Tonight with a dinner of cherrywood-smoked duck breasts, asparagus and the first morels of the season, I opened:
2001 Domaine de l'Espigouette Cotes du Rhone Vieilles Vignes nose: meaty, cherry liqueur, pencil lead palate: medium body, no noticeable tannins, good acidity, cherry liqueurThis wine is a perennial buy for us as it's imported by J et R, based in Ann Arbor, MI and consequently is plentiful in our market. In my ongoing perusal of '01 CdRs, I opened this one tonight and was not disappointed at all. Moreover, I chose this wine as a better match for the smoked duck meat than a Pinot Noir would have been, altough it delivered some of the same sensations. As it happened, the match was fabulous: the duck brought the fruit out of the wine and the wine managed to hold its own with the gamiest duck breasts I've had since the last time I ate wild duck. All in all, a great deal of enjoyment for the $11.99 price tag.
Mark Lipton