Last night had dinner at the RSJ (tagliatelle with wild mushroom particularly recommended). We drank the 2005 Le Portail, Vouvray from Didier and Catherine Champalou and the 2007 Anthologie du Clos from Vincent Roussely.
Le Portail comes from the vineyard just by the Champalous' house and winery and is vinified and aged in newish barrels for 12 months. As you would expect the 2005 is rich and mouthfilling with peach and honeyed fruit and some residual sugar making this a tendre or almost demi-sec style. As Le Portail is already 13.5% alc it would doubtless have raised the alcohol too high to have fermented this dry. Curiously the oak is still quite noticeable – perhaps it is the sweetness that accentuates it? Although I enjoyed the wine and it was a good match with the pasta, ideally I prefer the vintages of Portail when it is sec.
We then moved onto the 2007 Anthologie du Clos from Vincent Roussely's Clos Roussely, which has plenty of bright red fruits and some coal tar aromas – medium weight and good length. Naturally this has less concentration than the 2006 Anthologie but is a real success in a diicult year for reds. I wiould drink this quite young to enjoy its youthful fruit. Anthologie is a new addition to the RSJ list joining Vincent's 2008 Touraine Sauvignon and 2008 Touraine Gamay, which are already on the list and selling well.
We then moved onto the 2007 Anthologie du Clos from Vincent Roussely's Clos Roussely, which has plenty of bright red fruits and some coal tar aromas – medium weight and good length. Naturally this has less concentration than the 2006 Anthologie but is a real success in a diicult year for reds. I wiould drink this quite young to enjoy its youthful fruit. Anthologie is a new addition to the RSJ list joining Vincent's 2008 Touraine Sauvignon and 2008 Touraine Gamay, which are already on the list and selling well.
(Declaration: I work as a consultant to the RSJ and have done for best part of 20 years.)
