Another 30- or possibly even 40-year wine is the 2005 Chateauneuf du Pape L’Immortelle. Again, the blend is the same as the 2006 (60% Mourvedre aged in small new oak, and 40% Grenache and Syrah aged in tank). It is black purple in color with notes of smoke, creosote, graphite, blueberry liqueur, blackberries, and coffee; this wine is dense, rich, full-bodied, clearly modern in style, but distinctive and singular. It is a huge, powerful wine with the tannic structure of a Bordeaux first growth. Forget it for 10-15 years and drink it over the following 30 or more.
To repeat what I’ve said in the past, this is a top-flight estate making Chateauneuf du Pape for long-term aging, with the top cuvees essentially as ageworthy as most vintages of Bordeaux. The philosophy is modern or progressive depending on your point of view, with a very liberal use of small oak barrels, but once past four or five years in the bottle, I have always found La Gardine’s Chateauneuf du Pape to be very Provencal despite their reliance on abundant new oak.
Importer: Shaw-Ross Intl. Importer
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