Rhône tightrope

Posted on 9 December 2011

I’m still in a Rhône mood. Tonight I’m readdressing an issue I’ve blogged on before: overripeness in the Southern Rhône. E.g. I criticised the famous Gourt de Mautens 2006 for being overly ripe and creamy and oaky, sacrificing crucial freshness and drinkability.

I’m drinking two very interesting wines that are equally big, but somehow achieve natural balance and I can’t say they’re questionable. The Marcel Richaud L’Ebrescade 2008 is another great bottle from this stellar vintner after the Cairanne 2000. At a private tasting recently, I also tasted his simple Côtes du Rhône Terre de Galets 2010 and Cairanne 2010. They were lovely, balanced wine with a hauntingly beautiful fruitiness, a quality of fruit so excellent it almost seemed perfect: no off aromas, vegetal or animal notes, no dryness, everything just in place. L’Ebrescade 2008 is more of the same. It’s actually a fairly big, ripe wine, with 14.5% even in the cool, humid 2008 vintage. The nose is somewhat muted, and it’s an obvious vin de bouche as they say, but what a bouche it is! Silky texture, a grapeskinny impression of fabulously direct, ‘natural’ fruitiness, mineral purity… Initially this is not very fresh but surprisingly more and more acidity is coming out with airing time. This wine keeps really well in the opened bottle, and that magical moment of crystal-clear raspberry fruit returns over and over again.

The Cuvée Maréotis 2007 from Domaine Viret is even more interesting. Philippe Viret is chiefly renowned for introducing cosmoculture, a sort of über-biodynamics seeking to concentrate cosmic forces onto the vine and grape. I like the guy, and I like his no-prisoners-taken approach, but his wines are often challenging. Several bottles I’ve tried were overripe, with all sorts of violent, animal, bretty aromas, and as well as being very ripe and alcoholic, they are often quite extracted too. I’ve always thought that is a price to pay for their expression of fruit. This 2007 Maréotis started off in that familiar style: the nose was oxidative with an almond and nail polish remover note almost reminiscent of Château Musar, and the rich, puréed mouthfeel looked positively flat. But the wine showed fantastic vitality in the glass and if anything, came back to full force after half a day. Syrah dominates here with a meaty, savoury expression, and in fact there is a lot of intensity and complexity; un vin riche en saveurs as the back label rightly said. There’s 15% alc. and yet it didn’t seem obtrusive for one short moment. When there is substance and balance, Rhône can get away with a lot of ripeness and alcohol.

Disclosure

Both wines are tasting samples received from a Polish importer.