2007 Thoughts…
Finally found some time to post… and it’s 12:30 am in the morning! Just got back from a great meal at Les Abeilles in the small village of Sablet and after hanging out for over 4 hours, it’s time for a zantac…
Three days of tasting through as many Chateauneuf domaines as I can manage and some high level, quick thoughts…
First, ‘07 is really spectacular… Nothing new here for sure and the wines are stunningly polished and textured. Bright, fresh and pure with amazing sweetness to the fruit… when comparing almost any doamine’s 07s versus another vintage, the texture, purity and quality fruit really stand out. While they show solid structure as well, most are accessible and certainly offer tons of pleasure at the moment… spitting was more than a little difficult at times.
Top domaines so far… Janasse, Clos St Jean, Mordoree, Clos des Papes, P. Usseglio, Cristia, Mont Olivet and Giraud… all produced amazing wines… Still have lots of visits and it seems every domaine excelled over previous vintages.
2008… Lots of bad hype for this vintage but most vintners compare it to ‘04 and ‘06… certainly not poor vintages. Whites are impressive with lots of freshness and purity… The handful of barrel samples I’ve tried for reds show quality fruit with higher but still balanced acidity… some top domaines reduced production by 35% to 40% to keep quality up… Should be interesting to see how these develop but the vintages biggest problem might be the fact that it follows 07.
Lots of notes to review and I’ve purchased additional bottles to taste here as well… Tomorrow is a slow visit day and then Friday is jam packed with additonal visits on Saturday as well… I should start to get some domaine high level thoughts out tomorrow as well.
Salut and thanks for reading!
Jeb