Wine of the Week

 

2003 Chateau de Segries Lirac Reservee

I'm trying to branch out, to try wines from different regions and villages than I have in the past, and to be honest with you I've done things ass-backwards and am now arriving in France after having tasted a lot from the New World. The folks at Du Vin in West Hollywood suggested that this Lirac (the Rhone village where the wine is produced) would be a nice sipping wine, good to drink on its own and aside from a meal. So I bought it, and finally opened it up last night.

While I agree with them that it's a nice sipping wine, I found it to be more substantial than they had implied. It was defnitely lighter in body, but composed most likely of Grenache and Syrah, with possibly a little Mouvedre thrown in, the wine had an earthy texture and some strong berry aromas. The tannins were soft, just noticeale enough to give the wine some structure without coating my mouth. There was also a smokiness to the wine that I thought was a tad unpleasant at first, but then seemed to actually complement the food we were eating. I think on its own, I would have recoiled at the tar-like quality, but in this case it turned out to be a welcome layer of complexity.

For those of you who care, the village of Lirac is just across the river from Chateauneuf-de-Pape. I can't really compare this to its famed neighbor since I have yet to delve into those revered 13 grape blends. But at around $13 a bottle, this is an approachable wine that was a nice step away from the huge California Syrahs and Australian GSMs that I'm more familiar with.

The more experienced tasters at Gang of Pour have their own opinion, which I am reprinting here for your perusal. Their blurb was written over a year ago, and as a result the wine probably needs less air these days (we decanted, but poured less than a half hour later):

"2003 Château de Segries Lirac Reservee, 13.5% alc.: Dark garnet, with a smoky tinge, and not giving much at all on the nose at first, but this is a wine that needs time to open and show what it has. With a few hours of air, what at first seemed a somewhat dull, clunky wine evolves to exhibit some real depth, with earthy dark plum, blackberry and black currant flavors and aromas that are accented with a little tobacco and underbrush. Medium tannins will take this at least a few years down the road, and bottle age should allow this to develop nicely."

You can find this wine at the aforementioned Du Vin (where it costs about $13.00) or at Wine House, for a mere $9.99. I was not able to locate (care of Wine Searcher) any east coast outlets carrying the wine, but that doesn't mean they don't exist...