I have been collecting and drinking Ch. de Beaucastel for many years,
but it had been a few years since I had put together a long vertical
so as to be able to examine the differences between the vintages and
investigate any changes in style that might have taken place over the
last coupe of decades. It was time to give it another look.

Beaucastel is both the longest lived and one of the most atypical
wines of the region, and both come from the insistence on the part of
Jacques Perrin (the father for whom the famous selection ‘Hommage’ was
created) on maintaining a consistently high (usually around 30%) level
of Mourvedre in the wines. Of all the southern Rhone producers, only
La Nerthe exceeds them in this.

What that means is that not only has Beaucastel traditionally been a
long lasting wine, but that you also need to give it at least 6 – 10
years for the Mourvedre ‘pong’ to settle down and the wine to come
into focus, and then to enjoy it for the following 10 -12 years or
more. This was all explained by the Perrins when I first visited
Beaucastel in 1991, and I have observed that their wines have tended
to follow this path. What it also meant was that the wines usually
went through a closed stage where they were relatively inexpressive,
and then came out the other end into full bloom at their plateau of
tasting, where they would hold, usually for many years.

This didn’t account for some of the newer vintages that I hadn’t seen
going at all dumb or shutting down, and I wondered if the recent
winemaking had changed, another topic to be informed by this tasting.

I started out by offering one white, the best in the Southern Rhone,
made from old vines Roussanne in small amounts (around 4000 bottles
per year):



1993 Ch.de Beaucastel Roussanne Vielles Vignes – a light amber colour,
and a honeyed nose almost with some Riesling characteristics. The
noses seemed slightly sweet and the wine also seemed to be slightly
sweet on the entry although it really wasn’t. Full and long in the
mouth, it smoothly slid toward a long slow finish. I always enjoy
these wines and can’t really relate them to any other wines I’ve
tasted.



Then the reds – first up, with Fresh Chanterelles, Salt Spring Goat
Cheese, Chives, Polenta

2004 Ch.de Beaucastel – cherries and smoke in the nose, and on palate
deep, full bodied and tannic, still very primary and grapy, a serious
wine in fist stages. Not closed, but not developed quite enough for
prime time yet.


2001 Ch.de Beaucastel – well, this one was no longer purple, and in
fact almost looked a tad bricky in comparison to the sappy 2004. Nice
fruit, nice sweetness, a good blueberry impression, but if it had one
fault it would be that it finishes on the hot side. Nonetheless a
good wine.


With Fresh Pan Seared Sweetbreads, White Beans, Hazelnut Crust,
Bordelaise Sauce

2000 Ch.de Beaucastel – Quite dark in colour and the berries in this
nose were of the blackberry sort. An attractive wine that drinks very
well now, showing excellent fruit levels, and with no rush at all as
it should coast for years. Very harmonious pleasing wine.

1999 Ch.de Beaucastel – The nose on this wine was also quite decent
but I observed a hint of sourness that was slightly off putting. Not
sour as in spoiled o as a flaw, but simply a hint of something that
you weren’t sure but didn’t think it should be there. Nonetheless it
had a good mouth feel with a slightly sweet fresh entry and typically
long finish. Perusing RPs notes he gave both this and the 2000 the
same longevity prediction. I would not expect this to drink as long
as the 2000 will.

With Duck Confit, Beluga Lentils, Port Reduction

1998 Ch.de Beaucastel – nice nose, quite ripe, with meat and olives,
good stuffing on palate with bright acidity and a nice sweetness in
midpalate, finishing long. A good wine.

1997 Ch.de Beaucastel – aha! The first hint of brett, but in balance
(didn’t put me off, anyway), but then on palate something I have noted
before in brett affected wines – a muting of the more complex nuances
you hope to detect, and the wine ends up simpler than it might. This
wine had very good fruit levels, and it was well balanced and had
decent length, but it didn’t stand out as the best examples do.

With Braised Short Ribs, Fettucine, Truffle Sauce

1996 Ch.de Beaucastel – our first poor showing. While the nose was
fruit driven, with spice and black pepper, the wine was lean and
austere and lacked fruit on palate.

