Color me very surprised, and a bit peeved. Tonight I saw a bottle of
2004 Telegramme labelled as a CdP, selling for $33. It had the same
basic reversed label of the Vieux Telegraphe, the one used for the
2002 Telegramme.

If anyone recalls, and I'm sure you do, the reason the '02 was called
Telegramme and the labels were printed on the reverse of the VT CdP
labels was because the Rhone was hosed by rain and floods in 2002. As
a result, the grapes were generally inferior. VT reportedly lost all
its syrah but saved its grenache, so they put out the '02 Telegramme
as a 100% grenache. I bought it from Premier Cru for $14.99.

Here's how Paul at Premier Cru described the '02 Telegramme:

> My understanding is that all of the Vieux Telegraphe fruit that would normally
>go into the estate bottling ($35) was declassified into this bottling. As
>such, there will be no proper 2002 Vieux Telegraphe CDP.

I know...he said $35 for the estate Telegraphe! Talk about making me
nostalgic. That was in November of 2004. A year later it was selling
for $55, and that was before the dollar crashed against the Euro.

Anyway, I tried the '02 Telegramme and it was thoroughly one
dimensional. Even at $15 I didn't think it was worth a re-order. The
2004 I saw tonight also has no syrah. It's 90% grenache and 10%
mourvedre. I don't know if it's any better than the 2002, but I'm not
taking a $33 chance. It seems to me VT anticipated the run-up in the
estate Telegraphe, and stuffed this wine into the mix to establish a
"second tier." (As they say in GalloSpeak, heh.) It didn't rock at
$15, and I'll bet it doesn't at twice that price, either.

JJ

wrote:

> Anyway, I tried the '02 Telegramme and it was thoroughly one
> dimensional. Even at $15 I didn't think it was worth a re-order. The
> 2004 I saw tonight also has no syrah. It's 90% grenache and 10%
> mourvedre. I don't know if it's any better than the 2002, but I'm not
> taking a $33 chance. It seems to me VT anticipated the run-up in the
> estate Telegraphe, and stuffed this wine into the mix to establish a
> "second tier." (As they say in GalloSpeak, heh.) It didn't rock at
> $15, and I'll bet it doesn't at twice that price, either.

I agree with you about the '02 Telegramme. I got one bottle of it (at
PC, as it happens) out of curiosity and opened it up alongside an '04
Borsao "Tres Picos," another Grenache-heavy wine. The Tres Picos was
more interesting for less than half the cost. However, that was '02, a
notoriously difficult year. Whether the '04 would be worth the tariff I
can't tell you. There are some very impressive 100% Grenache wines made
in CdP, Ch. Rayas most famously. I can't say whether the Telegramme has
the same capacity for greatness as Rayas, but I'm unlikely to experiment
give the cost.

Mark Lipton

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