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Auberon Waugh
T keep plugging the Rh6ne as the only area of France which still produces superior wines of great concentration and depth at a price which one does not have to be a wine fanatic to afford. The problem, as with all good French wine nowadays, is that wine merchants push their stuff out far too young. For that reason, I start with an ordinary C6tes du Rhone (1) generique red which is certainly ready for drinking now and will gain little or nothing from being kept. It is also, at £2.50 the bottle delivered (£2.38 with quantity discount), one of the cheapest wines I have yet been able to recommend.
There are many reasonable COtes du Rhone available at supermarkets, as well as some rather nasty ones. My claims for this example, offered by Hallgarten, one of the three or four Rhone specialists in the country, is that it is noticeably richer, fruitier and fuller than the rest. As a wine for everyday drinking it is quite excep- tionally pleasant and will cause a lot of happiness among those of the wine- drinking fraternity who like to drink a lot of the stuff rather often. Some of these poor creatures have been reduced to drinking wine out of boxes. This is their chance to rescue themselves before it is too late.
Cairanne (2) was one of the first four
communes to merit the description of a COte du RhOne Village. This is a fuller and more important wine than the one above. Andre Brusset, who is acknowledged to be one of the two best producers in the village at his farm on the °Meaux de Travers, prides himself on leaving the stalks in during fermentation and keeping his wine a long time — sometimes as long as two years — in cask. The result is a powerful, tannic, rather complicated wine which I honestly think should be kept for at least a year. People who do not mind the occa- sional squeak of acidity or twang of tannin will be happy to drink it now, but I should guess it will be a wine one will be proud to serve in a year's time, when it will prove to have been a very good purchase at £3.17 or £3.01.
Crozes Hermitage Blanc (3) does not enjoy a terrific reputation, tending to be fat and lacking in acidity, and 1982 was an exceptionally fat and flabby year for nearly all the Rh6ne whites, but the Fayolle family have been working on the problem for some time. While I would not describe it as exactly crisp, it has a beautiful nuttiness of scent and flavour with just enough acidity to give it bounce. At £4.25 (or £4.04) the bottle it has more quality and better flavour than many better known and much more expensive white Hermit- ages, some of which seem to me to taste of cardboard. Although people may be ner- vous at the thought of investing in a whole case of this improbable wine, I do not think many will regret it and curse me if they do.
I thought it unexpectedly delicious and nobody on the panel dissented. Chateauneuf du Pape Les Cailloux (4) is a famous and thoroughly respectable prop-
Spectator 22 September 1984 erty — Livingstone-Learmonth and Mas- ter, in their excellent Wines of the RhOne (Faber £12.50) put it with three others in their classification of second growth, after only Fortia, Beaucastel and Vieux Tele- graphe in the first. Moreover 1980 is generally described as a grande annee in the southern RhOne (i.e. scoring five out of seven in a region which has scored only one seven out of seven in 25 years). In other words, it is a substantial wine, which should be kept for at least five or six years, by my reckoning. Unfortunately four out of the six on my panel found it quite disgusting, and I include it in the teeth of their disapproval. It has the massive, con- centrated blackberry sweetness of a h°t country wine which might recommend it' in its present form, to those who went a I bomb on my De Wente Zinfandel 1979• think it will develop into a grand °Irt, Chateauneuf, but anybody who disliked the Musar or the Zinfandel should not touch it. One member of the panel, the young poet Mr Jamie d'Abreu, thought it 'unspeakably delicious', but he is of Porte" guese extraction. I feel it would be mad t°, drink it now, but one might find one had done something very clever indeed in five years' time, having paid under £5.50 scarcely more than £5.00 with the quantau discount — for such a grand wine. The C6te du Retie 1978 (5) from Alfred Gerin (the 'G' is hard as in 'gizzard') viiu certainly be hailed as a great wine ver7 soon indeed, although its greatness 15 apparent at present only in its magnificent: almost overpowering nose. The taste is still shut away. Anybody who has studied the form books will know that a 1978 qte Retie is something to guard with your the' Few doubt that it will prove as brilliant as, the 1961. let Livingstone-Learmonth and Master take over: Immense, almost black colour, a closed 113 bouquet of infinite promise and a powerfi surge of unrealised fruit and thick tan
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make this a 19 points out of 20 vintage growers such as Guigal have made wines tue will live for at least 20 years, 30 years in the case of La Landonne.
Nobody would put Alfred Gerin eltri,te up with Guigal, and his wine is not 7.1 tannic. It should start coming round intic, sooner. Gerin is mayor of Ampuis, and hn'e been a powerful figure in bringing it delicious juicy and subtle wines of this tiflY appellation back to the world's attention. Price should be a secondary consideration with wine of this rarity, but of course lit never is, and I cannot help observing tlia to boast of having paid under £7.00 Or '- 1978 Cote ROtio from one of the teal makers will, in ten years' time, sound Ole_ like those unspeakable bores who tell )4; they bought Château Lafite 1961 for t shillings a bottle at the time. I would ric" open a bottle for at least two years to se; how it is coming on, and would not reek° At to drink the rest for four or six years. A
s'
present, apart from its smell, it has ve"„, little to offer. Until then, it will be sortle. thing to gloat over.
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