The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine is powerful in its youth, perhaps too powerful for my palate. That's why I believe it's a great transition wine for new world palates. It's got the rich fruit and texture, plus the extras - spices, tar, acidity. The magic happens though at about 10 year mark, give or take - where the wines mellow out, meld the various components, and start showing wonderfully complex layers of iron, meat, blood, and yet more spices - the package I fondly refer to as "the wild boar" bouquet. They are still "Viking" wines compared to the more civilized brethren from Burgundy and Bordeaux, but nonetheless mature Chateauneuf-du-Pape's are full of character, complexity, depth, and just pure deliciousness. The "soul of the Viking"? Our local wine shop Vin Vino Wine is known for doing tastings of older wines, particularly older Rhones. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of tasting thru a venerable line-up, my notes below. 1995 Domaine du ...

In the previous blog post , we posed a fun question-puzzle. If you don't want to spoil the surprise, make sure you read that first before returning here. But first, a little bit about the setting... At 5:30pm on Dec 29, 2008, at the end of a busy day of wine exploration in Southern Rhone, surrounded by total darkness at the outer edge of the town of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, we slowly drove up along the dirt road to Domaine du Pegau. It was dead quiet, we knocked on the front door of a house. We were supposed to be expected. But an elderly man we saw through the window seemed surprised by our visit. Briskly he came out and unable to speak English, gestured for us to follow him to what from outside looked like half garage half barn. It was the cellar. A helper inside luckily spoke English, and explained that Laurence (pronounced "Law-runs") Feraud, the older man's daughter, who had scheduled the appointment with us, had car trouble returning from a wine tip to Burgundy, an...

On a recent visit to Domaine du Pegau in Chateauneuf-du-Pape on Dec 29, 2008, I had this memorable picture taken. What's wrong with it? Can you figure it out? The answer will be revealed in the next blog post.