This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
News
On the tenth day of Christmas
As we near the end of our festive list of fine wine picks, db’s Bordeaux correspondent Colin Hay suggests a self-assembled mixed case of global superstars from Sonoma, Tuscany and Mendoza.
The wines: The 2024 edition of La Place de Bordeaux’s global superstars
Format: This would have to be another self-assembly job for your tireless and resourceful true love (sorry if that’s you!). What we have here is a 6 bottle mixed case drawn from California, Tuscany and Mendoza of the stars of this autumn’s releases on la place. It includes 1 bottle each of the following: Peter Michael’s Les Pavots 2021, Vérité’s Le Désir 2021, Petrolo’s Galatrona 2022, Masseto 2021, Bibi Graetz’s Balocchi No. 10 Cabernet Sauvignon 2021 and Paul Hobbs’ Cobos 2021.
Unique selling point: Well, it might not be much of a selling point, but these are the wines I loved the most from my extensive tasting of the autumn releases on la place (each was rated 99 points). To be fair, most of these wines aren’t really ready for drinking yet, in at least the sense that they will all improve with time in the cellar. But they’re all so good that they are already highly accessible. Collectively, they represent something of a dream case.
Yours for: Well, that’s a good question. Some of these are very rare and, I imagine, already difficult to find (Bibi Graetz’s Balocchi are made in tiny quantities for instance). Your true love (sorry, again, if you’re still with us) would need to do a fair bit of homework here and is unlikely to be getting much change out of £2000 for the six bottles, duty and tax paid.
Tasting notes:
Peter Michael Winery ‘Les Pavots’ 2021 (Knights Valley AVA, Sonoma County; 62% Cabernet Sauvignon; 25% Cabernet Franc; 7% Merlot; 6% Petit Verdot; aged for 18 months in around 70% new French oak barrels; 15.8% alcohol; tasted with Robert Fiore, the winemaker since 2020, over Zoom at the CVBG press tasting; the highest tannic levels since 2013). In the shadow of Mount Saint Helena. From a mountain vineyard (290-600 metres). Intense yet lithe and lifted, energetic and bright, crisp and fresh. Glossy, creamy fine-grained tannins nicely structuring the fruit, gently coaxing it into a quite narrow frame in build around a well-defined core. Lush and intensely floral. Iris. Lily. Pink rose petals, with more aeration. Gladioli. A little wild herbal note. There’s amazing intensity to the fruit. Dark, rich, plump and yet crunchy and juicy red and much darker berry and stone fruits. Damson and dark plums, black cherries and brambles, mulberries too. With aeration in the glass the cassis arrives. Cedar and graphite in equal measure. Truly spectacular, above all in this vintage. 99.
Vérité Le Désir 2021 (Sonoma; 87% Cabernet Franc;; 10% Merlot; 3% Malbec; 14.1% alcohol). This is immediately less oaky than the other Vérité wines. Intensely floral, with peony, lilac and blackcurrant leaf notes. Stemmy too. Lifted. Aerial. Very dark berries – blueberries, mulberries. Lithe and supple, multi-layered. This is the most crystalline in and through the open-textured mid-palate. Refined and pure. Impressive in its levity. Lithe. 99.
Galatrona Petrolo 2022 (Val d’Arno di Sopra; 100% Merlot; spontaneous vinification in glazed concrete vats; malolactic and aging in French oak tonneaux and barriques for 18 months, a third of them new; pH 3.54; 14% alcohol; certified organic). A wine famously referred to as Tuscany’s Le Pin – and you can see why. So gracious and gently opulent if still a little introvert at first. Subtle spice – a mix of green Szechuan and more classical cinnamon, mace and nutmeg – slowly gives way to lavender and wild rosemary, all gently enveloping and enrobing the dark berry and lighter stone fruits. Brilliantly poised and beautifully contoured in the mouth, with a gloriously crystalline and limpid luminosity in the mid-palate that invites comparison with the other great monocépage Merlots of the world. Staggeringly beautiful and perhaps the most eloquent and articulate expression of this fabulous terroir to date. 99.
Masseto 2021 (Toscana IGT; 100% Merlot; tasted with Marco Balsimelli at the property in June 2024; 15.5% alcohol). Incredible. Such lift and purity, integration and harmony. Black raspberry, mulberry perhaps. A touch of toasted brioche. A lovely natural sweetness. A delicacy and a subtly that I don’t quite find with Massetino. Hyacinth bulb. Cedar released in the mouth when one draws in some air – so beautifully and enticingly. Black pen ink and more and more cedar with gentle aeration. Creamy. Parfumier’s essences of petals – with rather more lilac, lily and hyacinth than rose. Graphite. Wonderful texture. So soft and caressing, like a million layers (milles feuilles plus!) of silk but actually with a deeper and richer texture – so, more cashmere perhaps than silk. Vibrant, fluid, dynamic, floaty and rippling in its sapidity. Radiant in its incredible dynamism and energy. Very special. Endless on the finish – if there is one! The very slight suggestion of alcohol on the finish keeps this from attaining perfection. 99.
Bibi Graetz Balocchi No. 10 2021 (Toscana IGT Rosso; 100% Cabernet Sauvignon; from the higher part of the Olmo vineyard, a full 100 metres above the Canaiolo that sources Balocchi No. 8 and just one row of vines over from the Cabernet Franc that sources Balocchi No. 7; aged for 24 months in used French oak; 14.5% alcohol). From the highest part of the vineyard, next to the Cabernet Franc. Very expressive of the varietal with lovely classic bell pepper notes, and a bulby florality. A touch of frangipane. Cracked black peppercorns. The florality seems almost to be picked up from the Cabernet Franc row next to it. Cedar. Lush and plump. Velvet or cashmere. A wine of massive concentration but with such lift, levity and crystallinity. A truly fabulous mouthfeel. A big mouthful. So structured but one doesn’t notice it until right at the end, where it is highly sculpted as if by little waves of tannin each releasing juice and sapidity as they grip. So balanced. So harmonious. What an advert for the varietal. Sumptuous. Very Bibi Graetz. 99.
Cobos (Viña Cobos) 2021 (Mendoza; 100% Malbec; 15% alcohol; tasted with Paul Hobbs in Bordeaux and then at the Joanne press tasting). Inky. Creamy. Wild and ‘sauvage’ as the French would have it. Rich, full, plump, but ethereal and incredibly elegant and lifted for a wine with such considerable density, intensity and mid-palate richness and concentration. A very floral and aromatically expressive Malbec – with lovely Szechuan and rose peppercorn notes, rose petals too and wild thyme (which is apparently naturally present in the vineyard). Squid ink. Graphite. Iodine. Crushed rocks. Cassis. Blackberry, black cherry and bramble. Chocolate. Roasted coffee bean. I love the ripples of freshness that seem to radiate upwards from the depths of the glacial mid-palate, bringing additional textural interest. Very fluid and engaging. This finishes very high in the mouth and it is incredible, given the structure of this wine, how soft and caressingly gentle those tannins are all the way to the finish. Texturally sublime and wonderfully vivid and fresh, but all in harmony. Better than the 2020. 99.
*The 10th day of Christmas actually falls on 3rd January, but as the db offices are shut between Christmas and New Year, we thought we’d publish the full list in advance so you have time to get organised and stock up before festivities begin!
Related news
New chair of Napa Valley Vintners board announced