I'm dead tired tonight after having slept only 2 hours, so dinner is extremely simple: a rosemary and olive bread with butter on top, an "everything and the kitchen sink" vegetable soup with some kielbasa sausage chunks in it, and this côtes du rhône. I popped it last night. It's pretty darn drinkable, but I admit, I expect a bit more for the price level.
Impressions:
The wine is very clear, and a ruby color red. Mainly smells of cherries with just a touch of vanilla. Drinking it, it's medium bodied, has a nice smooth texture, a bit of pepper spice, and there isn't nearly as much cherry flavor as the scent would lead you to believe. In fact, here we get to the flaw: it's got a bit of a harsh edge, something hard to put my finger on. It seems a bit "hot" to me, which might be part of the issue with an alcohol level of 14 percent. It's not extraordinarily high, but maybe it's more than this wine can take? Or, is this being influenced by unfairly comparing it to the 10 percent Gewürztraminer I was drinking the day before? There's also an acrid note in the wine... I get this fairly frequently, and I wonder if it isn't a problem with sulfur dioxide? (I really would love to do a tasting sometimes of "things that go wrong in wine" - cork taint, sulfur dioxide, issues of bad smells from fermentation problems, etc - just so that I could identify them more confidently!) Sometimes I very much like the bit of acrid edge, when it integrates well with everything else going on, so I'm not sure it's actually a "problem" and more of an issue of things being out of balance. Also, a couple of other côtes du rhônes I've tasted have had some nice earthy aspect to them, like mushrooms or dirt, something along those lines. I just didn't pick up that many flavors in this one. Perhaps that's my fault, not the wine's, as I am definitely very tired tonight. It sounds like the wine is terrible, and it's certainly not, just average.
(I am beating myself for not doing proper tasting notes on the Gewürztraminer: I went so cross-eyed with delight I drank the whole bottle without ever setting pen to paper!) It was a 2003 Georg Naegele Auslese from the Schlossberg vinyard of Hambach (Pfalz region), and it was extremely beautiful. Very clear, a deep pinkish gold color. I have heard the descriptor 'leechee fruit' to describe Gewütraminer many times, and it certainly applied in this case. Also honey, and flowers, with a lovely light syrupy texture with only the barest hint of carbonation (a little tingley effect that I really like). Worth the 20 bucks! This was a great sipper during a lovely spring evening's sunset. Heavenly.
"2003 Domaine Paul Autard Côtes du Rhône"
No comments yet. -