2010 Vinsobres Les Hauts de Julien Vieilles Vignes
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Tasting notes
Already bottled, the super-concentrated, superb 2010 Vinsobres Les Hauts Julien Vieilles Vignes has off-the-charts richness. Floral notes intermixed with blueberry, blackberry, boysenberry, licorice, truffle and camphor are all present in this superb wine, which is inky bluish/purple to the rim, extremely full-bodied, with great acid and sweet but abundant tannin. This is a wine for patient connoisseurs/partisans of southern Rhone wines. Forget it for 4-5 years and drink it over the following two decades. As I said last year, the Perrin family is a large one indeed, with brothers Jean-Pierre and Francois sitting at the top of the hierarchy and their four sons, Mathieu, Pierre, Thomas and Marc increasingly taking charge of their negociant business and their extensive estates throughout Southern Rhone. Now controlling over 1200 acres, as well as having a network of contracts, this operation is the equivalent of a major Southern Rhone train operating at high speed. Moreover, they are doing some incredible work in all price ranges. Other 2011s that the Perrin boys have produced include the following wines, which were very good across the board, especially for 2011s. In particular, readers need to take a hard look at their estate in Vinsobres, which is making the finest wines of that appellation, and more recently, what they are doing in Gigondas with the estate they purchased there, Clos des Tourelles. These are special wines. There are now three cuvees of Gigondas from the Perrins - the Gigondas La Gille, the Gigondas Vieilles Vignes and the Gigondas Clos des Tourelles. All three merit serious attention. Tasting the 2010s, which were all set to go into bottle right after my visit, certainly shows that this vintage is impressive, although I'm not sure that Marc and Pierre Perrin haven't done as good a job with their selections in 2011. Three cuvees of Gigondas look to all have outstanding potential and will probably be in bottle by the time this report is published. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980-8802
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
(sourced from 80+-year-old vines that are co-planted to grenache and syrah): Opaque ruby. Wild, intensely perfumed bouquet evokes red and dark berry preserves, potpourri and olive tapenade. Powerful, deeply pitched black raspberry and blackcurrant flavors show surprising energy, with zesty acidity providing spine. Finishes sappy, sweet and persistent, with clinging florality. Marc Perrin told me that the two varieties ripen at the same pace here and are thus able to be harvested together, which is very rare.
Tank sample. The Syrah and Grenache ripen at the same time (compared with the three-week difference in Châteauneuf) and are blended pre fermentation. This is a small cuvée from the highest vines. Olive country. Very firm and peppery and concentrated Syrah nose. Lots of acidity. Very different from most of these Perrin wines. Olive note? Truffles? They harvested some truffles in 2010. Still very young – not so obviously southern Rhône. Apparently the 2005 was put in Cornas when tasted blind recently. (JR)
About the producer
This Châteauneuf-du-Pape estate is one of the Rhône’s most famous addresses. With a history stretching back to the 16th century, Beaucastel remains family owned and run, with the fifth generation of the Perrin family – Marc, Pierre, Thomas, Cécile, Charles, Matthieu and César – at the helm today.