1995 Ch.de Beaucastel – an old favourite of mine, this showed well, a
dark wine with a nose of mellow cocoa with a tiny hint of something
minty, and big fruit on palate, with very good length, lingering on
palate for quite awhile. Unlike other tastings in recent years, this
shows that this wine is finally coming into drinking range and I shall
un tut my stash to slowly start opening a bottle every year or two.
Very good wine.


With Grilled Venison, Wild Boar Potato Galette, Sour Cherry Sauce

1994 Ch.de Beaucastel – More brett in this nose but the wine was full
bodied, juicy and attractive, smooth on palate and still firm at the
end. A pleasant surprise.



1990 Ch.de Beaucastel – now we get into the end game where the big
guns resided, and opinions varied about which wine they liked best,
but not about the fact that they liked them all. A lovely nose of
cedar and mocha with a hint of brett, and on palate a sweet fruit
entry, with concentrated black fruit in the middle, berry, wood and
anise flavours mingled, balance excellent and good length. I opted
for this one as being slightly sweeter fruit and slightly more
approachable and less hard, but the 89 was a nice partner for it.

With an Assorted cheese plate

1989 Ch.de Beaucastel – still pretty dark. A funky bottle stink nose
that brought murmurings of the word ‘corked?’ to the fore took 5
minutes to fade away and we were left with a wine in very good shape,
showing significantly more tannin than the 1990. All sorts of dark
fruit and anise in this nose, and a slightly more austere presentation
on palate. Big and long lived, I have to wonder if this wine has yet
peaked. I am in no rush after this and will leave mine a few years
more.

1988 Ch.de Beaucastel - I have none of this in my cellar and that is
a shame as it showed very well. A lovely mature colour and nose, clean
and brettless, supple fruit on palate and given the still evident
tannins and ample levels of fruit, no rush at all on this.

Conclusions? While there did indeed seem to be a change in the wines,
it came earlier than I’d have thought. Pre 1995 the wines were firmer
and needed time, after that they seemed more friendly and ready to
drink than the older wines were at the same age. Don’t hold me
strictly to that dividing line; arguments could be made to shift it
several years either way.

The winemaking was consistent, with the ever present specter of
Brettanomyces hovering over the feast. Generally accepted as a sign
of unclean winemaking practices, this rogue yeast is very hard to
eradicate once it gets into a winery. Although people (often the
people trying to sell the wine) say that it adds character, on the
whole I’d prefer to live without it, and I think that was the
sentiment of most (except one brett fan that looked like he wanted to
roll in the wine rather than taste it the first time we got a good
whiff of this). I can take it or leave it, and have pretty good
tolerance for it, but I have this nagging suspicion that whenever I
detect it, it may be affecting the other things I value in a wine,
like fruit level and brightness.

Beaucastel consistently make excellent wines in their own way and to
their own pattern and ideal and I have to admire that. They will
never take the place of more traditional Chateauneuf du Papes, but the
region would be much duller without them.

