awkward drink right now for me. Starts off way too ripe. With air, it lightens up with its minerality coming through. Basically, I just wish I drank more of these earlier. I still have the bulk of the case, and I'm certain these will be better in a while, but a few more consumed a few years ago wouldn't have been a crime...
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3/9/2014 - greenblanket Likes this wine:
Just great at this point - fresh and full with a complex set of dark fruit and savory flavors. Lots of tannin still in play. Greenblanket had this and another wine set up to go with roast chicken but his pals screwed that plan by raiding his liquor cabinet turning his well planned evening into Chicken and Whiskey Night. Oh well, at least he gets to follow two nice Beaujolais over several days.
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1/21/2014 - Roughl wrote: 92 Points
Impressive! Stunning! so much more open for business then 2 years ago. Has the stuffing to age, but man this tasted good (licorice, minerals, fruit, freshness, richness, length, balance, acid/tannin, vibrancy) I love Lapierre, and had about 24 bottles of his 2009 (still a couple to go), I preferred it to this Tardive, but if this bottle is an indication of where this is heading then this may turn out to be far greater than lapierre's morgon in 5 years time.
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1/11/2014 - Kirk Grant wrote:
Color: Ruby with a crimson core
Smell: Floral notes with red and blue fruits with mineral notes
Taste: Blueberries, blackberry, clove, and mincemeat pie
Overall: Outstanding, light-medium in body, med+ fruit, med- acidity, and a lovely complexity that I could see going well with most foods or alone. Drink now - 2024
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6/14/2013 - octopussy Likes this wine: 89 Points
2009 Fleurie Vielles Vignes: Cherry red with violet rim. In the nose, it's dense, but fine, very meaty, but also with stony aspects to it, it seems cool and clear like a mountain stream, there's some raspberry at the back end of the nose. On the palate, this flows nicely, it's very delicate with just ripe blackberry and notes of Earl-Grey-Tea. The tannins are slightly rustic right now. The finish begins with slightly metallic notes and ends on clear fruit (raspberry and blackberry). This will likely be extremely rewarding with five to ten years of additional bottle age. It's currently far away from its peak. 89++
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4/26/2013 - marc d Likes this wine:
Needs a good 2 hours of air before it starts to taste good. First glass is blocky with gritty tannic structure. After air it becomes much better, solid core of dark ripe fruit, nice aromatics. Decent acidity for the year and big tannins. Would rather wait on this for now.
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3/19/2013 - spacewrangler wrote:
More refined aromas than a bottle opened in 2010, displaying a masculine side still, but less broth and more black raspberry and nutmeg/spice elements. Great depth on the palate, such a serious and structured wine.
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2/21/2013 - Barry Rothof wrote: 90 Points
A few cru Beaujolais !: Vines from the Moulin-a-Vent border used to be sold as Moulin-a-Vent before. Bright fruit, fresh acidity and soft tannins with some mineral intensity very elegant. Great balance!
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9/21/2012 - Kirk Grant wrote:
Much more expressive tonight after being open for 24 hours. Red fruits, violets, granite, and potpouri on the nose. Vibrant red fruits with pretty prominant tannins still. I may have to let the rest of my bottles rest for a few years. OUTSTANDING!
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9/20/2012 - Kirk Grant wrote:
Much more tannic than my last bottle. This really needs some time to settle. Hopefully this will be in prime order tomorrow!
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8/25/2012 - Kirk Grant wrote:
Color: ruby
Smell: granite, forest floor, wet leaves,
Taste: cherry, pomegranate, strawberry
Overall: delicate, virile, outstanding!!!
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6/3/2012 - Roughl wrote:
This should gain weight in 2 / 3 years time. Packed with minerals and quite tight. Definitely better on day two. This is ridiculously cheap for the quality in the glass.
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5/27/2012 - salil wrote: 92 Points
Still awesome from magnum. Layers of fresh red berried fruit, black cherries and savoury earthy and herbal elements combining seamlessly and conveyed with a sense of remarkable finesse and purity. There's plenty of structure here; fine grained tannin lurking on the back end and good acidity, but it's still incredibly easy to drink.
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3/19/2012 - Chris Newport wrote:
Dinner With Alain Coudert, Francois Pinon, Marc Ollivier, and the Baudrys (Hundred Acres NYC): Alain Coudert explained that the grapes for this wine come from a specific plot with the vineyards that go into the regular Clos de la Roilette bottling, but that the grapes were picked at the same time as the "regular" grapes. This was not happy to be consumed. Closed down on the nose and the palate. What was there though was obviously of high quality, with a sappy quality on the palate that seems to differentiate itself from the regular bottling (from the older vines perhaps?). This should be really good down the road...
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11/19/2011 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote: 92 Points
Decanted 5 hrs. Considerably more integrated than my last bottle from July 1 (about 4-1/2 mos. ago), and absolutely rocking.
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11/17/2011 - drwine2001 wrote:
Annual Beaujolais Bash-First Chance to Assess 2010 (Mostly Arlequin Wine Merchant, San Francisco): Completely consistent with our tasting of this wine last week in Fleurie-big, powerful and exquisitely balanced. This should go on to be great.
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11/8/2011 - drwine2001 wrote:
Miscellaneous Notes from France; 11/5/2011-11/11/2011 (Paris and Burgundy): Dark, sappy, and ripe. Tremendous palate presence. Not the most focused 2009, but impressive nonetheless for its profound volume and black cherry fruit. I think this will regain structure with further aging, not that it wasn't great to try it again now.
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8/28/2011 - tooch wrote:
Thought this was a bit closed down. I'm going to hold my remaining bottles for a while.
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7/20/2011 - BillB656 Likes this wine:
Lots of fruit, super minerality. This is seamless already and is so very vibrant. Years of life ahead
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7/1/2011 - Riccardo Malocchio wrote:
Slow ox'd for 24 hrs and drank on back-to-back flower nights with Coudert's basic Clos cuvee. The Cuvee Tardive is a darker, comparatively more brooding wine than the Clos, with a high-toned nose of black pepper and thyme. On the palate, it is deeper and denser than the Clos, tasting of darker fruits, creme de cassis, mineral and herb. Zesty, tangy acids contribute to a long, pulsing finish of mineral and garrigue. Although still quite primary and somewhat unintegrated with a bitter nutskin component on the mid-palate, this wine possesses great structure, depth, and polish, and promises to develop into something rather marvelous... but for now, pop the regular clos and hold the Tardive.
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4/8/2011 - jimkay21 wrote: 91 Points
Great balance, lift and appropriate concentration. Worked well with food
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3/20/2011 - RichardsFLX wrote: 92 Points
Drank alongside the Foillard "Cote du Py" and Jadot's "Chateau des Jacques" Extremely sophisticated stuff! High toned nose of minerals and cranberries. Palate delivers wet stones and more red fruit and blue fruits on a high acid backbone. Fine tannins. Amazing balance.
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3/12/2011 - chablis28 wrote: 90 Points
Seemed pretty tight on the palate but the nose was interesting. Popoed and poured. Drank over 2 hour period and stayed about the same. Better wait on the btl for a couple years or so. Might have drank a little too cold too.
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3/11/2011 - salil wrote: 92 Points
Fantastic stuff once again. Fresh, exuberant Gamay fruit combining seamlessly with a graham cracker-like savouriness in a very polished, almost weightless package that's impeccably balanced and all too easy to drink.
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2/22/2011 - z_willus_d wrote: 93 Points
Ruby color. I spent an over an hour with a first pour glass of this just checking in on the nose every or so several minutes. At first, I didn't pick much off the nose other than a background beefiness that called to mind boeuf bourguignon; with time I added dried apricots, ripening lily flowers, white pepper, sage, candy apple, and cherry juice to my list. It was truly a treat to experience the "nasal" evolution this wine brought about, from closed and dull to completely evocative and riveting an hour on -- beef replaced by the essence of deep floral. This wine had a fine silty mouthfeel that increased what otherwise would be a light-medium weight palate presence, almost as if the wine had been co-fermented with herb stalk resin or the nectar serum taken from the tip of the male sex organ of your favorite lily flower. This was one of the less "fruity" gamay wines I've tried, emphasizing on the meaty, savory, and more vegetative (herb and flower fauna driven) areas of the flavor palate. This was also the most complex of the several '09 Beajolais I've had. What fruit there was came across in the mid-palate as dried cherries, apricots or tropical fruits. This had the sour tang of green apples leading into its medium length spice denoting finish. An above average level of silty tannins caressed the whole of my mouth throughout. The second glass out of the corked bottle was sappy too but with more cream and fruit (more delicious); black raspberry and pepper on the palate, yet the nose hadn't woken up yet. This was a very dynamic, complex and interesting wine that I look forward to following over the next decade. Oh, did I mention? This might as well have been Pinot from somewhere very serious for all it's bringing. 93+ pts.
