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"Mace, mint, black pepper, resin, baked black fruits, and a hint of roasted meat rise from the glass of 2005 Coteaux du Languedoc Terrasses du Larzac La Peira. Saline, stony, chalky, and iodine-like mineral suggestions lend added dimension to the rich, spiced, chocolate-dipped berry fruits, yet as with all of the wines from this estate, a measure of levity and juicy core of fresh fruit acids remains. This doesn’t display the floral dimension that makes so many of the other wines at this address especially striking, but it nearly makes up for that in sheer opulence, and will almost surely be worth following for a half dozen more years, during which it may assert itself vis-a-vis the very different Las Flors.
La Peira en Damaisela is the property of London-based composer Robert Dugan, located between Jonquieres and Aniane, on two adjacent parcels of no known previous distinction, but to which in 2004 instinct led him either with remarkable prescience or remarkable luck. The deep alluvial fan that is the basis for this site is only barely tilted, as it might be in St. Helena or Rutherford, St.-Estephe or Pomerol ... and these comparisons will not seem inapt once you experience the quality of La Peira’s wines. Claude Gros (of Chateau de Negly fame) consults here, expense seems not to have been spared on a new facility (with, of course, lots of new barrels), and Bordeaux-trained Jeremie Depierre is the hands-on (or, as I am sure he and Dugan would prefer me to put it “hands-off”) winemaker. New barrels of 500-600 liter capacity are favored here, incidentally, rather than classic (225 liter) barriques. I had the good fortune to taste the La Peira cuvees of 2005 and 2006 in late 2007 – before any wines had been released – and again this past December, when I tasted the extraordinary 2007s here for the first time. As this report goes to press, the first of the three red bottlings is about to be released in its 2007 rendition, but neither of the two other red cuvees from the 2006 vintage although all three were bottled at around 20-22 months has even been released yet. 93 points" - David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate # 183
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