Fat Bastard

[Drew]

Hey fat bastard! Welcome to the board.
Here's an excerpt of the "Fat Bastard" wines.

Big is Beautiful...
After one exceptionally long afternoon in the tasting room at the Gabriel Meffre winery, two of the partners, Guy Anderson and Thierry Boudinaud (who is also the principal winemaker) became very excited by the quality this particular batch of Chardonnay. During the last few years, many of the Chardonnays were developing to an excellent standard but upon tasting this blend, it was clear that it was full of ripe fruit flavor: round, rich, creamy and very big.

There is an especially apt British expression that describes a full, rich Chardonnay and that’s exactly how Theirry Boudinaud talked about the wine with a French accent of course;
"Zis is a rrreal Fat Bastard of a Chardonnay!"
For the next six months they tried to think up another name, but came to the conclusion that if there can be a Batard (French for bastard) Monrachet in Burgundy, then why can’t the Languedoc region in Southern France have a Fat Bastard Chardonnay?? It's as simple as that.

THIERRY and GUY
FAT bastard
SYRAH 1998

BACKGROUND
The syrah grape was first discovered in the ancient Persian city of Shiraz and then imported by sailors navigating the Rhone on their way to Lyon. Syrah is the only red variety in the northern Rhone region and is considered very adaptable to the Mediterranean microclimate and terroir of this area.

Tire winemaking process involves rigorous selection of the best parcels of fruit and the limited number of grape clusters per vine. Picking starts at optimum ripeness by machine harvesting to ensure timely transport for crush Fermentation takes place for about 18 days with pumping occurring twice daily. According to the winemaker's discretion, press wines will be partially or completely reintegrated in the final blend A portion of the mixture is aged 6 months in new American oak barrels and then a final blend of oaked and unoaked Syrah is bottled and aged.

100% Syrah
Alcohol 12%
750 ml

WINEMAKER NOTES
Visually, this wine shows deep purple with a good intensity; the nose shows time classic Syrah characteristics of spice and round fruit. Weighty on the palate with a presence of firm tannins that round out to reveal vanilla hints from the oak.

I can't find a web site for Thierry and Guy....hope this helps! Also, Mike and IK, I agree with the low acid and also feel this is a drink me now wine.

Drew