Dégustation Châteauneuf du Pape 2010 : 28 novembre 2024

Olivier Collin a écrit:François, je t'amènerai une petite laine écossaise...

Yves Martineau a écrit:Alors ça s'enligne bien pour le jeudi 28 novembre. Toutefois, comme ma douce sera en France et que j'ai mon petit bonhomme, la seule option est de le faire chez moi (en plus Gabriel adore la visite).

Olivier (Giroux), you're on!

Revisiting 2010

I consider 2010 to be one of the finest vintages in the history of the Southern Rhône, period. My personal cellar is heavily stocked with those wines. I first tasted many of them from barrel, then again right after release, before burying them deep in my basement. Over the past year, I’ve often wondered whether it’s time to start opening them. When I drove down to Châteauneuf-du-Pape at the end of this summer, I decided the time had come, but I wanted to do it right. So, whenever time allowed, I asked every winemaker I visited if they’d be willing to pour a sample of their 2010 reds. The result? Thirty-six of the most coveted 2010 Châteauneufs, including two whites. But before we dive into what’s in the glass, let’s take a quick look back at the key events of the growing season.

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Tasting these wines felt like stepping into a time capsule, back to an era where power and concentration were highly prized by critics and consumers alike (and sometimes pushed to extremes). Compared to today’s practices, major viticultural and winemaking differences existed at the time, including later harvesting, heavier extraction, less use of stems or whole clusters during fermentation and more frequent employment of new oak in maturation. A selection of the top 2010 cuvées verge on being too concentrated and intense, while most of the standard bottlings hit the sweet spot between power, structure and freshness. More than half of the wines have entered their broad drinking windows, while others are better left untouched for now.

That said, the very best 2010s are indeed the top cuvées, walking a fine line between immense power and enough freshness to keep them balanced. A standing ovation goes to the wines of Château de Beaucastel, Clos des Papes, Clos Saint-Jean, Domaine de la Janasse, Domaine de la Vieille Julienne, Henri Bonneau, Domaine du Pegau, Domaine La Barroche and Domaine Saint-Préfert. These iconic estates produced some of the best wines in recent history. And although they’re all brilliant, the 2010 Château Rayas trumps them all. When I last tasted it in spring 2022, it was fairly closed and not yet ready to reveal its brilliance. But this time, it was an entirely different story. Perfection in the glass doesn’t need to be searched for or uncovered—it finds you.