Mon Coeur Côtes du Rhône Red Rhone Blend

I had low expectations for this considering its advanced age, but leave it to Chave to craft a CdR that can go 20 years. Nose is soft and watercolored with purple fruit, menthol and black pepper. Palate is relatively short but it really pops in the mouth, fully resolved tannins still with some acid holding it together. Beautifully textured. Mon Coeur is a strong choice for a relatively inexpensive bottle to buy a handful of and forget about in your cellar.

Dark fruits, anise, pepper spice, earth. Little towards new world, but old world still dominates.

#sample

CDR from the master. Dark cherry, blackberry, boysenberry, plum, liquorice, granite, tea leaf and even a touch of Brett. Medium tannins that actually built given some air in the glass and medium acidity. Length could take or leave.

Dark fruit, a bit of the animal and just a touch of barnyard funk. A really interesting CdR. Leave it to Chave.

Nailed it

First introduction to Chave - and it did not disappoint. Pours way darker than any CdR I've seen - a tell-tale sign of the '15 vintage. Beauty aromatics of baking spice, lavender, toast, black fruit and pepper. The palate is big, with seductive chocolate covered cranberries, underbrush, and licorice accents. Tannins are staunch for a CdR, but don't necessarily in a bad way if you can handle them. This is completely on another level.. it makes other CdR's run home to their Mommas.

#babychave

I could drink this every day. Great balance. Perfume in the nose, pepper, red fruit in the palate, nice tannin backbone. So good.

The taste of wet pine wood and earth... Also very strong liquorice. Brought up a memory of summer Provence :)