Our last day in the Rhône valley and feeling a little road weary, but we’ve saved the best till last. Appointments at Clape, Graillot and Chave proved to be as exciting as we had anticipated. A multiple cask sampling chez Clape is always an enjoyable experience, but not for the faint-hearted. The 2010 vintage in Cornas is another corker and is arguably more typical than the fruit-forward 2009. With blackened teeth and stout hearts we bade our fond farewells as we headed off across the Rhône to see our old chums Max and Alain Graillot. The 2009 vintage was always going to be a tough act to follow, but the naturally low yielding 2010 is a belter with a massive concentration of fruit and rugid tannins, we could have been forgiven for thinking we were back in Cornas.
Maxime Graillot
We adjourned to the celebrated Le Mangevins restaurant in Tain l’Hermitage for a convivial lunch. NB. This is worth booking in advance as it’s first rate, but there are only four tables!
An afternoon spent in the company of Jean-Louis Chave is always illuminating. The cellars were hiving with activity as barrels were being emptied and replenished post vendange. We are happy to report that the 2011 vintage was harvested in bright sunshine, thus completing a triumvirate of cracking back to back vintages.
Jean-Louis Chave
We’re heading home for a cleansing ale and baked beans on toast before starting our diets next week. A fascinating week tasting what is clearly a magnificent 2010 vintage.
We’ve been hosting Autumn wine tastings for the Oxford and Cambridge colleges for many moons. On my very first venture to Oxford 10 years ago with Robin (Yapp), no sooner had we set up the tasting in preparation for the arrival of the dons than he rushed me off to the Covered Market to seek out the excellent gamebutchers, Hedges. Our business there concluded, we hot-footed it back towards Wadham for 11.30 with a brief detour via The White Horse in Broad Street for a couple of pre-tasting pints of Greene King IPA. As an introduction in how to approach a wine tasting at this fine seat of learning, it took some beating.
So as the temperature dropped at the end of September and our green and pleasant land exploded in vivid russet and orange, my thoughts invariably turned to Messrs Hedges and the Covered Market. This year, I plumped for a couple of grouse, a brace of pheasants and multiple partridge. “You like game, then?” Hedges Junior enquired, unnecessarily I have to say. Back at the tasting, via a coffee shop rather than The White Horse (in case my wife reads this), I had my eye on several bottles that I thought might not get consumed during the duration. This is a discreet perk of all wine tastings, how else can one afford to drink on the wages of this industry? So my grouse was preceded by white Chateauneuf-du-Pape Vieux Donjon 2008 and perfectly accompanied by Cornas Clape 2006.
Tom and I are making a whistle-stop voyage down the Rhône valley this week to catch up with vigneron friends and get an insight into the Rhône 2009 vintage, of which we have heard great promise. After driving south from Lyon in heavy rain on Sunday evening we started tasting bright and early on Monday in Côte Rôtie with our old chum Patrick Jasmin. Tasting through the constituent parts of Patrick’s wine is always a pleasure, the 2009 shows huge potential with a wealth of violet and red berry aromas, a deep core of sweet black fruit, fine tannic structure and a bright acidity. All the ingredients are here for a Grand Vin. Patrick only makes one cuvée of Côte Rôtie and the 2009 should be a tub-thumper.
A tad further north on La Viallière climat of the Côte Brune, Joël and Romain Champet’s single vineyard 2009 Côte Rôtie is already finished and ready for bottling. This is an Old School northern Rhône Syrah with no new oak and an attractive bouquet of blackberries and blackcurrants, a mid-weight palate of briary hedgerow fruit and supple tannins. This is a classic, traditional Côte Rôtie and, on past form, should represent cracking value for money.
After a welcome lunchtime pit stop at the winemakers’ favourite haunt, Le Chaudron restaurant in Tournon (great food, fabulous wine list) we drove down to Livron-sur-Drôme to sample Jean-Marie Lombard’s Brézème. Both of Jean Marie’s Syrahs were showing very well from cask.T he Grand Chêne is dense and dark with autumnal fruit aromas and tastes over pitchy tannins. The Eugène de Monicault usually exhibits a little more finesse, but is still a trifle closed at present – there is clearly lots of fruit and structure here but it needs time to integrate.
Beetling northwards back towards Cornas we rounded off a fine day’s tasting with a mammoth degustation with three generations of the Clape family (Auguste aged 85, Pierre 60 and Olivier 31). This is a dynasty given to modesty and the Clape’s seemed almost embarrassed at the exuberance of fruit in their 2009 wines. There are notes of the blockbuster 2003 vintage here but against a more restrained background, with a fresh acidity and greater phenolic ripeness. In short, the Clape’s 2009 wines are sensational.
Tomorrow we look forward to visits at Messrs Chave and Graillot. Day One impressions are that Rhône 2009 is living up to the hype, bring it on!
