2013 Domaine Pouillon katydid Horse Heaven Hills

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Popularity Contest, 11/25/2018

  (Domaine Pouillon Katydid) Hello friends. We’re getting to the point in the year where we can start to look back and reflect on 2018’s offers: what worked well, what died on the vine, etc. In reviewing our most popular wines of the year, the vast majority of them are, sadly, sold out. But one wine in the top ten is still kickin’, as are a pair of wines from late 2017. The holidays are a busy time in wine retail, so no guarantees we’ll be able to reoffer these wines again. Safest to assume it’s last-chance-saloon time for this trio of beauties:Originally offered July 9, and you may recall that we bought the entire remaining stock of the old label design, the one that looks like this. Those are completely sold out, but the winery still has a parcel remaining of the new label. There’s no accounting for label taste – some folks will like the old script, some will like the modern Tettigoniidae – but the important thing to note: the juice inside is exactly the same. And that juice has been enormously popular this year. Here are excerpts from the original offer: A few reminders on why Katydid has become such a special deal. First, the varieties and vineyards involved: this is a legit Rhone Blend. It’s 53% Grenache, 22% Mourvedre, 13% Syrah, and 12% Cinsault, all from the Horse Heaven Hills (G/S/C from McKinley Springs Vineyard; M from Coyote Canyon). And second, the pricing. It is extremely rare to see Washington Rhone blends at a sub-$20 tariff, let alone sub-$15, and this one was released at $30, so our TPU price today is excellent. What has me really stoked about today’s offer is that this is a superior wine to the 2012 vintage, with more complexity and more fruit impact. I noted it in March; I noted it even more today. It begins with an attractive, complex nose, featuring plenty of primary fruit (red raspberry, red plum) and all sorts of maturing tertiary goodies: dried cherry and fig, dusty soil, and signature Mourvedre notes of leather spice and roasting game. I love the wildness here, the briary aromatic edge. The palate (14.5% listed alc) is rich and openly delicious, texturally lovely. A plush attack and plump mid-palate transition into a supple finish with just-right fine-grained tannins. There’s a level of polish here – thanks in part to skillful winemaking, in part to the power of bottle age – that is all too rare among wines at this tag. I’d happily drink this with barbequed pork ribs or briskets or sausages this summer, but in my mind, this will show its very best during cassoulet season (what some folks call autumn). It’s a bistro chugger through and through.

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Katydid (+FP Closed REMINDER), 7/9/2018

  (Domaine Pouillon Katydid) FP Closed REMINDER: We will be closed for pickups on Friday July 13 and Saturday July 14, returning to our normal hours July 19-21. ---- Hello friends. I had a plan. The plan was to offer the 2013 Domaine Pouillon Katydid during our October anniversary week. That’s what we did last year with the 2012, and it was an enormously popular offer. The wine was already locked down. We tasted it in March, loved it, and received our shipment in June. But then. Then factors began to converge. First, I kept hearing about Katydid anecdotally, almost always in the vein of a list member asking if we still had any ’12 and/or when we were going to offer the ’13. Then Pat mentioned that he has been regularly zeroing out reorder requests for months, so I logged into the system to take a look. He wasn’t exaggerating. Over the course of the past eight months, we’ve zeroed out dozens of orders representing more than 200 bottles requested. Yikes. So then I decided: hell, I better open a bottle and check in on it. And friends, some bottles say wait-a-few-months-and-offer-me-in-October. And some bottles say don’t-overthink-this-I’m-ready-right-now-hey-why-haven’t-you-hit-Send-yet? This was the latter.Originally offered July 9, and you may recall that we bought the entire remaining stock of the old label design, the one that looks like this. Those are completely sold out, but the winery still has a parcel remaining of the new label. There’s no accounting for label taste – some folks will like the old script, some will like the modern Tettigoniidae – but the important thing to note: the juice inside is exactly the same. And that juice has been enormously popular this year. Here are excerpts from the original offer: A few reminders on why Katydid has become such a special deal. First, the varieties and vineyards involved: this is a legit Rhone Blend. It’s 53% Grenache, 22% Mourvedre, 13% Syrah, and 12% Cinsault, all from the Horse Heaven Hills (G/S/C from McKinley Springs Vineyard; M from Coyote Canyon). And second, the pricing. It is extremely rare to see Washington Rhone blends at a sub-$20 tariff, let alone sub-$15, and this one was released at $30, so our TPU price today is excellent. What has me really stoked about today’s offer is that this is a superior wine to the 2012 vintage, with more complexity and more fruit impact. I noted it in March; I noted it even more today. It begins with an attractive, complex nose, featuring plenty of primary fruit (red raspberry, red plum) and all sorts of maturing tertiary goodies: dried cherry and fig, dusty soil, and signature Mourvedre notes of leather spice and roasting game. I love the wildness here, the briary aromatic edge. The palate (14.5% listed alc) is rich and openly delicious, texturally lovely. A plush attack and plump mid-palate transition into a supple finish with just-right fine-grained tannins. There’s a level of polish here – thanks in part to skillful winemaking, in part to the power of bottle age – that is all too rare among wines at this tag. I’d happily drink this with barbequed pork ribs or briskets or sausages this summer, but in my mind, this will show its very best during cassoulet season (what some folks call autumn). It’s a bistro chugger through and through.