2015 St Joseph l'Olivaie
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Tasting notes
Aged 14 months in barrels and demi-muids, the 2015 Saint Joseph L'Olivaie is a rich, opulent, thick Saint Joseph that delivers on all accounts! Crème de cassis, crushed flowers, violets and licorice aromas and flavors all emerge from this hugely concentrated, power-packed 2015 that has a broad, expansive texture, moderate acidity and sweet tannin. This blockbuster wine will benefit from 2-3 years of cellaring and keep for two decades. I continue to love the wines from the young Jerome Coursodon, who pulls from roughly 16 hectares of vines all in the southern part of Saint Joseph, mostly just outside the village of Mauves. The 2015s are monster, blockbuster styled efforts that I suspect won’t appeal to the traditionalists out there, but are singular wines. The 2016s are more elegant and finesse-driven, yet still pack in more sweet fruit than just about everyone else out there.
Critic scores
Average Score
John Livingstone-Learmonth, Drink Rhône
Joe Czerwinski, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
Rich, velvety and long, the 2015 Saint Joseph l'Olivaie features notes of black olive tapenade framed by cedar and vanilla. It’s another fine effort from Coursodon that should age for a decade.
(made from vines more than 60 years old; aged for 15 months in barriques , 15 percent of them new) Saturated ruby. Expansive, spice-accented aromas of black raspberry, boysenberry, potpourri and smoky minerals. Sweet and velvety in texture, offering palate-staining red and blue fruit and floral pastille flavors that are complicated by a smoky nuance. This rich yet energetic wine shows excellent clarity and depth, and a firm spine of acidity adds structure. The floral and mineral qualities recur on the sweet, gently tannic finish, which shows very good focus.
Cask sample. Tasted blind. A little overripe on the nose. Sweet start – almost kirsch – and then chewy with fine tannins. Full-blooded and almost damp fur. (JR)