From a diverse range of cepages headed by Rolle (a.k.a. Vermentino) Grenache Blanc and Roussanne that were pressed and vinified together, the Clos Marie 2009 Coteaux du Languedoc Manon mingles very ripe pear and pineapple with saline, alkaline, marine minerality on the nose as well as a creamy palate, to which hints of vanilla and honeydew melon add an enhanced sense of generous ripeness. But for all of its fat and richness, this retains an inextinguishable sense of primary melon and pineapple juiciness thought its long finish, where lobster shell reduction and nut oils contribute seductive intrigue. The mineral verve and invigoration of the corresponding 2010 or 2008 are missing here but there is a caressing, more than compensatory texture, and winsome, captivating length that are as hard to resist as they are to come by. I am reminded of some really fine 2006 Chablis. Interestingly, this outstanding value weighed in at only 12.9% alcohol and with a pH surprisingly low (at 3.3, versus around 3.15 in the corresponding 2010) given the rich and enveloping side of its personality, let alone its vintage. I’d plan on enjoying it over the next 2-3 years. Christophe Peyrus and Francois Julien – for more about whose vineyards and methods, consult my report in issue 183 – offered me a unique opportunity this April to survey their recent wines both red and white back to the 2006 vintage, and the result was both thrilling and humbling. It probably isn’t often that so may exceptional Languedoc wines of any sort appear on a single table – even if such situations are common in the case of fashionable and long-prestigious wine regions. (Due to time constraints, I had to take a rain check on the white Metairies du Clos bottlings.) The humbling arose from recognizing the extent to which – despite my enthusiastic review of these wines in issue 183 – I had grossly under-rated the extraordinary 2006s of this estate. But it was also an opportunity to recognize how much difference both the passage of time and the particular time when wines are tasted make, as the 2007s with one exception proved somewhat less exciting than they had in December, 2008, when they had either been recently bottled or were not yet bottled. This was in fact a large part of the point to Peyrus and Julien’s generosity. As he remarked “Now you’re seeing the 2006s after they have enjoyed a decent post-bottling rest, while the 2007 reds are in a trough.” I have decided to publish all of my tasting notes in this report, offering readers the benefit of my second look at both the 2007s and 2006s. But please consider those reviews in the same context in which the wines were presented to me: as moving targets. “Taken in general,” opines Peyrus, “2008 is too severe; 2009 is too rich; and 2010 strikes the perfect equilibrium.” Given what was in barrel here when I visited, I won’t argue with Peyrus’ high opinion of 2010, but I’m sure he too is well aware that the Clos Marie collections from 2008 and 2009 are in their disparate ways also superb. “Fresh, lower in (alcoholic) degree, and higher acidity (than usual).” is how Peyrus succinctly summarized his estate’s 2010s, adding that “this was not a vintage that inordinately taxed the grower. Fermentations were rapid and complete – over in ten days maximum. There was plenty of fruit, florality, and tannin, so why would you need to go searching for something more” – by way of extraction, that is. Why indeed? Just consider the results! But Peyrus cautions that the young 2010s – just like their fermenting musts – will need plenty of aeration. In 2009, Peyrus notes that nearly all of his black cepages ripened simultaneously. “In ten days, we harvested all of the reds,” he relates, although even in the slightly more spread-out 2010 season, there was, Peyrus says, virtually optimal opportunity for co-fermentation of complementary cepages, an option that the protracted 2008 harvest did not afford him. In 2010 – in the name of achieving inter alia felicitous equilibrium – Peyrus utilized close to three-quarters whole berries with stems, more even for Grenache, despite it being in his view more challenging and risky to work with the stems of this cepage due to their relatively high mass and the more aggressive extraction that comes with higher alcohol. And speaking of equilibrium, Peyrus insists that balanced yields – in recent years Clos Marie has averaged 35-40 hectoliters per hectare – are critical to achieving balanced wines and that lowering yields to drastically in a misguided believe that less is always better can result in excessively tough tannin and too-rapid an accretion of sugar, with consequent subsequent alcoholic imbalance. And as for picking dates, he has decided that “better too early than too late” is a wise maxim. “The notion of phenolic maturity as presently widely-promulgated is a faux problem,” insists Peyrus. “The risk is that growers wait until their fruit looses acidity and freshness, eventually oxidizes, and results in wine of less character that ages more rapidly.”Importers include Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA; tel. (610) 486-0800 and Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 559 1040
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