On Sep 8, 9:52*am, "Bill S." > wrote:
> I have been collecting and drinking Ch. de Beaucastel for many years,
> but it had been a few years since I had put together a long vertical
> so as to be able to examine the differences between the vintages and
> investigate any changes in style that might have taken place over the
> last coupe of decades. *It was time to give it another look.
>
> Beaucastel is both the longest lived and one of the most atypical
> wines of the region, and both come from the insistence on the part of
> Jacques Perrin (the father for whom the famous selection ‘Hommage’ was
> created) on maintaining a consistently high (usually around 30%) level
> of Mourvedre in the wines. *Of all the southern Rhone producers, only
> La Nerthe exceeds them in this.
>
> What that means is that not only has Beaucastel traditionally been a
> long lasting wine, but that you also need to give it at least 6 – 10
> years for the Mourvedre ‘pong’ to settle down and the wine to come
> into focus, and then to enjoy it for the following 10 *-12 years or
> more. *This was all explained by the Perrins when I first visited
> Beaucastel in 1991, and I have observed that their wines have tended
> to follow this path. *What it also meant was that the wines usually
> went through a closed stage where they were relatively inexpressive,
> and then came out the other end into full bloom at their plateau of
> tasting, where they would hold, usually for many years.
>
> This didn’t account for some of the newer vintages that I hadn’t seen
> going at all dumb or shutting down, and I wondered if the recent
> winemaking had changed, another topic to be informed by this tasting.
>
> I started out by offering one white, the best in the Southern Rhone,
> made from old vines Roussanne in small amounts (around 4000 bottles
> per year):
>
> 1993 Ch.de Beaucastel Roussanne Vielles Vignes – a light amber colour,
> and a honeyed nose almost with some Riesling characteristics. The
> noses seemed slightly sweet and the wine also seemed to be slightly
> sweet on the entry although it really wasn’t. Full and long in the
> mouth, it smoothly slid toward a long slow finish. *I always enjoy
> these wines and can’t really relate them to any other wines I’ve
> tasted.
>
> Then the reds – first up, with Fresh Chanterelles, Salt Spring Goat
> Cheese, Chives, Polenta
>
> 2004 *Ch.de Beaucastel – cherries and smoke in the nose, and on palate
> deep, full bodied and tannic, still very primary and grapy, a serious
> wine in fist stages. Not closed, but not developed quite enough for
> prime time yet.
>
> 2001 Ch.de Beaucastel – well, this one was no longer purple, and in
> fact almost looked a tad bricky in comparison to the sappy 2004. Nice
> fruit, nice sweetness, a good blueberry impression, but if it had one
> fault it would be that it finishes on the hot side. *Nonetheless a
> good wine.
>
> With Fresh Pan Seared Sweetbreads, White Beans, Hazelnut Crust,
> Bordelaise Sauce
>
> 2000 Ch.de Beaucastel – Quite dark in colour and the berries in this
> nose were of the blackberry sort. An attractive wine that drinks very
> well now, showing excellent fruit levels, and with no rush at all as
> it should coast for years. *Very harmonious pleasing wine.
>
> 1999 Ch.de Beaucastel – The nose on this wine was also quite decent
> but I observed a hint of sourness that was slightly off putting. Not
> sour as in spoiled o as a flaw, but simply a hint of something that
> you weren’t sure but didn’t think it should be there. Nonetheless it
> had a good mouth feel with a slightly sweet fresh entry and typically
> long finish. *Perusing RPs notes he gave both this and the 2000 the
> same longevity prediction. *I would not expect this to drink as long
> as the 2000 will.
>
> With Duck Confit, Beluga Lentils, Port Reduction
>
> 1998 Ch.de Beaucastel – nice nose, quite ripe, with meat and olives,
> good stuffing on palate with bright acidity and a nice sweetness in
> midpalate, *finishing long. *A good wine.
>
> 1997 Ch.de Beaucastel – aha! The first hint of brett, but in balance
> (didn’t put me off, anyway), but then on palate something I have noted
> before in brett affected wines – a muting of the more complex nuances
> you hope to detect, and the wine ends up simpler than it might. *This
> wine had very good fruit levels, and it was well balanced and had
> decent length, but it didn’t stand out as the best examples do.
>
> With Braised Short Ribs, Fettucine, Truffle Sauce
>
> 1996 Ch.de Beaucastel – our first poor showing. While the nose was
> fruit driven, with spice and black pepper, the wine was lean and
> austere and lacked fruit on palate.
>
> 1995 Ch.de Beaucastel – an old favourite of mine, this showed well, a
> dark wine with a nose of mellow cocoa with a tiny hint of something
> minty, and big fruit on palate, with very good length, lingering on
> palate for quite awhile. *Unlike other tastings in recent years, this
> shows that this wine is finally coming into drinking range and I shall
> un tut my stash to slowly start opening a bottle every year or two.
> Very good wine.
>
> With Grilled Venison, Wild Boar Potato Galette, Sour Cherry Sauce
>
> 1994 Ch.de Beaucastel – More brett in this nose but the wine was full
> bodied, juicy and attractive, smooth on palate and still firm at the
> end. *A pleasant surprise.
>
> 1990 Ch.de Beaucastel – now we get into the end game where the big
> guns resided, and opinions varied about which wine they liked best,
> but not about the fact that they liked them all. A lovely nose of
> cedar and mocha with a hint of brett, and on palate a sweet fruit
> entry, with concentrated black fruit in the middle, berry, wood and
> anise flavours mingled, balance excellent and good length. *I opted
> for this one as being slightly sweeter fruit and slightly more
> approachable and less hard, but the 89 was a nice partner for it.
>
> With an Assorted cheese plate
>
> 1989 Ch.de Beaucastel – still pretty dark. *A funky bottle stink nose
> that brought murmurings of the word ‘corked?’ to the fore took 5
> minutes to fade away and we were left with a wine in very good shape,
> showing significantly more tannin than the 1990. All sorts of dark
> fruit and anise in this nose, and a slightly more austere presentation
> on palate. *Big and long lived, I have to wonder if this wine has yet
> peaked. *I am in no rush after this and will leave mine a few years
> more.
>
> 1988 Ch.de Beaucastel - *I have none of this in my cellar and that is
> a shame as it showed very well. A lovely mature colour and nose, clean
> and brettless, supple fruit on palate and given the still evident
> tannins and ample levels of fruit, no rush at all on this.
>
> Conclusions? *While there did indeed seem to be a change in the wines,
> it came earlier than I’d have thought. Pre 1995 the wines were firmer
> and needed time, after that they seemed more friendly and ready to
> drink than the older wines were at the same age. *Don’t hold me
> strictly to that dividing line; arguments could be made to shift it
> several years either way.
>
> The winemaking was consistent, with the ever present specter of
> Brettanomyces hovering over the feast. *Generally accepted as a sign
> of unclean winemaking practices, this rogue yeast is very hard to
> eradicate once it gets into a winery. Although people (often the
> people trying to sell the wine) say that it adds character, on the
> whole I’d prefer to live without it, and I think that was the
> sentiment of most (except one brett fan that looked like he wanted to
> roll in the wine rather than taste it the first time we got a good
> whiff of this). *I can take it or leave it, and have pretty good
> tolerance for it, but I have this nagging suspicion that whenever I
> detect it, it may be affecting the other things I value in a wine,
> like fruit level and brightness.
>
> Beaucastel consistently make excellent wines in their own way and to
> their own pattern and ideal and I have to admire that. *They will
> never take the place of more traditional Chateauneuf du Papes, but the
> region would be much duller without them.

