2006 Château de Lancyre Coteaux du Languedoc Pic St. Loup Vieilles Vignes

Type: Red
Producer: Château de Lancyre
Variety: Red Rhone Blend
Designation: Vieilles Vignes
Country: France
Region: Languedoc Roussillon
SubRegion: Languedoc
Appellation: Coteaux du Languedoc Pic St. Loup
Price: $17.00 Indianapolis



The Little Wooden Guy liked the stuff so much on Night One he made me buy another bottle to do a complete review.

Night One

The nose on this is just fascinating. Imagine mixing a couple of bushels of cranberries with half as much orange peel, then drop it on a barnyard floor, and you've got EXACTLY what this stuff smells like.

The palate opens with loads of dry red fruit, mostly cranberry, with some tartcherries and tiny wild sour strawberries. The orange peel shows upon the mid-palate. Tannins are smooth and very dry, leather sucking the moisture from your cheeks. This could have years of cellar life to go. Or not. Let's find out if we get another hint on Night Two.

Night Two

The nose is similar to Night One in the cranberries and orange peel, but the barnyard smell is almost gone. It also has some fresh-ground black pepper with a few fennel seeds in the mix.

The taste is really almost identical to Night One, cranberries plus a little other red fruit, orange peel, and leathery tannins. The tannins are a little softer, rounder, more elegant. Based upon that, I think this has some promise for more cellar time, letting the tannins soften and integrate.

This is pretty good stuff and a very good price. A wine for this money that has cellar potential and a classic profile for the blend is worth looking for and putting away.

Domaine Séguinot-Bordet Chablis 2003

Chablis
Vieilles Vignes
12.5% alcohol
$21.98

From the bottle notes:

Chablis located in north burgundy, produces exclusively dry white wine, from Chardonnay grapes. These wines exhibit aromas of flint and very fleshy, fruity flavors.

You can drink this wine with seafood, and white meats. Best served at about 54 degrees.

The wine flashes in the glass, a bright clear pale yellow. Aromas start with lemon and something special, first ginger snaps and then banana cream, without losing the underlying citrus. The palate comes with several layers, too, opening with lime zest, starfruit and minerals, then sweetening to that same banana cream, followed by lime, chalk and walnuts. This is medium bodies witha long finish.

Three hours later the wine had changed some, the nose still had soft rich banana cream, but lime and ginger snaps were replaced with pineapple and starfruit. The palate was a bit different, too, with lemon zest and lime zest, some starfruit and bananas.

It should be interesting to see how this evolves overnight.

SECOND NIGHT

UGH! FUNK!! No, really, FUNK! This slept in the fridge overnight and woke up smelling like sour milk (and no, there is not any bad milk in there). The first whiff was all spoiled milk. That faded to a butter smell mixed with pineapple, evolving slowly to add a light sprinkling of lime zest and some minerals. Drinking it was another story. It opened with lemon zest and something I had to reach way back into memory to identify, zweiback, followed by a soft banana skin a mineral melange. Sharp acidity and freshness were what you look for in a chardonnay. However, out of the fridge this was just too cold to do it justice.

Two hours later it was cool, not cold, but had not changed considerably. The funk was gone, but lime zest remained on the nose, along with buttered toast and banana. Up front and midpalate the temperature change meant almost nothing, still bringing banana peel and lime zest, then acidic minerality, but the finish lengthened, adding long-lingering kumquat and grapefruit.

The wine had good body throughout, from the long-legged swirl in the glass to the mouth-coating finish. The only problem was the initial funk on the second night, but that disappeared after some open time and a warm up from the fridge.