Sunday, January 05, 2003
Over the weekend I continued to work my way through the region around Pic St. Loup, this time going just outside its border to sample some of the wines of Chateau de Lascaux. Over the past five years I've had the good fortune to visit the hilltop winery, and drive through the vineyards with Mr. Cavalier, the owner and winemaker. The clay and limestone based vineyards, on flat mountain land gets plenty of sun all year round, providing for better than average growing conditions. Cavalier's passion and care of the vineyards keeps the small winery going, turning out very good to downright impressive wines with each succeeding vintage.
At Lascaux five different wines are made. A traditional Rose, two whites, one from the ceramic cuve and the second, aptly named Pierres d'Argent, or "money stones" with grapes coming from Lascaux's best plots of white grapes which spend time in small oak barrels, and two reds made from different proportions of Syrah and Grenache.
The 2000 Chateau de Lascaux Coteaux du Languedoc Blanc is a blend of Viognier, Rolle, Marssanne and Roussanne. It's light, slightly sweet, with tropical fruit flavors of melons, tangerines, oranges, lemon, apricot, pears and peaches. Not nectar like, but supple and fruity, the wine is made for drinking now or over the next few years and makes for a great change of pace from Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blancs that I've been drinking more often of late. This fruit cocktail like mélange of flavors was like a day at the fruit stand, as each sip brought along flavors and fragrances to tempt and tantalize the taste buds.
While younger wines from Lascaux were available, I went into the cellar to find some reds from 1993 and pulled both of Cavalier's fine efforts. The regular bottling of the 1993 Chateau de Lascaux Coteaux du Languedoc Rouge is a 70 percent Syrah, 30 percent Grenache blend that is tank fermented. This keeps the freshness of the wine but does not make it built for long term cellaring. Soft and comfortable and like your blanket on a chilly spring morning, the warm sour cherry fruit flavors from the Grenache has become more forward, while the deeper and more exotic blueberry flavors from the Syrah are beginning to drift off into the sunset. This wine is a nice, pleasing wine, that lacks the harshness of so many more familiar and easily obtainable young Cotes du Rhone wines seem to have. So while this vintage is long gone, the track record of Lascaux, and a tasting of the 2000 edition last February at Vinisud tells me that the current release will be like this, with even more depth and fruitiness. On the other hand, there's the macho higher end 1993 Les Nobles Pierres. Barrel aged, this blend of 90 percent Syrah and 10 percent Grenache in most years, was sheer dynamite and wasn't seeing any near term need to be opened.
Loaded up with jammy, lip smacking blueberry fruit flavors from the Syrah portion of the blend, the fresh fruit orchard flavors made this wine as easy to drink as sitting in your favorite chair with your slippers on. From start to finish this one time $10.95 bargain was a true crowd pleaser, that turned on one of the most staunchest of white wine loving females I know, begging the question..."Do you have any more?" Wine drinkers who like wines with complexity, that are Syrah based, and don't have that foreboding heavy oak that the Australian version offer, would be well advised to seek out the current 2000 release of the Lascaux's Les Nobles Pierres savor a few now, but put a bunch away for enjoyment down the road.
The current releases of Chateau de Lascaux can be found through Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley, CA. 1.510.524.1524
At Lascaux five different wines are made. A traditional Rose, two whites, one from the ceramic cuve and the second, aptly named Pierres d'Argent, or "money stones" with grapes coming from Lascaux's best plots of white grapes which spend time in small oak barrels, and two reds made from different proportions of Syrah and Grenache.
The 2000 Chateau de Lascaux Coteaux du Languedoc Blanc is a blend of Viognier, Rolle, Marssanne and Roussanne. It's light, slightly sweet, with tropical fruit flavors of melons, tangerines, oranges, lemon, apricot, pears and peaches. Not nectar like, but supple and fruity, the wine is made for drinking now or over the next few years and makes for a great change of pace from Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blancs that I've been drinking more often of late. This fruit cocktail like mélange of flavors was like a day at the fruit stand, as each sip brought along flavors and fragrances to tempt and tantalize the taste buds.
While younger wines from Lascaux were available, I went into the cellar to find some reds from 1993 and pulled both of Cavalier's fine efforts. The regular bottling of the 1993 Chateau de Lascaux Coteaux du Languedoc Rouge is a 70 percent Syrah, 30 percent Grenache blend that is tank fermented. This keeps the freshness of the wine but does not make it built for long term cellaring. Soft and comfortable and like your blanket on a chilly spring morning, the warm sour cherry fruit flavors from the Grenache has become more forward, while the deeper and more exotic blueberry flavors from the Syrah are beginning to drift off into the sunset. This wine is a nice, pleasing wine, that lacks the harshness of so many more familiar and easily obtainable young Cotes du Rhone wines seem to have. So while this vintage is long gone, the track record of Lascaux, and a tasting of the 2000 edition last February at Vinisud tells me that the current release will be like this, with even more depth and fruitiness. On the other hand, there's the macho higher end 1993 Les Nobles Pierres. Barrel aged, this blend of 90 percent Syrah and 10 percent Grenache in most years, was sheer dynamite and wasn't seeing any near term need to be opened.
Loaded up with jammy, lip smacking blueberry fruit flavors from the Syrah portion of the blend, the fresh fruit orchard flavors made this wine as easy to drink as sitting in your favorite chair with your slippers on. From start to finish this one time $10.95 bargain was a true crowd pleaser, that turned on one of the most staunchest of white wine loving females I know, begging the question..."Do you have any more?" Wine drinkers who like wines with complexity, that are Syrah based, and don't have that foreboding heavy oak that the Australian version offer, would be well advised to seek out the current 2000 release of the Lascaux's Les Nobles Pierres savor a few now, but put a bunch away for enjoyment down the road.
The current releases of Chateau de Lascaux can be found through Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley, CA. 1.510.524.1524
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