Wonderful perspective on a wonderful wine. The 1989 and 1990 have
been favorites of mine showing completely different sides of the same
wine. Thanks for the notes.

Bill S. wrote:
> I have been collecting and drinking Ch. de Beaucastel for many years,
> but it had been a few years since I had put together a long vertical
> so as to be able to examine the differences between the vintages and
> investigate any changes in style that might have taken place over the
> last coupe of decades. It was time to give it another look.

Great tasting, Bill! I have almost all of these wines save the '96, '97
and '88 (I drank mine up a few years ago). Very interesting that you
place the time of the stylistic change at '95, as I've very little
experience with the wines produced after that time. And, for the
record, since you and I both like our CdP with some serious bottle age
on it: which of those wines did you feel would NOT benefit from more
time in the bottle?

Mark Lipton
--
alt.food.wine FAQ: http://winefaq.cwdjr.net

Mark, the 96 was a limp wine and won't improve, and the 97 won't
improve much. Otherwise they are all sitting on plateau or waiting to
get up there.

I may have to start looking at the 89 and 90, but not this decade!

Bill S. wrote:
[]
> Beaucastel consistently make excellent wines in their own way and to
> their own pattern and ideal and I have to admire that. They will
> never take the place of more traditional Chateauneuf du Papes, but the
> region would be much duller without them.
>

Fascinating tasting, thanks. I for one don't mind some Brett unless
it's run away in the bottle.

Someone should come up with a hand tester for Brett (Dr. Lipton?) so
we can determine the count roughly during such a tasting.

The 2004s generally are quite forward and sappy. I'd have been
interested to see where the 2003 and 2005 are, too.

In fairness neither 96 nor 97 were very good vintages. The 94
was a nice surprise though!

88, 89 and 90 remain the vintages of reference, not just for
Beaucastel but for the entire appellation. Wonderful wines, still
going strong.

