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Red Wings and
1998 Paul Jaboulet Aine Parallele "45" Côtes du Rhône, $6.99, 13% alc.: We used to go through a lot of this during the first half of the decade, but the quality seemed to drop off somewhere around the ’95 vintage. I recently picked up the current model because of the price, and was pleasantly surprised. Dark garnet, this Syrah based red features plum/prune/ chocolate/berry/cherry/earth aromas that echo in the flavors, where the earth component dominates now, especially on the finish. Not too acidic, this does have a few years worth of tannins to resolve, and these wines have a good track record for aging. This is obviously the product of a superior vintage, and it’s getting harder all the time to find a quality $7 red, so this is one of those proverbial no-brainers.
1998 Louis Bernard Côtes du Rhône, $9.99, 13% alc.: This dark garnet is almost "squidy," and the flavors and aromas are just as deep, dark and dense. The nose is fairly stingy at first, giving only grudging earthy plum/black currant, but it opens a little with extended air to gain a note of nice blackberry and a hint of Ethiopian coffee. These follow through on the palate with good acidity, but stemmy tannins clamp down on the fruit and finish, even after two hours in a decanter. Still, it does open some, and there’s a solid core of fruit here, but it really needs at least two or three years to mellow, if not longer. This also edged out the Paralelle "45" in a side by side, showing deeper, purer fruit, though again, at a higher tariff. Same Label - Two Different Wines
A few days later, I was browsing in the Merchant’s Fine Wine Warehouse in Royal Oak, Michigan, and viola, what do I find but another stash of the same wine, or so I thought. I dropped one into a mixed case, brought it home and opened it that night. Guess what? It’s not the same wine. It has essentially the same ruby dark garnet color, but it’s more fruit driven than the previous sample, and for the record, the earlier model was consistent with other bottles pulled from our cache last year and before. This one is obviously a Grenache based wine, with a pretty raspberry/ strawberry/cherry nose with some subtle earth/garrigue/leather adding nice complexity. The flavors generally echo, with somewhat stemmy overtones, good acidity and another two years or so worth of tannins to resolve. This too shows good QPR, but did the label get slapped on the wrong bottle or what? Perhaps this was actually the Cuvee des Capucines. Curiouser and curiouser... 1999 Domaine du Vieux Chene Côtes du Rhône Cuvee des Capucines, $9.99, 14% alc.: This pretty ruby dark garnet just showed up in Day-twah a few weeks ago. It exudes a black cherry/ raspberry bouquet that follows through in the flavors, gaining more and more cherry cough drop character as it opens, with little hints of underbrush in the background. There’s good acidity, and the obvious tannins can’t hide the bright fruit, though they do clamp down on the finish some. Pleasant and enjoyable, this is somewhat one-dimensional at this point, but these have a good track record for cellaring, so it’s likely to improve in a few years. 1998 Domaine Sainte-Anne Côtes du Rhône Villages, $9.99, 13% alc.: This dark garnet features a creamy strawberry/raspberry/cherry nose with undertones of vanilla and hints of confectioner’s sugar, indicating that there’s a good dose of oak over Grenache here. The flavors echo more or less, and it’s creamy smooth on the palate, yet there are some significant tannins that clamp down on the finish. It shows zippy acidity and a little heat, but all in all, it should be an enjoyable CdR with a few years in the cellar, especially for the price. The oak may be a turnoff to some. 1998 Perrin Reserve Côtes du Rhône, $8.99, 60% Grenache, 20 % Syrah, 10 % Mourvedre, 10 % Cinsault, 13 % alc.: Same dark garnet color here, with chocolate/ earth/plum/red currant on the nose. The flavors echo with more earth, and it’s not too tannic or acidic. It finishes with yet more earth, leaving an overall impression of a solid, if unexceptional CdR.
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1998 Paul Jaboulet Aine Paralelle "45" Côtes du Rhône 1998 Louis Bernard Côtes du Rhône 1996 Domaine du Vieux Chene Côtes du Rhône Cuvee de la Haie aux Grives 1999 Domaine du Vieux Chene Côtes du Rhône Cuvee des Capucines 1998 Domaine Sainte-Anne Côtes du Rhône Villages 1998 Perrin Reserve Côtes du Rhône Part Two 1998 Domaine de l’Enclos Côtes du Rhône, 1999 Domaine Andre Brunel Côtes du Rhône Cuvee Sommelongue 1997 Jean-Luc Colombo Côtes du Rhône Les Abeilles 1998 Jean-Luc Colombo Côtes du Rhône Les Abeilles 1993 Domaine Des Girasols Côtes du Rhône Vieilles Vignes 1998 Chateau Mont-Redon Côtes du Rhône 1998 Domaine de la Solitude Côtes du Rhône
Underground Index A Chat with J.C. Mathes of J et R Selections More Red Wings & Red Wings & Red
Playoff Diary '02
A Dandy Rhône and a
Night at the Joe
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1998
1996
Domaine du Vieux Chene Côtes du Rhône Cuvee de la Haie aux Grives,
$9.99, 13.5% alc.: I pulled one of these out of the cellar from hell a
while back to see how it was coming along. I bought several of them two
years ago for their obvious QPR, knowing that they really needed some bottle
age to show their best. I had tasted a ’94 a while back, and it was a
beauty, so it was time to evaluate the progress of this one. There seems to
be a good deal of Syrah in this ruby
dark garnet, considering the pretty plum/violet bouquet with shades of game
and pepper lurking in the background. The flavors echo, and are really
starting to come around, though there are still some tannins and zesty
acidity to mellow a bit. Enjoyable now, this will only get better with
further cellaring.