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2/21/2011 - 100pp wrote: 91 Points
Red fruit, not overly abundant but refined and probably still a bit closed.
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2/11/2011 - Wicker Parker wrote:
Katherine Hepburn as a wine. It's firm and structured right out of the gate, with an upright, formal bearing that keeps you at arm's length; you have to admire it from afar at first. Soon enough it turns more inviting, whereupon you can banter with its complex beauty. Strawberries and crushed raspberries, polished stones, savory spices, black pepper, red floral elements, and a touch of smoke, all delivered with suave sophistication. Concentrated, with fine and structured tannins, but with little weight.
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1/26/2011 - collin wrote:
Not to get too formal, but I think this falls into the "holy crap this is good" category. This wine is sneaky; it's not overly flashy or big or spoofy or even really different. Just distilled, concentrated Beaujolais. My guess is this will require a lot of time for this wine to show its best. Definitely a wine to buy by the case.
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1/10/2011 - BillB656 Likes this wine:
Very accessible Tardive! This is pop and pour deliciousness (after a 15min fridge chill). Dark cherry fruit yet is very lean and exciting. Nicely tart, smoky, earthy, and fairly serious. This is historically a very ageable wine and this vintage is up there with the best I’ve had from ’09. Not “best” from the most drinkable right now perspective (like Lapierre) but more from overall structure and where it should head.
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12/12/2010 - marckuipers Likes this wine:
Wederom een waarlijk genoegen. Volle mooie nog wat gesloten wijn. Kan nog jaren mee. Rond, sap, lange lengte en structuur. Rood fruit.
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11/29/2010 - marckuipers wrote: 92 Points
Heerlijk toegankelijke fleurie. Vol rood fruit (bramen, kersen, aardbeid) met diepgang en volheid. Sappig met mooie ronde tanines. Wellicht beter nog te decanteren; zal haar goed doen. Kan nog vele jaren mee. Minimaal 10 tot 15. Blij dat er nog vele flessen kunnen volgen.
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11/28/2010 - greenblanket wrote:
Greenblanket has little experience with Beaujolais but it is readily apparent that this has the depth and complexity and vibrancy to be a great wine.
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11/26/2010 - ylkim30 wrote:
The wine started out a little thin and tight, but with about twenty minutes of air, it really began to blossom. It had nice, sappy fruit with a nice acid spine. A little meatiness to it as well with air. A nice wine to have with turkey and stuffing, but probably will not open my other bottles for five years or more. I wish I had a couple more on hand because I think this would be interesting to follow over the next 10-15 years. 2009 really is a great vintage in Beaujolais.
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11/23/2010 - spacewrangler wrote: 94 Points
Stacked and packed. Yet enjoyable now. This has it all, with depth to its sappy fruit and meaty/brothy/saline flavors. Definitely a brooding masculine wine.
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11/21/2010 - tooch wrote: 90 Points
Electric nose of raspberries, slate, and light herbs. The minerality on the palate is intense with expressive red fruit and a lithe body. Very nice.
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11/18/2010 - drwine2001 wrote:
Twenty Bottles of ('08 and '09) Beaujolais on the Wall (Arlequin Wines, San Francisco): A big step up from the regular cuvee in concentration, soil, and tannin. Here the fruit clearly veers toward blackberry. At the top of the heap for me along with the Thevenet, but completely different, much more foreboding, serious style that begs for time rather than sliding down effortlessly now.
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10/16/2010 - Barry Rothof wrote: 89 Points
Strawberry and cherry, medium to full, silky on the palate. Has some tannin not a early drinker to me. Complexity here, with the fruit and mouthfeel it is great gamay!
