Super Vintage Northern Rhone Wine Tasting Featuring Guigal, Chave, Jaboulet and more...

Okay we poppin champagne like we won a championship game
- Popping Bottles by Lil Wayne and Birdman 

The wines of the Rhone Valley are some of the most famous in all of France.  The wines of the Southern Rhone Valley starting north of the town of Avignon with the new house of the Pope "Chateauneuf du Pape" whose wines are based on the Grenache varietal but usually contain several other grapes five of which are white!

This region has a lot of great producers and we have three of the best on the table tonight representing wines from the Northern Rhone.  The wines of the Northern Rhone are very different from the South as Syrah is the star of the show here.  The wines of Cote Rotie and Hermitage are rare in that the regions are fairly small and the top wines are made in minute quantities like Guigal's La La wines made from three of the top vineyard sites of the Cote Rotie region.  Tonight we have all three of the famous La La’s from the 1998 vintage.   

The granite hills of Hermitage rise above the Rhone at Tain l'Hermitage where the river bends sharply to the east before resuming a southward flow. This gives the vineyards a direct southern exposure. Vines have been grown here since Roman times, and Pliney wrote favorably about the wines of the region. The locals claim that vines were first planted here by Phocaean Greeks around 500 BC. Although the evidence is not conclusive, Greek coins and amphorae dating back to 500 BC have been found in the area.

Some experts feel that the greatest maker of Hermitage is the firm of Jean-Louis Chave. The Chave family has been growing grapes at Hermitage since 1481. They have a reputation for making good wine in poor years, and excellent wine in good ones. They use low yielding vines (average age 60 years) and a late harvest to produce the ripest fruit, and there is virtually no intervention in the winemaking and bottling with no filtration.

We have only one 100-point wine but we have all three La La’s and Chave Hermitage on the table this evening, each of these sell for more than the price of admission!  Toni Lampasone will be making a special meal to accompany the tasting wines.  The fee for this tasting which includes dinner is $450 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com

Super Northern Rhone Wine Tasting at Wine Watch Wine Bar
Saturday, February 4th
7:30pm
1998 E. Guigal Cote Rotie La Mouline
1998 E. Guigal Cote Rotie La Turque
1998 Guigal Cote Rotie La Landonne
1998 Domaine de Vallouit Les Agnes Saint Joseph
2003 Domaine Jean Louis Chave Hermitage
1990 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle
1999 Patrick Le Sec Cornas Le Vignon
2010 Jaboulet Crozes Hermitage Thalabert
2020 Domaine Lemenicier Saint-Peray Cuvee de L’Elegance Rhone Valley France

Menu
Cheese and Charcuterie Selection
Pablano Pepper Stuffed with A5 Waygu Filet, Wild Mushrooms and Forbidden Rice served over Creamy Goat Cheese and Red Pepper Coulis
Prosciutto Wrapped Pork Loin served over Black Bean Puree with Tomato Salsa
Dark Chocolate and Cherry Crème Pot

The Fee for this tasting which includes dinner is $450 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.