Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape V-V Blanc 2001
Chateau de Beaucastel make some legendary wines but most people know the estate for its reds. They make whites too and they are significantly rarer than the reds.
I’ve wanted to drink this wine, the vieilles vignes blanc, for a while. The wine is 100% Roussane. The vines are very old (more than 70 years) and low yielding. Organic vineyard management is employed.
The wine itself sees barriques and larger barrel formats. There’s lots of lees contact. The wine making is ‘traditional’ and oxidative.
This bottle showed smoky oak, ginger, lemon, cream, candied pineapple (botrytis), spice and more. The colour was deep and golden, showing the oxidative treatment. The palate is huge, intense. This is 10 bottles of wine in one. It has the power of Montrachet. It’s not a friendly wine, it knocks you back in your seat. It is extremely persistent. While drinking it, my mouth was still… humming minutes after swallowing.
It begs the question of what to eat it with. Beaucastel says that a hall mark of the wine is white pepper (I didn’t see it on this example) and that it can handle powerful, spicy food. It’d wanted to pair it with a (gamey) poulet rôde Bourg-en-Bresse. If you’ve travelled through France, these are the still-feathered chickens, covered in AOC labels and medals at the good butchers. This is pretty much the best chicken money can buy. They’re very free-range, by law requiring at least 10 square meters of their own feeding and living space. They are to the French what Jamon Iberico is to the Spanish. I selected one and asked how much. $70. Mon dieu! That’s kind of stretching it for chicken. I picked out half a duck instead.
I worked this into an endive, cranberry and fennel salad. To draw the wine out, I added mango (most expensive ever at $10). It was a good bet. A sherry, mustard, calvados, duck fat and olive oil dressing brought everything together.
Here’s a pic:
The wine, in many ways, was simply too much of everything. I’d recommend looking at this wine in 15 years if not more. It has the stuffing to go a very very long way.
