Chateau de Beaucastel Vertical Results

On Tuesday October 18, 2011, Toronto Vintners Club had the exciting and rare opportunity to taste a vertical of Chateu de Beaucastel, with samples ranging as far back as 1995.  Everyone in attendance agreed that all the wines were amazing

Our speaker for the evening was Howard Cayman, from Charton Hobbs, who are the importers of the wines were were tasting and all of Perrin & Fils wines, to Canada.  Howard has worked in the wine industy for many years.  He has spent some time in Harrods wine department as well as working as an assistant wine maker in many wineries in both Canada and France.

Cheateau de Beaucastle are the only producers in Southern Rhone to produce their wine using all 13 grape varieties allowed in the production of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and they have been strictly organic since 1964.

 The wines were tasted in chronological order, starting with the young '07 through to the '95.  Howard spoke about how when tasting a vertical like, it is extremely difficult to rate and compare these wines against each other as they are all in different stages of evolution.  Luckily the group was able to work through these difficulties and come up with a ranking.

The groups favourite wine of the night, turned out to be the '98, which had a beautiful sweet aroma and great flavours of juicy blackberry, licorice and truffles.  Our second favourite wine was the baby of the group, the '07.  It had great acidity and Howard spoke about how it has a great life ahead of it and could last for 25 or 30 years.  Howard's, the speaker of the night, favourite wine was the 2000.  For anyone out there holding bottles of the '95 vintage, even though it scored well (3rd for the group and 6th for the speaker), it showed signs that it was on the back end of it's life.  Howard said that it had reached it peak and would notget any better.

Name of Wine (in order poured)	Group Ranking	Guest Ranking
2007 vintage	2	3
2004 vintage	8	8
2003 vintage	7	4
2001 vintage	5	2
2000 vintage	6	1
1999 vintage	4	7
1998 vintage	1	5
1995 vintage	3	6

Beaucastel Vertical is coming!

On October 18, TVC will be tasting a flight of 8 wines from Chateau de Beaucastel ranging in age from 1995 to 2007.  TVC members have been given an exclusive opportunity to register and buy tickets for the event before it's opened up to the general public.  These wines are very expensive and very exclusive so it will be a rare opportunity to sample them in a single sitting.  The price for members is $95 and $115 for non-members and guests.   For an interesting article and 10-year comparison on the rise in prices for Beaucastel, click here.


Now is a good time to join Toronto Vintners because if you join now, your membership will be paid up until the end of 2012 and by joining now, you'll receive a notice for this event with all the registration information.  For more details about our membership, please click here.