TN: 00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan]

Post Reply
User avatar
AKR
Posts: 5234
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:33 am
Contact:

TN: 00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan]

Post by AKR »

00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan] Served over two days, at about 60F. Better on the 2nd day. Medium+ bodied. The last glass is surprisingly heavily sedimented. Incense and Indian spices on the nose. Good 30 second finish, tails off a touch near the end, turning drying/tannic. A nice balance at this point in its life between currant fruit, smoothness, and complexity. Supposedly only 13% alcohol, but tastes richer than that metric. If I had this blind, I would not have been able to get anywhere close to guessing its appellation. It does taste like Bordeaux in the earthiness, but I don't pick up classical red Graves signs. I'd love to hear from others who've tasted this recently what they thought in terms of 'typicity'. On the bright side, holders of perhaps more recent, similarly ripe vintages, should not feel any urgency to consume. B+

I think they make a blanc too, but I've never seen or tasted it.

========

From a month or so ago. I had another bottle of this over the weekend, and this one showed more charry, 'campfire on the beach' kind of smoky flavor, one would expect from the region. Maybe the last time I had this I wasn't paying attention. It helped that we had a very distinctive, almost pruney/jagermeistery wine the day before that made this flavor stick out even more.
User avatar
AlexR
Posts: 2373
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:35 am
Contact:

Re: TN: 00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan]

Post by AlexR »

Arv,

I don't know if you bought those wines back east or in California, but you've been posting on a whole series of fine, modestly priced Bordeaux.
Belies my prejudice that those wines are hard to find in the US...

La Garde is a big estate near La Tour Martillac if memory serves me right. Yes, they do make a white.
Production is big, but quality dependable and prices easy on the pockebook.
The estate is owned by a powerful négociant Dourthe Kressman/CVBG.

All the best,
Alex
User avatar
AKR
Posts: 5234
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:33 am
Contact:

Re: TN: 00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan]

Post by AKR »

These were acquired while living in the cosmopolitan big city...but with the ease of shipping in CA and modern internet websites I don't think its hard for the motivated to drink a little better than the budget suggests.

I don't know if these make their way into the typical smaller retailer stores (I suspect not) though, so if one is only (like most normal people) buying what they see in person, they may not see all this.

What's crazy out here is how insanely low places like Costco. can sell California wine, when it doesn't seem to go through the full layers (and markups!) of the supply chains.

====

All my neighbors are into local wines, and by that, I don't mean the fancy pants Napa/Sonoma regions, but the backwater appellations around our city. When they talk of going wine tasting -- they are referring to piling into quad cap pickups and heading out to Lodi, or El Dorado. I guess these must be the local equivalents of French countryside wines. I had no idea these things existed. Their price points suggest they could be quaffers, but they are way heavy, and not so 'gulpable'. Maybe that's just the nature of vines that have to deal with a great amount of hydric stress.
User avatar
AKR
Posts: 5234
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:33 am
Contact:

Re: TN: 00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan]

Post by AKR »

Another half of 750 ml. of this consumed while cooking a biryani, after flopping around the pool with the minions.

Just delicious, medium bodied, mature Bordeaux.

Still confess that I would not be able to distinguish its Graves-i-ness.

But the sweetness, balance is wonderful here.

I wonder how this year compares to 98 or 05.

The SO doesn't care for red when it gets hot out here, so she had some NV champers with her grilled cheese sammy.

But I'm ok with them, but will try to tilt toward the light / medium frame examples.

That last sip was just delightful. Sigh.
User avatar
AKR
Posts: 5234
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:33 am
Contact:

Re: TN: 00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan]

Post by AKR »

Another bottle of this last night (among many others) at a dinner party. Still holding well, not really any change from the last time we had it. I noticed the labels are starting to get discolored which is odd. I took it because I figure it was commercially / popularly styled, and not all the CA Cab drinkers out here understand or care for red Bdx.
User avatar
AKR
Posts: 5234
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 4:33 am
Contact:

Re: TN: 00 La Garde 'rouge' [Pessac Leognan]

Post by AKR »

The last bottle of the case was finished tonight, after being opened yesterday, and was still drinking very well. Tight on the first night, but generous and fruity on the second night, and I drank 500ml by myself. A really amazing example for the estate, I think they might have gotten a little lucky with this year - tannic and rich and dense.

I've got a ton of decanters and really should take the time to do that more often, especially with 2000. If I don't it seems to take a lot more time for them to blossom in the glass than one would think.

Looking over the prior notes, it doesn't seem like this Pessac Leognan has the smoky/charry notes that sometimes one experiences.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot], Google [Bot] and 13 guests