TN: 2007 Domaine "La Garrigue" Cotes du Rhone Cuvee Romaine

[JimHow]

I bought a few bottles of this from PJs. Sipping on it before dinner, it seems to have nice body and ripeness, a nice spicy character, lovely deep purple color. Not a bad little wine for twelve bucks. Let's see how it performs during dinner....

[stefan]

Jim, you like 2005 Burgs; I like 1995. Tonight Lucie and I drank a tasty '95 Jadot Beaune Bressandes 1er Cru. I think I paid $40 for it last year. What a lovely little wine! Sweet fruit, good balance. It doesn't have the complexity of the major Burgs, but it goes down really easily.

stefan

[Chasse-Spleen]

I had a bottle of this wine recently and found it to be quite satisfying. I'm going to get some more. I've been drinking a lot of Cotes du Rhone lately. Tis the season.

[JimHow]

...This wine finished strong. I'm so inexperienced in Rhones I'm reluctant to describe it, but it had everything I'm looking for in wine... Nice body, balance, ripeness, and the 14% alcohol didn't seem to interfere. Nothing thin or short about it. Definitely worthy of the high RMP rating, I think he gave it 90 points. I'll score it 90 points too.

[DavidG]

Jim, your note is one in a long line of nice things I've heard about this wine. Sounds like something I would like, and great QPR. Wish it were available locally. Doesn't make sense to ship a $12 bottle.

[JimHow]

I'll bring a few bottles down to DC David.

[DavidG]

Thanks, Jim!

[JimHow]

No probs David, its lovely wine, at such a low price I would think restaurants would be looking for a wine like this.

Stefan, Werner commented a while back that burgundy village wines from great vintages can last forever and I believe him. I recall a few years ago I had a batch of Burgundies from 1985, 1988, 1990 that PC had on sale-- in fact, I recall you were advising me which ones to buy-- I think they were all pretty much village level Burgs-- and they were drinking beautifully at the twenty year mark. I think that's going to be the case with the 2005 Burgundies.

[JCNorthway]

Jim,

I absolutely concur with you on the point that you would expect restaurants to go after wines like these. But my guess is that most of the people at restaurants making those decisions do not really know wines. So many places load up their lists with "listless" overly ripe and unstructured wines that appeal to those who do not like real wines.

When I'm in restaurants and looking for a good quality wine at a decent price, I consistently look for the lesser known Rhone varietals, especially the Cotes du Rhones. It's hard to beat the QPR of those wines.

Jon

[daramg]

I have bought few btls from K&L at $12 and liked this better than St. Cosme CdR. A killer QPR and it is now my daily go-to-wine.

[JimHow]

I agree, this has to be one of the best values I've ever seen in that $12.00 price range.