Funny Bill, Adele and I also visited the Perrins in '91, would have
been August I think. Small planet. IIRCC La Nerthe which you mentioned
had just been bought and a new wine maker was working towards "restoring
the domaine." Don't recall the name or whether they're still there.
In those days La Nerthe was well priced, along with most CdP, at around
60 FF/bt. Sigh.

-E

On Sep 8, 9:52*am, "Bill S." > wrote:
> I have been collecting and drinking Ch. de Beaucastel for many years,
> but it had been a few years since I had put together a long vertical
> so as to be able to examine the differences between the vintages and
> investigate any changes in style that might have taken place over the
> last coupe of decades. *It was time to give it another look.
>
> Beaucastel is both the longest lived and one of the most atypical
> wines of the region, and both come from the insistence on the part of
> Jacques Perrin (the father for whom the famous selection ‘Hommage’ was
> created) on maintaining a consistently high (usually around 30%) level
> of Mourvedre in the wines. *Of all the southern Rhone producers, only
> La Nerthe exceeds them in this.
>
> What that means is that not only has Beaucastel traditionally been a
> long lasting wine, but that you also need to give it at least 6 – 10
> years for the Mourvedre ‘pong’ to settle down and the wine to come
> into focus, and then to enjoy it for the following 10 *-12 years or
> more. *This was all explained by the Perrins when I first visited
> Beaucastel in 1991, and I have observed that their wines have tended
> to follow this path. *What it also meant was that the wines usually
> went through a closed stage where they were relatively inexpressive,
> and then came out the other end into full bloom at their plateau of
> tasting, where they would hold, usually for many years.
>
> This didn’t account for some of the newer vintages that I hadn’t seen
> going at all dumb or shutting down, and I wondered if the recent
> winemaking had changed, another topic to be informed by this tasting.
>
> I started out by offering one white, the best in the Southern Rhone,
> made from old vines Roussanne in small amounts (around 4000 bottles
> per year):
>
> 1993 Ch.de Beaucastel Roussanne Vielles Vignes – a light amber colour,
> and a honeyed nose almost with some Riesling characteristics. The
> noses seemed slightly sweet and the wine also seemed to be slightly
> sweet on the entry although it really wasn’t. Full and long in the
> mouth, it smoothly slid toward a long slow finish. *I always enjoy
> these wines and can’t really relate them to any other wines I’ve
> tasted.
>
> Then the reds – first up, with Fresh Chanterelles, Salt Spring Goat
> Cheese, Chives, Polenta
>
> 2004 *Ch.de Beaucastel – cherries and smoke in the nose, and on palate
> deep, full bodied and tannic, still very primary and grapy, a serious
> wine in fist stages. Not closed, but not developed quite enough for
> prime time yet.
>
> 2001 Ch.de Beaucastel – well, this one was no longer purple, and in
> fact almost looked a tad bricky in comparison to the sappy 2004. Nice
> fruit, nice sweetness, a good blueberry impression, but if it had one
> fault it would be that it finishes on the hot side. *Nonetheless a
> good wine.
>
> With Fresh Pan Seared Sweetbreads, White Beans, Hazelnut Crust,
> Bordelaise Sauce
>
> 2000 Ch.de Beaucastel – Quite dark in colour and the berries in this
> nose were of the blackberry sort. An attractive wine that drinks very
> well now, showing excellent fruit levels, and with no rush at all as
> it should coast for years. *Very harmonious pleasing wine.
>
> 1999 Ch.de Beaucastel – The nose on this wine was also quite decent
> but I observed a hint of sourness that was slightly off putting. Not
> sour as in spoiled o as a flaw, but simply a hint of something that
> you weren’t sure but didn’t think it should be there. Nonetheless it
> had a good mouth feel with a slightly sweet fresh entry and typically
> long finish. *Perusing RPs notes he gave both this and the 2000 the
> same longevity prediction. *I would not expect this to drink as long
> as the 2000 will.
>
> With Duck Confit, Beluga Lentils, Port Reduction
>
> 1998 Ch.de Beaucastel – nice nose, quite ripe, with meat and olives,
> good stuffing on palate with bright acidity and a nice sweetness in
