Beaucastel Vertical

Great tasting, Bill! I have almost all of these wines save the '96, '97 and '88 (I drank mine up a few years ago). Very interesting that you place the time of the stylistic change at '95, as I've very little experience with the wines produced after that time. And, for the record, since you and I both like our CdP with some serious bottle age on it: which of those wines did you feel would NOT benefit from more time in the bottle?

Mark Lipton

Mark, the 96 was a limp wine and won't improve, and the 97 won't improve much. Otherwise they are all sitting on plateau or waiting to get up there.

I may have to start looking at the 89 and 90, but not this decade!

Bill S. wrote: []

Fascinating tasting, thanks. I for one don't mind some Brett unless it's run away in the bottle.

Someone should come up with a hand tester for Brett (Dr. Lipton?) so we can determine the count roughly during such a tasting.

The 2004s generally are quite forward and sappy. I'd have been interested to see where the 2003 and 2005 are, too.

In fairness neither 96 nor 97 were very good vintages. The 94 was a nice surprise though!

88, 89 and 90 remain the vintages of reference, not just for Beaucastel but for the entire appellation. Wonderful wines, still going strong.

Funny Bill, Adele and I also visited the Perrins in '91, would have been August I think. Small planet. IIRCC La Nerthe which you mentioned had just been bought and a new wine maker was working towards "restoring the domaine." Don't recall the name or whether they're still there. In those days La Nerthe was well priced, along with most CdP, at around

60 FF/bt. Sigh.

-E