Wine Merchant St Louis Grand Tasting

[VouvrayHead]

Just went to a large tasting. Wouldn't call it quite grand, as they did, but plenty of good things. I didn't take detailed notes, but did to some rough categorizations.

Outstanding:
2007 Beaucastel CdP. Just a baby, but not entirely unapproachable. Blew away some solid competition at the same table. $100

2006 A.P. Villaine Bourgogne Rouge "Le Fortune." Awesome Bourgogne Rouge. Very pure and delicious. $30

2006 Conn Valley Eloge: This rocked my socks $73

2005 Produttori Barbaresco Rio Sordo Reserve: This was JUST opened, and needs time open and in the bottle, but I think it'll be very, very good. $57


Very good:

2006 Catena Zapata Malbec "Adrianna Vineyard." This was Claire's wine of the day. Not really my thing, but hard to argue with how good it was. $100

2006 Serene "Evenstead Vineyard" Pinot Noir: First time I've had Domaine Serene, and I wasn't disappointed, but wouldn't buy for $50

NV Champalou Vouvray Brut: Delicious bubbly and $17.99

2007 Catherine le Goeuil Cairanne: Probably the wine I'll buy the most of from the tasting. Great Rhone for $16.49

2005 Ch Bellevue Lessac-St. Emilion: Really good and $30

2007 Conn Valley Cab Estate: Not my thing, but... I get it. Tasty. Needs time. $58

2007 Conn Valley "Prologue": I really enjoyed this at $20. Would buy if the right dinner was coming.

2006 Joguet Chinon "Petite Roche": Had a bit of animal funk. I really liked it. Claire HATED it [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] $21

2008 Colosi Nero d'Avola: Always good $15

2009 Araldica Gavi Bianco: Better than the typical summer gulper. Green, green minerals. $13

Good, but...

2005 Silver Oak:
To be fair, it was a hard sell sandwiched between the Beaucastel and the Conn Valley, but I wouldn't buy this for $40, let alone $100

2006 BV Tapestry:
Again, a nice enough wine, but I preferred others that were significantly less than $45

Lots of other wines, but these were the most interesting.

[Kcwhippet]

Some good prices there on most. However, the BV Tapestry is going for less in most places. We have it for $30.

[VouvrayHead]

MUCH better at that price.

[TheEngineer]

VH, Nice notes!

I also had teh 2007 Beaucastel CDP and was actually rather disappointed at it. We gave it almost 4 hours to decant and it still came across as being rather candied and very clean, almost modern and missing most of the CDP characteristics. I'm glad yours turned out better and now (as i have more than a case at my house), hope that they will turn out better then my first trial of it.

[VouvrayHead]

Good luck! I suspect your impressions, having sat with a bottle vs. my tiny taste in a crowded room, are way more accurate than mine, but for your sake I hope I'm right [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img]
I drank it after a flight of modern 2008 Cali Pinots I didn't care for, so maybe I was skewed into tasting more village character than it had?

On another note, I wonder if the pendulum will start to swing back toward more rusticity at any point. There are plenty of voices that are calling for it... Eric Asimov, for instance.

Thoughts?

[TheEngineer]

I agree, I hope that your tasting notes are more accurate. In fact, that night we had it, I had four friends that are decent wine folks (all better than me) and all of them were stunned that the wine was a Beaucastel. If tasted blind they woould have thought it a was a new world bottle of something or other, varietals even in question.... That was how off CDP storyline this bottle was. I hope that it was just that bottle or how it was showing at the time.

As for rusticity, There are a lot of stories beig published lately that might suggest that the pendulum is starting to swing. Our recent (last couple of years) of CA Chardonnay seems to indicate that they are at least cognicent of it. Having said that, I'm more able to find wines that I like now and am starting to depend on certain producers based on my limited db.