2005 La Vieille Cure - a wine Jacques would love to hate

[Blanquito]

2005 La Vieille Cure*
After the recent LVC chatter, I decided to take one of these out for a stroll... Still sports a dark magenta hue, and a big, lifted bouquet displaying a bit of heat, sweet cranberries, and loads of char and roasted notes. The nose is really distinctive, it’s filled with both fresh notes of lemon zest and dark char scents like French roast coffee grounds. It’s not an especially attractive bouquet, but if you like wines from volcanic soils or the big black wines of Campania, this would appeal. Despite all that, I don’t find this bouquet oaky, not even a little. The palate tastes a lot like the way this smells, with lots of bright cranberries mixed with black fruits, French roast and mulled wine. It has a ponderous mouthfeel on the mid-palate. Not confected in obvious any way despite all of the volume. Long, juicy, minty, acrid finish.

Honestly, I don’t know what to make of this wine. It’s an odd combo of modernista (roast, char) and traditional flavors (cranberries, lemon zest). It certainly lacks elegance and charm. And it would be weary work to drink much more than a glass of this. It’s nothing like the 2003 from here, which ironically (given the torrid heat in 03) was much less extracted and filled with red fruits and a charming green streak. Clearly, they went big in 2005 and ended up with roasted fruit and an overextracted wine. A lot of wine for the $21 I paid, but even without a heavy, nauseating overlay of new oak this is still an object lesson in why I don’t like big, powerful, modern wines. Parker gave this a 93 point rating, by the way.

*a wine Jacques would love to hate, brought to you by Starbucks where we’ve been overroasting our beans for decades.

[jal]

Hahahaha, you had me at roasted, Patrick.
I must say that lemon zest in red Bordeaux sounds quite weird as well

And Parker gave that wonderful 1989 gruaud larose I had two weeks ago 89 smh

[Nicklasss]

Thanks for the report blanquito, and there seems to be nothing i would like in this wine either.

But i guess this wine would have a good chance to be President of the USA.

Nic

P.S. had dinner with JeanFred, talk to Jimhow earlier. The 2006 Pontet Canet and Léoville Las Cases were extremely good. I 'll report tomorrow.

[AKR]

Jal - 30 years ago, an 89 pt wine in Parker world was pretty good score. I'd look at the relative rankings - that 89 GL was probably one of the top dozen wines in the AOC that year.