5 Months of Motivation

I checked the blog today and realized it's been almost 6 months since I've been compelled by incredible flavors to write something. I knew the day would come when I first researched my purchase of 2006 Grange de la Peres, I just wasn't sure when. The winemaker, Laurent Vaille, seems intriguing. He trained in Burgundy with Jobard, the Northern Rhone with Chave, and maverick Eloi Durrbach of Domaine Trevallon. You'd pick up cool things just by osmosis hanging around winos like those. When it came to terroir, he bought property next to Dumas Gassac, only he wanted poorer soils. Since it's Halloween, it reminds me of the guy being crushed at the Salem Witch Trials asking for more weight. So why did I wait 6 months? It was actually only 2 months since I purchased the wine, but the bottom line is life gets in the way of blogging.

So, on with the show, I cooked some lamb on the grill for lunch and the rosemary and olive oil transported me back to a lovely day I spent at Gros Nore in Bandol eating lamb with my traveling band of wine nerds. I have to say the weather is better here today. Anyway, lamb is a relatively exotic lunch when you are American and have an 8 and a 9 year old to feed, which led me to my most-anticipated uncorking in months - Granges de la Peres. (If you are wondering, the 9 year thought the "chicken" was great, even if it had a little kick to it.) The adults, too, thought the lamb was tasty, but I'm here to write about the wine.

My first impression, as I poured a tad into a glass was Welch's grape jelly. As the nose developed in the glass, I noticed black licorice drifting up on tendrils of alcohol. There was also a hint of cigar tobacco, which seems elusive, but I'd expect to develop as the wine ages. Finally, I'm getting a touch of pie spices, like cinammon and nutmeg. (This might be the most esoteric choice ever for a Thanksgiving wine.) This wine is hedonistically fruity and youthful. In the mouth, the wine is pleasantly one dimensional (at this time), with a nice vein of acidity that pokes through on the finish, keeping the wine from tasting flat. There are some tannins here, but they are silky enough to succumb to the purity of grapiness. Pomegranate, cranberry, and persimmon are lurking on the mid-palate and finish, but mainly I'm overwhelmed with ripe grapes. This stuff is rare and expensive, but I'm thrilled. It will be interesting to see the evolution of this wine.