First Wine tasting - Rhone

Wow! Here it's 140 kr (11.66 £uk)! I wouldn't buy this wine, because for less than that price I can get conde de valdemar reserva and Nipozzano

Hmm... I've assumed that you're both referring to the regular bottling of the rouge. I tasted it (alongside several other Font de Michelle offerings) at the cave this summer. I found the 1999 cuveé classique to be a very fine example of CdP with good depth and excellent length. True, it was outshone by the Cuveé Etienne Gonnet

Hi Mark I had the wine with 20 other people and the first impressions were quite good .The colour was light but it should be normal from a wine that has 70% grenache,the nose was there no problem.The most amazing thing was that it was not hard or tannic after opening and we were also amazed that a wine so young should be so approchable. I finished the wine (2 different bottles ) 6 hours later and there was very little body and substance left I was very disapointed .I tried the 98 six months ago and was very impressed but this, as someone put it was just a very expensive Grenache. