Bonnefond's "Rochain" Vineyard.Need exercise?
For those who are unaware (I have no idea how many of you who are reading this are actual wine geeks just yet, or are just family or friends reading this to make me feel like I have an actual audience) Cote-Rotie is an appellation that rests at the top of the Rhone Valley near the bottom of France. For the most part there is but one grape to call it home, the infamous Syrah grape. While I am unaware the percentage of producers who do so, some vintners do grow, and add, a white grape called Viognier to their finished wine. Viognier, one of the most effusively intensely floral and aromatic grapes there is, is thought to be able to give additional lift to the aromas one gets from the Syrah. In Cote-Rotie, as opposed to Australia (whom are never known to be gun-shy in terms of winemaking, amongst other things) getting Syrah to release its aromatic profile at times without wrist-numbing swirling and aeration is like getting the Bush administration to admit that water boarding is an illegal act of torture. It just won’t happen.
By law, up to 20% of a designated Cote-Rotie bottling may contain Viogner, but my gut is that it rarely ever goes that higher than 5-8%. What is vitally important is that if the two grapes are to be entangled, they must be fermented at the same time, together. A process called "cofermentation." Cofermenting red and white grapes, as opposed to separating them and adding them together later, simply always integrates the finished product that much better. While one would assume much more care and attention is needed in cofermenting, the wine is better for it in the end, and so are our palates.
A brief note on the nickname for Cote-Rotie. "Roasted slope," the nickname given to the appellation which you saw in the title is given this name because of the vineyards unique vertical slopes that receive long hours of sunlight that the slopes, and their vines, retain on a daily basis, sans rain.
On to the wine! Like many younger (and older) vignerons, Patrick and Christophe Bonnefond inherited their domaine. While I have read or heard about this particular domaine in passing before, I have never actually tasted, drank, or purchased a bottle. The only reason I even bothered to pick it up is because I have been dying to obtain a bottle here and a bottle there of older wines that are at least somewhat affordable and from good to great years, and are still drinking at their peak, or close to it.
Needles to say my expectations were nil, other than that it had some strong reviews. This at the same time scared me. Sure it could taste good, but if it was anything wine critic Robert Parker would typically proclaim as outstanding, there was a good chance it would be overtly massive, aged in the newest, smallest new oak barrels and stripped of any of the grapes character. What I did learn, and what I was afraid of, was that the wine did in fact have some of these attributes. While I typically loathe these decisions often made by point seeking (wine critics nearly always use a point scoring system to determine a wines "quality,") winemakers and proprietors I was about to find out that you cannot always judge a wine by its technical status, and that apparently there is a lot more to wine that I still do not get in terms of how it is made and its finished product.
TASTING NOTES:
Immediate blood sausage and not a whiff of super slick oak, possibly due in part to the wine being fermented in stainless steel, as opposed to oak barrels. Dusty, DRIED, cherries and plenty of savory impressions of thyme, bay leaf, and the ilk. Many Cote-Roties, and this may sound crazy to most of you, tend to have aromas, and at times flavors, of bacon. Yup. Cooked bacon, bacon fat, baked bacon, and anything else you do to it. Bacon, bacon, bacon. Black tea, bittersweet cocoa, minerals and juicy blackberry flavors meld together pretty damn seamlessly with the notions of the aromas.
Interestingly enough, while this bottling does hold true to those classic notes, and it is not nearly as in your face as that of many producers. What was really impressive was how the wine had plenty of concentration while maintaining incredible elegance and finesse. Wines of this region do not often give one the idea of finesse, as Syrah especially from the Rhone, and even more so in Cote-Rotie, is often thought of not even just dark, but "brooding," in the eyes of many wine lovers.
So looking back, even with the use of newer oak barrels, this wine still showed its fruit and was filled with Cote-Rotie character. I'm guessing that the barrels were not tiny in size, as other than that I have no words for why the oak seemed so happily placed in the back, outside of its near 10 years of bottle age.
This is what red wine should taste like. Go get some. Luckily for me, I have one more bottle in the cellar to help me figure out the mystery. Is it old news to hate new oak?
By law, up to 20% of a designated Cote-Rotie bottling may contain Viogner, but my gut is that it rarely ever goes that higher than 5-8%. What is vitally important is that if the two grapes are to be entangled, they must be fermented at the same time, together. A process called "cofermentation." Cofermenting red and white grapes, as opposed to separating them and adding them together later, simply always integrates the finished product that much better. While one would assume much more care and attention is needed in cofermenting, the wine is better for it in the end, and so are our palates.
A brief note on the nickname for Cote-Rotie. "Roasted slope," the nickname given to the appellation which you saw in the title is given this name because of the vineyards unique vertical slopes that receive long hours of sunlight that the slopes, and their vines, retain on a daily basis, sans rain.
On to the wine! Like many younger (and older) vignerons, Patrick and Christophe Bonnefond inherited their domaine. While I have read or heard about this particular domaine in passing before, I have never actually tasted, drank, or purchased a bottle. The only reason I even bothered to pick it up is because I have been dying to obtain a bottle here and a bottle there of older wines that are at least somewhat affordable and from good to great years, and are still drinking at their peak, or close to it.
Needles to say my expectations were nil, other than that it had some strong reviews. This at the same time scared me. Sure it could taste good, but if it was anything wine critic Robert Parker would typically proclaim as outstanding, there was a good chance it would be overtly massive, aged in the newest, smallest new oak barrels and stripped of any of the grapes character. What I did learn, and what I was afraid of, was that the wine did in fact have some of these attributes. While I typically loathe these decisions often made by point seeking (wine critics nearly always use a point scoring system to determine a wines "quality,") winemakers and proprietors I was about to find out that you cannot always judge a wine by its technical status, and that apparently there is a lot more to wine that I still do not get in terms of how it is made and its finished product.
TASTING NOTES:
Immediate blood sausage and not a whiff of super slick oak, possibly due in part to the wine being fermented in stainless steel, as opposed to oak barrels. Dusty, DRIED, cherries and plenty of savory impressions of thyme, bay leaf, and the ilk. Many Cote-Roties, and this may sound crazy to most of you, tend to have aromas, and at times flavors, of bacon. Yup. Cooked bacon, bacon fat, baked bacon, and anything else you do to it. Bacon, bacon, bacon. Black tea, bittersweet cocoa, minerals and juicy blackberry flavors meld together pretty damn seamlessly with the notions of the aromas.
Interestingly enough, while this bottling does hold true to those classic notes, and it is not nearly as in your face as that of many producers. What was really impressive was how the wine had plenty of concentration while maintaining incredible elegance and finesse. Wines of this region do not often give one the idea of finesse, as Syrah especially from the Rhone, and even more so in Cote-Rotie, is often thought of not even just dark, but "brooding," in the eyes of many wine lovers.
So looking back, even with the use of newer oak barrels, this wine still showed its fruit and was filled with Cote-Rotie character. I'm guessing that the barrels were not tiny in size, as other than that I have no words for why the oak seemed so happily placed in the back, outside of its near 10 years of bottle age.
This is what red wine should taste like. Go get some. Luckily for me, I have one more bottle in the cellar to help me figure out the mystery. Is it old news to hate new oak?
In Vino Veritas!
bmorewineguy
