From the outset, we have said that we believe 2016 was the best vintage of Chateauneuf we have ever tasted. We will not stray from that until another such vintage comes along. That could be in a couple of years, or never, given the wacky weather patterns of this century. Who knows? At least with us, unlike politicians, we say what we mean. You might also recall that we said of 2017 that, in any other decade, it would have people dancing in the streets. It is an outstanding vintage that followed a ‘vintage for the ages’. Incumbent with that, we also said that given the overall high quality of 2017, there would be exceptional individual efforts. This is one of those. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clos des Brusquieres Chateauneuf du Pape 2017<\/a><\/strong> is classically old school.\u00a0\u00a0 They only make small quantities of one wine, a Chateauneuf.\u00a0 No luxury cuv\u00e9e, no specialty blend, no Cotes du Rhone, just one really tasty, pure Chateauneuf.\u00a0 The estate itself is only eight hectares in size, and the wine is composed of 60% Grenache, 30% Syrah and 10% Mourvedre from old vines that average 60 years of age.\u00a0 There\u2019s a long history here with the great grandfather of owner Claude Courtil having bottled a wine under the label ‘Clos Courtil’\u00a0 way back around 1900, a rarity in those days.\u00a0 For the most part, however, the produce was sold to negociants until 1996.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are a couple of things very unique abut this property. First, as we said, they only make one single wine. The other is a bit less obvious. Owner Claude Courtil is the godson of none other than Henri Bonneau<\/strong>, one of the most legendary and revered producers in the region. Claude learned everything he knows about winemaking from his godfather. Bonneau and Claude share a deeply held commitment to natural winemaking, manual vineyard work, traditional aging in large foudres, and bottling without fining and filtration. Claude\u2019s two sons, David and J\u00earome were coached by their father, who was coached by a legend, to take charge of the domain which they did in 2015. Pretty sweet vintages to start with (2015-17) wouldn\u2019t you say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe it was \u2018beginner\u2019s luck\u2019, and maybe it was great coaching, but the lads got back to back 94s from Vinous\u2019 Josh Raynolds in 2016 and 2017, not a reviewer who passes out big scores like chocolate Easter eggs. We would actually give the nod to the 2017 in our minds as possibly the best Clos des Brusquieres ever. Classic Chateauneuf. Josh Raynolds<\/strong> notes, \u201cDeep brilliant red. An assertively perfumed bouquet evokes red berry preserves, exotic spices and candied lavender, along with a chalky mineral quality that builds as the wine opens up. Sweet, seamless and energetic in style, offering lithe raspberry, cherry and spicecake flavors that show wonderful clarity and back-end cut. The mineral and floral components drive a very long, appealingly sweet finish shaped by smooth, harmonious tannins\u202694 points<\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also well priced for the category, another\nbonus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the outset, we have said that we believe 2016 was the best vintage of Chateauneuf we have ever tasted. We will not stray from that until another such vintage comes along. That could be in a couple of years, or never, given the wacky weather patterns of this century. Who knows? At least with … Continue reading “‘COACHED’ BY A LEGEND”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27],"tags":[9,684,189,682,683],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3615"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3638,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions\/3638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}