Two chateau-bottled clarets from the early years of this millennium but tasting quite different. Here are our notes from enjoying them both.
My Father would have bought his bottles of Château Peyraud 2000 in honour of his academic collaborator and friend Claude of the same name. It’s a Premières Côtes de Blaye so considered at the time a notable vineyard of the outlying Blaye area.
The cork pulled clean if somewhat moist. Immediate taste of raspberry; a strong taste, pleasant though not complex or characterised. Though really the bottle hasn’t justified its place in the cellar all these years but then this wine probably wasn’t intended for keeping.
The similarly-aged Château Puy-Blanquet 2001 is a St. Emilion Grand Cru so the expectations are high. We weren’t disappointed although it was quite the most difficult cork to extract that I have had the pleasure to deal with in recent years.
A very full and distinctive nose. The wine is very dark rosy red in colour, smooth but tannic at first taste.
Flavours of dark cherries, Morello cherry etc. The flavours lasting well in the mouth. Very full-bodied and as refined as one would hope. Classic St. Emilion flavour, in many ways the centre of the Clarets.
Rather unexpectedly, as so many of these aged wines loose impact when exposed to the air, the flavour of the Ch. Puy-Blanquet 2001 developed after opening to become a very agreeable blackcurrant.
And always a lovely sweet after-taste leaving a pleasant memory with this classic claret closing our dinner of roast lamb on a fabulous Easter Sunday.