> midpalate, *finishing long. *A good wine.
>
> 1997 Ch.de Beaucastel – aha! The first hint of brett, but in balance
> (didn’t put me off, anyway), but then on palate something I have noted
> before in brett affected wines – a muting of the more complex nuances
> you hope to detect, and the wine ends up simpler than it might. *This
> wine had very good fruit levels, and it was well balanced and had
> decent length, but it didn’t stand out as the best examples do.
>
> With Braised Short Ribs, Fettucine, Truffle Sauce
>
> 1996 Ch.de Beaucastel – our first poor showing. While the nose was
> fruit driven, with spice and black pepper, the wine was lean and
> austere and lacked fruit on palate.
>
> 1995 Ch.de Beaucastel – an old favourite of mine, this showed well, a
> dark wine with a nose of mellow cocoa with a tiny hint of something
> minty, and big fruit on palate, with very good length, lingering on
> palate for quite awhile. *Unlike other tastings in recent years, this
> shows that this wine is finally coming into drinking range and I shall
> un tut my stash to slowly start opening a bottle every year or two.
> Very good wine.
>
> With Grilled Venison, Wild Boar Potato Galette, Sour Cherry Sauce
>
> 1994 Ch.de Beaucastel – More brett in this nose but the wine was full
> bodied, juicy and attractive, smooth on palate and still firm at the
> end. *A pleasant surprise.
>
> 1990 Ch.de Beaucastel – now we get into the end game where the big
> guns resided, and opinions varied about which wine they liked best,
> but not about the fact that they liked them all. A lovely nose of
> cedar and mocha with a hint of brett, and on palate a sweet fruit
> entry, with concentrated black fruit in the middle, berry, wood and
> anise flavours mingled, balance excellent and good length. *I opted
> for this one as being slightly sweeter fruit and slightly more
> approachable and less hard, but the 89 was a nice partner for it.
>
> With an Assorted cheese plate
>
> 1989 Ch.de Beaucastel – still pretty dark. *A funky bottle stink nose
> that brought murmurings of the word ‘corked?’ to the fore took 5
> minutes to fade away and we were left with a wine in very good shape,
> showing significantly more tannin than the 1990. All sorts of dark
> fruit and anise in this nose, and a slightly more austere presentation
> on palate. *Big and long lived, I have to wonder if this wine has yet
> peaked. *I am in no rush after this and will leave mine a few years
> more.
>
> 1988 Ch.de Beaucastel - *I have none of this in my cellar and that is
> a shame as it showed very well. A lovely mature colour and nose, clean
> and brettless, supple fruit on palate and given the still evident
> tannins and ample levels of fruit, no rush at all on this.
>
> Conclusions? *While there did indeed seem to be a change in the wines,
> it came earlier than I’d have thought. Pre 1995 the wines were firmer
> and needed time, after that they seemed more friendly and ready to
> drink than the older wines were at the same age. *Don’t hold me
> strictly to that dividing line; arguments could be made to shift it
> several years either way.
>
> The winemaking was consistent, with the ever present specter of
> Brettanomyces hovering over the feast. *Generally accepted as a sign
> of unclean winemaking practices, this rogue yeast is very hard to
> eradicate once it gets into a winery. Although people (often the
> people trying to sell the wine) say that it adds character, on the
> whole I’d prefer to live without it, and I think that was the
> sentiment of most (except one brett fan that looked like he wanted to
> roll in the wine rather than taste it the first time we got a good
> whiff of this). *I can take it or leave it, and have pretty good
> tolerance for it, but I have this nagging suspicion that whenever I
> detect it, it may be affecting the other things I value in a wine,
> like fruit level and brightness.
>
> Beaucastel consistently make excellent wines in their own way and to
> their own pattern and ideal and I have to admire that. *They will
> never take the place of more traditional Chateauneuf du Papes, but the
> region would be much duller without them.

thanks for notes. I've drunk all of mine except '99 and '01.
The 89 is a great wine, but apparently a large part of the NA
allotment sat on a dock during a strike (or so goes rumor). Which
explains huge variation