Decanterberry Tales - A Willamette Valley Wine Blog - rhone tag

The Southern French Round-Up

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:04:47 GMT

So I had a bunch of bottles open that I'd reviewed recently -- along with a piece of pumpkin pie (thanks Elizabeth!). And I took the opportunity to taste a bunch of them side by side. This is neat because it really makes clear the differences between the wines. Up to bat are the following:

Chateau de Segries, Lirac Rouge, Cuvee Reservee, 2006

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:32:45 GMT

As we've been writing about, Denise and I have been on a Southern France wine kick lately. Oregon Pinots are leading us to insolvency, and these Cotes du Rhone (and wines to the east and west) are good and reasonably priced (even with the weak US dollar). However, this one is very different from the others.

The nose was strawberry and blueberry, and wood and vanilla. Later, there was also sweet spice, moss, leather, and musty stuff: river rock and wet saw dust. That vanilla and wood returned in the taste. Yeah, it was slightly sweet -- a jammy cherry! And that's what was unusual about this. It was French, but it tasted more like a New World wine: most oaked up and jammy. Weird. Anyway, the finish was pepper, red cherry, currant, and that apple dryness at the very end.

The body was medium, and it was very fruity for a CdR. As I said, it was just slightly sweet. While I say it tasted a bit "New World", it'll be interesting if I can hold on to a bottle of this for a few years. Perhaps all the fruit and wood will mellow out. Time will tell (if I an resist drinking it early). Yeah, good stuff.

Cost:

Rating: 7.5

(50% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 10% Cinsault, 5% Mourvèdre, 5% Carignan)

Rosemount, 'GSM', 2001

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:06:26 GMT

This is an old favorite of mine. I just had ended a French wine kick for awhile, and was starting an Australian kick. So this was a great bottle bridging those two worlds. GSM stands for Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre -- which is a standard Rhone blend of grapes (though most of the time the Aussies call it "Shiraz" instead of "Syrah" as they do in France ... same difference). All the bottles I've had of this have been good going back to 1999, with one of exception of a bottle (2003) I got from the airport in Narita -- probably not cared for as it should have been.

The nose was raisin, plum, nutmeg, cinnamon, green bean, bark and wheat cracker (seriously, that's what I smelled). The taste was raisin again, black cherry, vanilla (subtle), and pepper. On the finish, the vanilla remained, along with cayenne and plum. Others tasted nasturtium at the end.

Cost:

Rating: 8.0

(Grenache 48%, Syrah 45%, Mourvedre 7%)

Domaine Olivier Hillaire, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, 2005

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:00:00 GMT

Smell: Dirt. Game. Meaty ... like liver. Pepper. Wild animals. Peaty ... Like a rodeo in my mouth. Mossy.

Taste: Lipstick and moss. Blackberry, currant. The dryness of an apple. Cinnamon. Nutmeg. And aluminum.

Finish: Peat. Nutmeg. Bark. And day-old coffee.

Cost:

Rating: 9.0