Hello,
I´m back.
Yes, been gone for the Easter, arrived home Thursday night. Been to Southern
France, to meet friends, go skiing, and hike the mountains.
Our friends, Svend and Eva (GWI) asked us to sit in for them in a wine
terade show in Tain-Hermitage - they couldn´t make it themselves, so could
we possibly go looking for a good red at a decent price? Of course we
could - "decent price" sort of left us with one of two options, the Croze or
the St Jospeh, of which we opted for the first.
Never been to a wine trade show before. There we were, with our (forged)
badges for the little GWI business, and each with a nice stemmed Riedel
tasting glass (on loan, only, we discovered). In front: a table with c. 30
different CH. We also had some further 500 km to drive on the South France
autoroutes, so ... it was, sniff swirl sniff taste spit (marks for nose and
palate) pour sniff swirl sniff ...
Taste notes getting crummier by the glass, since I had to do both the
pouring, the notes and keep track of my own glass ...
We quickly realised that there was a c 50/50 proportion of companies
offering the 2002 and the 2003. Two had, I think erroneously, entered their
2004, obviously still in barrels, some with cut-and-paste made-to-order
labels. One stood out with a 2000.
The difference in the charcter between 2002 and 2003 was very convincing -
the 2002´s tending to be dilute, with wimpy acidity, and atypic in an anemic
and unpleasant way. The 2003, OTOH, were themselves fairly bland, fruity
sweety, and lacking in acidity. In the end, we had boiled down the field to
6 producers (all were 2003). Of these, the first (which was excellent) had,
in fact, entered their prestige cuvée - EU 12 exportation price, which would
mean a consumer price in Sweden of EU 26, which would be impossible to
charge. But that didn´t matter as they had nothing to sell. Two already had
representaties in Sweden.
One had placed Mother in the producer´s booth and, unfortunately, she didn´t
know anything about exportation prices. This left us with two producers, of
which we managed to obtain a bottle each to produce for degsutation, with a
meal to our 'employers'. Both were based in Roche de Glun, small village
just 8 km South of Tain. The first, from Dom Roland Betton, proved fairly
atypical, with a nose of black olives, fruity sweetiness, some good matter
but on the whole a victim of the warm and dry 2003 vintage. The second, from
Emmanuell Darrnaud, was intensely peppery in the nose, with good tannic
structure and good typicity - this small producer (6 ha, apaprently, only
does red CH) is worth keeping in mind. Only problem is - he has nothing to
sell except small quantities locally. Wait for the 2004 vintage. It will be
bottled and released in October.

Cheers

Nils Gustaf

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