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Red Wine Review: Chateau Lassegue 2006

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Chateau Lassegue 2006 | Saint-Emilion, Bordeaux, France

chateau-lassegue-st-emilionYet another stellar example of right bank Bordeaux by brilliant winemaker Pierre Seillan.

Generous, open nose give opulent scents of ripe black fruit, earth, and mild hints of dark chocolate, tobacco, and something vegetal. On the palate it’s more restrained — really tight, not ready to offer the ample fruit waiting to erupt after a few years in the cellar. What you do get — after several rounds of double-decanting and allowing the wine to hang around in the open air — is complex layers of red and black fruit, earth, tar, and tobacco. What tips off the future greatness of this wine is its lengthy, perfectly balanced finish. No one element jumps out to be counted, but the subtle, complex flavors are preserved with appropriate levels of acidity and tannins. Visit our website tadalafiltablets.net for buy generic cialis online. The finish goes on, in balance, for five minutes plus; even when it finally disappears from the palate, there’s no heat, astringency, nor bitterness taking away from the pleasure.

If you want a New World, fruit-forward, jammy ripe cocktail-hour wine that bursts in your mouth with upfront flavors right now (and goes better with a cigar than food), then stay away from this wine. However, if you prefer an understated, youthful, harmonic wine with structure to match with beefy or gamey dishes, then stock a case of this in your cellar, forget about for about five years, and start uncorking a bottle a year until it reaches its apex. It will be well worth the wait.

Find this wine at a retailer near you using Wine-Searcher


Disclosure: I received this wine as a press sample

Wine Gatekeeping and Empowerment

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Last week I worked a distributor event, standing behind a table pouring my company’s wines to retail and restaurant wine buyers, waitstaff, sales reps, and other trade/industry people. This is always a pleasure for me, as I thoroughly enjoy interacting with people who get a kick out of wine and looking to explore and educate themselves. It’s also a fantastic way for me to get a feel for what distributor sales managers and reps are experiencing, as well as getting an understanding of the needs, knowledge, and challenges facing retailers and restaurateurs. Anyone at the “supplier level” — a.k.a., the top tier of the three-tier system — should work events such as this a few times a year (as well as spend time “on the ground”) to better understand their customers.

This particular tasting was in New Jersey — my home state — and though I’ve been doing NJ shows for over 15 years, I’m always stunned that no one spits. Ever. There are spit buckets at every table, but they’re used only for pouring out the contents of a glass. For whatever reason, NJ people believe spitting at a wine tasting is rude; I’ve not experienced this, at the trade level, in any other market in the United States. How people can taste dozens of wine, not spit, and still remain standing — much less, drive home — boggles my mind.

But I digress …

Every time I work one of these shows, I learn a few things, meet new people, and usually, have at least one experience or interaction that makes me shake my head. At this show, the head-shaking moment came unexpectedly, while speaking with an otherwise very smart, personable retailer. [Read more…]