Le Clos de Caveau
Vacqueyras Le Carmin Brillant
2007
Current price: about $23
We're Vacqueyras fans, so we were happy to find this bottle recently at Garnet Wines & Liquors in Manhattan. The label calls it organic, the winemaker calls it agrobiologique, and Skurnik, the importer, calls it biodynamic.
I call it disappointing. It's 70% grenache and 30% syrah. Fulsome, inky and redolent, with a promising spicy, flowery, earthy, chocolatey nose. But on the palate it yields such bland lush fruit, and feels so hot—it's 15% ABV—that the wine reads just like any other international-style wine. There is no subtlety, no typicity, no funk, no panache. It may as well be a California central-coast fruit-bomb Syrah. It may as well be an eye-crossing Oz Shiraz.
I really miss Le Sang des Cailloux.
