January 10, 2010

Good Deal

We're not typically in the business of promotion. And we endeavor to maintain a strict neutrality when it comes to provisioning the Labs cellars (though we are very partial to Garagiste)...

But we've written fairly often about wines of the Loire in general, and the wines of Nicolas Joly in particular, so I'm going to make an exception today. Joly's best wine is a Savennieres (Chenin Blanc) from the Clos de la Coulee de Serrant vineyard. The site is arguably one of the three or four greatest monopole vineyards in France. When the wine is good, it can be stupefying in its complexity, density and expression of that famous site. Alas, there is some bottle variation with Joly's wines as he now refuses to use any sulfur dioxide.

I've never seen it for less than $75 and it usually sells for more.

But the Wine House in Los Angeles the 2003 vintage on sale for $40.

Let us know if you get one of the good ones, as we plan to count this as a public service announcement.

4 comments:

Hampers said...

Nice blog on Clos de la Coulee de Serrant. I have never tasted it. Wish If I could taste it this weekend.

David McDuff said...

A huge batch of the '04 landed in the PA state stores not long ago, marked down from "suggested retail" of ~$100 to somewhere in the $35/bottle range. Heat damaged -- at least all of the bottles I tried were. Buy with care....

TWG said...

Crush had a batch of '05 cheap. Wonder what the source(s) is(are).

Director, Lab Outreach said...

Mine was imported from Vintus in NY, don't know if they're the distributor. Guy at the shop swore to me they were good. I asked him specifically if they'd been left out in the sun somewhere. Until I open one, I remain skeptical. I'll let you know.