This wine is another example of a named-village Côtes du Rhône Villages. Cairanne is the village this time.2007 is supposed to be an excellent vintage for the Rhône. This wine is 14.5% alcohol, so if that's anything to go by, grape ripeness was not a problem. It's a blend of 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah. We got a lot of different scents out of this one, not all of them good. I think "toilet duck" was one of them. I found it has the sort of herby, raspberry type flavour of southern Rhône wines that I don't generally like.
I have to reserve judgement on this one a little. Reds from the south of France aren't my favourite (Rhône or not). Mind you, it's mostly the lower end, fruit-forward style that I end up trying, and I just don't like the flavour that much. I'm sure there are some great ones, and I'm going to make an effort to seek some out. Either way, everyone else seemed to like this wine, and Perrin is a good producer, so if you're a fan of this style of wine you should give it a try.
Perrin et Fils
Côtes du Rhône Villages Cairanne 2007
Côtes du Rhône Villages AC, France
Waitrose
£6.66 (£9.99)
3/5
Posts
I was halfway through a bottle of this, and finding it very quaffable if not quite as interesting as I'd hoped, when I read the above. Toilet Duck! Yes, I know what you mean... unfortunately. Damn the power of suggestion!
ReplyDeleteTo be fair to the wine it does taste quite tight, and I'm pretty sure it will open out into something more generous (and less, erm, bathroom-y) in a year or too. Certainly the Perrin Vacqueras 2005 - the reason I took a punt on this Cairanne - is a superb drink today. (But then the Vacqueras was good enough to persuade me to buy a case two years ago, when it was the same age as the Cairanne is now.)
However, I'm not really a Southern Rhone man either (unless you're opening Beaucastel or Rayas!), and I suspect that 2007 isn't quite as ripe & forward as 2005 was.
Yes, I really should buy a bottle or two and put them away for awhile. When you buy mostly supermarket wines you expect them to be ready to drink straight away, but perhaps this isn't always the case.
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