I had recently pulled a cork on a bottle of the 1995 Santa Duc Gigondas Haut Garrigues, a stunning Gigondas, and it seemed like a good idea to open one of the regular 1995s for comparison. This wine is labelled as Cuvee Classique in some markets.
It had been a day of work and unusual accomplishment - I'd brought home a race car engine that had been sitting in someone else's shop for ages, and (at the prompting of SWMBO) I'd finally shifted a load of bark mulch that had been sitting in the driveway where she is wont to park since last summer. The weather had changed as we headed into Autumn and October, and we decided to do one of our favourite Fall comfort dinners, oxtail stew with tomatoes, olives, rosemary, potatoes.......a definite pointer to southern France for the wine to accompany it.
The regular 1995 Santa Duc was much in the same stamp as the HG had been, but there were differences. The nose was really one that reminded me of garrigue - and I try not to over-use that term. There was also a decided smokiness and a strong element of tar in this nose. In the mouth, it seemed to have pretty much what the HG had, with big sweet forward fruit, but had a little less length, not tailing off, but just not as long.
I left the wine in the glass for awhile to see what would happen to it and was glad I did. It opened up nicely, not in the nose, which remained pretty much as it had first presented, but in the mouth. The wine just kept getting bigger and bigger and ended up with something that would positively put a certain segment of wine drinkers off - an habitual Beaujolais drinker would as soon drink cough syrup as a bottle of this sort of wine. It picked up even more weight and smokiness and it reminded me in some ways of old Barolos in the finish, which seemed to lengthen a bit with air.
This wine drinks very well now and will continue to do so another half decade at least. It may even improve a little on the way. I wish I had more of the regular, but at the time it just didn't make sense as I found a source for the Haut Garrigues at a slightly lower price, so I just picked up a few of the regular for academic comparison purposes.
Santa Duc is making major league Gigondas that is at a different level than any other Giggie I can think of - most mature much sooner and are a cut below this sort of monster. OK, I did buy some of the very good 1998 and 2000 Brusset Les Hauts de Montmirail, but I think even it is a half notch below the Santa Duc.
The 2000 and 2001 were both very good in the Haut Garrigues, but I'm not sure anything since 1995 has equalled that vintage. If you have the regular, by all means get some ox tails and give it a test run. If you drank all yours early on, you'll have to ponder the joys of maturing Rhones vicariously!