| Score: |
92 VM.
"Glass-staining ruby. A heady bouquet evokes ripe red fruits, garrigue and fresh flowers, with smoke and mineral nuances building in the glass. Fleshy and appealingly sweet, with deep raspberry and cherry flavors and a zesty white pepper quality on the back end. Finishes silky and long, with resonating spiciness and strong thrust. This project, a joint venture of Michel Gassier, the owner of Chateau de Nages in Costieres de Nimes, and peripatetic enologist Philippe Cambie, is fully focused on producing grenache-centric or 100% grenache wines raised in concrete, older oak and stainless steel vessels. The point, Gassier told me, ‘is to showcase the expression of the variety in the different regions of the southern Rhone with minimal winemaking influence, and new oak is the most influential quality of all.’ Quality here is very high for prices charged. Cambie, like every other winemaker I visited in the Rhone this November, is extremely pleased with the 2010 vintage, calling it ‘like 2007, but with more structure, or maybe like 2005, but with less tannins. A great year, however you describe it.’ Gassier and Cambie said that the key to quality in 2011 ‘was managing crop load, which, if you did, gave you really good concentration.’ Gassier pointed out that plenty of 2011 Chateauneufs cruise well past 15% alcohol, and even into 17% territory, ‘so it's a mistake to think that these are light wines to be drunk up when they're released.’" Josh Raynolds, Vinous.com, Jan 2013 |