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10/10/2010 - greenblanket Likes this wine:
Don’t tase me bro, 'cause I can’t take another stupendous 2009 Cru Beaujolais. This one is gorgeous with black and red fruit, amazing soil inflection, meaty savory notes and that sheer old vine texture so well described by Keith Levenberg. And where the hell do those sweet haunting wisps of the autumnal backyard burn pile of our childhood come from? The best red wine I’ve had in months.
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10/4/2010 - Roughl wrote:
A step-up from the regular bottling but still quite approachable. Worth the extra 2EUR. should continue to improve over the next 4-6 years
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10/2/2010 - tooch wrote: 91 Points
Day 1: Something was wrong from the get-go. Hardly drinkable and one of the worst wines I've ever tried. I recorked the bottle and stored it in my normal fridge over night.
Day 2: Totally different wine. Not sure what happened yesterday, but today it's quite lovely. There are fantastic cherry, roasted mushroom, fresh herbs and floral components - none of which are obtrusive. Their integration is seamless and the mouthfeel is wonderfully delicate.
Cannot begin to fathom what was wrong yesterday, but there separate people found it undrinkable. Luckily, the bottle bounced back! Happy to have a bunch more of these and am looking forward to aging them.
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10/1/2010 - 14frimaire wrote:
I'm with Dale. I've been having these on release since the late '90s, and I don't recall one that was remotely so open-knit. It will be interesting to see where these go. Recent bottles of the 1998 have been stunning.
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9/19/2010 - W.Simons wrote:
Massive concentration and length along with great precision, elegance and purity. Densely packed dark fruits, smoke and spice, but all held around a clearly focused center. Incredible length. Huge upside.
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9/14/2010 - DaleW wrote:
Lovely wine. I remember the 05 and 02 Tardives on release as being a bit tight and austere, but this seems quite friendly and open. Black cherries with a little cranberry tartness, some tannins hiding in background, nicely structured. Nice acidic tang on long finish. Some smoke and damp soil. Sure this will age well, but I'll have trouble keeping hands off unless it shuts down. Drinks as well or better on night 2. A-
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9/11/2010 - salil wrote: 91 Points
From magnum, and I can't add much to Keith's earlier description on this - this just bursts with exuberant Gamay fruit with savoury earthy and brothy elements beneath, conveying flavour with remarkable finesse and elegance. Just glad I bought some (though I'm sure I'll soon be complaining it wasn't enough, given how delicious this is).
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8/5/2010 - Keith Levenberg wrote: 94 Points
This is my first taste of 2009 Beaujolais so I don't know if some other examples are bearing out people's speculation that the vintage may be marked by fat, overdone fruit. That is emphatically not the case here. Steve Martin had a memorable line in his novella Shopgirl: "When you work in the glove department at Neiman's, you are selling things that nobody buys anymore. These gloves aren't like the hard-working ones sold by L.L. Bean; these are so fine that a lady wearing them can still pick up a straight pin." The 2009 Clos de la Roilette Cuvee Tardive is made out of the same material as those gloves. This is the old-vine cuvee from Coudert and indeed what makes this special is that unique ability of very old vines to deliver intense flavor out of physical material that is so sheer and fine it's practically not even there. This is practically waifish with a refinement that is already very pinot noir-like in the fashion of Burgundies with an Audrey Hepburn figure, but the flavors show gamay's tart wild-berry side seasoned with something I find myself calling "mealy" for lack of a better term, kind of reminiscent of cereal and multigrain, already past the primary.
If you've ever wondered what wines available for the taking today have the potential to turn into tomorrow's sought-after collectibles that you'll kick yourself for not picking up when you had the chance, this is a pretty damn good candidate. It's an iconic Beaujolais, costs a whopping $5 more than the basic bottling, and has a production level somewhere around the quantities of Roumier Musigny. Only one of two things can happen. The first possibility is that it remains an insider's wine and the only way to experience a mature bottle will be to cellar it yourself, because the people who have them won't be selling. The other possibility is that collectors of top Burgundy realize they ought to have some top Beaujolais in their cellars, with the usual price consequences. Either way I'm glad to have stocked up.
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