Went to dinner at Rue Cler with Matt. Brought his two favorite wines since he is leaving for a month.
2002 Azienda Agricola Stanislao Radikon Jakot Venezia Giulia IGT
A deeper color than when I last had it. After some air, the nose really opens up. This is my favorite of the Radikon wines and while this bottle doesn’t have the intensity of past bottles, the 2002 vintage was probably not a great candidate for aging. Not that these bottles should be aged in any event.
2003 Clos Rougeard (Foucault) Saumur-Champigny Le Bourg
This showed a lot of wood on first opening. After about an hour in the carafe, the wood started to become more of a complement, with notes of spice, rather than a focal point. This has excellent texture with a nose and palate that is pure Bourg. This wine, along with the 1997 of this and Breton’s Perrières of the same vintages, is the wine that made me question perceived wisdom about vintages and to start asking questions about how the wine can be so remarkable and fresh in such a hot and challenging year like 2003. What this comes down to is not so much ambient temperature, but soil depth. There is very little topsoil at Bourg and underneath is pure rock, according to Nady Foucault. The same is true of Perrières, according to Pierre Breton. This same topic came up a couple of years later with Kevin Harvey at Rhys when discussing his various vineyards. Although the Skyline wasn’t the coolest of his vineyards, it had the poorest soil which really makes the plant struggle to ripen and forces the roots very deep to find water.
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5 comments:
getting rid of your crap vintages eh?
Are there any similar terroirs (in terms of that stony depth/thin topsoil) in Chinon? I remember being very impressed by the 03 Baudry FdP, but haven't tried any others.
And welcome back.
Good point about Foucaults' '03s. However, Poyeaux also exhibits similar levels of freshness and focus, although coming from a slightly different type of soil and younger vines than Bourg (if I am not wrong). What's your take on that? Btw. I had TCA-like issues with Radikon's '02s (both with his Oslavje and Ribolla), bit worrying...
PS: You've been missed, good to have you back.
'Bout time.
I have never had a Foucault that I didn't think was too woody.
I like your theory on soil depth. BTW, I picked up some 2008 Skyline pinots from Rhys and will hold one for the next time we dine.
Best, Jim
Great to see you back.
How does the soil depth argument work for vineyards planted to young vines. How long does it take for the root structures to establish themselves?
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