Châteauneuf-du-Pape Red Rhône Blend

Love ChP when it’s got some age on it. (1998) Totally different beast and this was spicy velvet.

Gorgeous! Elegant, soulful, texturally pleasing with its richness and suave imprint. Complimentary facets of juicy grenache and mourvedre sauvage; rich roasted fruit, savory earth, spices, minerals, flowers, and animal. Salty underpinnings that really began to gain complexity with air, leather towards the end of the bottle. Brett interwoven and in check to me.

A lovely bottle. A little off at first but once that’s blown off this is soft red fruit, resolved pretty stewed plums and dried strawberry. Gentle hints of leather and herbs but very complete and resolved. This is gorgeous, and another great quality bottle without any signs of heat or separation.

Oh wow. Beaucastle is variable but this bottle is a peach. A gorgeous expansive nose with dark gnarly fruit, tobacco, plum herbs. The palate is wonderfully giving, with deep fruit, still fresh, but loads of secondary notes and soft subtle edges. Really long and pure and savory. By a mile the best bottle of this wine I’ve had with none of the thickness, brett or heat you sometimes find here. A treat

A bit old. But elegant. Grippy.

The wine was in much better condition than the label! Kept in a damp but reliable cellar. Saying that, it was perhaps a little more muted than expected. Left for a good while but didn’t really open up more in the glass. Still, it was a pleasure to drink.

Very fragrant and alive out of half

Dark scarlet to the rims, almost opaque. Masculine, meaty nose. Notes of smoked meats, tart raspberries, herbs, wet soil, blueberries and some white pepper. Big and rich in the mouth. Youthful and plummy. Has some heat. Tannins mostly resolved. Puckering acidity and structure kinda overwhelms the fruit.

Opened two bottles, both were in great shape. Manageable Brett, slight bottle variation, one seemed to be more concentrated than the other. Fun stuff, corks were in great shape. These aren’t getting better.

Smiling