An artfully constructed Cotes-du-Rhone

One of my favourite Cotes-du-Rhone wines, Coudoulet can age quite gracefully for what is generally considered to be a minor appellation. Of course, they don’t charge minor prices for it…

[image image_id=”2391″] Cotes-du-Rhone ‘Coudoulet de Beaucastel’ 2005, Chateau de Beaucastel

A dense, powerful nose of earth, meat and ripe fruit. The meatiness is very Mourvedre in character and the plummy fruit seems very Grenache-derived. There is quite a reasonable degree of complexity to this and proper depth to the nose; this smells like a fairly serious wine. The palate has a quite pronounced tannins which, whilst being strong, do not show the toughness of a proper Beaucastel of this age. These work very well with its thick, ripe fruit. There is good earthiness also on the palate and altogether it seems somewhat complex. Nice, long finish. This is not your normal Cotes-du-Rhone. You can tell the winemakers have carefully constructed this to show the characters of a fine wine very much in the style of Beaucastel proper, but a vaguely muted, diffuse expression of those characters. I rather like Beaucastel but can rarely afford to drink it these days so this Coudoulet suits me just fine. It’d be even better with a few more years on it.

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