Le Clos du Caillou Bouquet des Garrigues 2011 MAGNUM

150cl bottle.

Organic.

Note, slight label wear from cellar storage.

From a producer rated outstanding by Robert Parker.

A rare bottle (MAGNUM) indeed. This was an exceptional vintage and 420 magnums were released to celebrate it. Magnums of this wine have not been produced in other vintages.

An exceptional year: summer spring, spring summer and ideal autumn. The precocity of the spring surprised everybody and accelerated the works in the vineyard. The flowering took place without block at the beginning of may, leading to predict a very premature harvest (100 days later) for the second week of August. The spring summer, with precipitation in July and in August allowed the vineyard to not suffer with a hydric stress, during the maturation period. As a result the harvest announced for the end of August, began normally on September 12th. “The Indian summer” without precipitation, let us the possibility to harvest some very healthy grapes with perfect maturity. The wine is concentrated, fruity, with a good acidity, reminiscent of the character of the 2009 and 2000 vintages.

Tasting notes Beautiful red blood-orange dress, with brilliant reflections. We discover a very spicy nose, dominated by Chinese aniseed aromas, associated with the liquor of fig. The mouth is very smooth, pleasant, with a beautiful sweetness, on white fruit aromas of cinnamon and licorice.

Winemaking:
The manual harvest, with sorting in the vineyard took place on September 12th, 2011. After de-stemming, the grapes are sent to a cement tank where they follow a cold maceration during 48 hours, to extract a maximum of the grape aromas. Then the alcoholic fermentation engages naturally with wild yeast. A daily work, between pump-over and delestage are made during all the grape maceration (24-30 days). After devatting, the wine aged in foudres and in wooden barrels during 14 months.

This is the best value Châteauneuf du Pape I know of – it’s a must try wine with a great story. This beautiful wine is from a single walled vineyard in the heart of Châteauneuf du Pape yet it doesn’t mention anything about Châteauneuf on the label?

The reason for this is that in 1936 (when the appellation Châteauneuf du Pape was being drawn up) the owner of this property wanted nothing to do with the new appellation as he was proud of his nice plot of land and happy enough staying as the traditional Cote du Rhone. He denied access to the agents drawing up the new boundaries and built a stone wall around his vineyard and because of this he was left out of the plans on every new map of the area even to this day.

Unfortunately for him Chateauneuf du Pape became more fashionable than Cote du Rhone and even now sells for roughly three times the price.