2005 Clos d'Agon Tinto

Full bottle 1,314 g. 40% Viognier, 40% Roussanne, 20% Marsanne. 7,411 bottles made. Deep waxy lemon gold colour. Gorgeous nose, somehow succulent, headily hedonistically floral. It smells like a roomful of lilies in full bloom, like a forest of black locust trees/Robinia pseudoacacia in May when their generous clusters of beautiful white flowers seem to spill from the branches, making you dizzy with the glorious perfume. It smells like honey pressed into creamy beeswax and it smells like a lanolin and bergamot. In the mouth, it's almost liminal, like tasting a point that bends a curve around time. The acidity is the sensation of glass shattering into a billion tiny microcrystals and coming back together in a perfectly smooth sheet, but now it's a kaleidoscope of crystals, and no longer transparent. It tastes of pewter-pressed marquetry. It tastes as if all those blossoms have been etched into the bones of the wine. And it tastes of lanolin and bergamot. Long. Still very much alive. Don't underestimate the ageability of these Clos d'Agon wines. (TC)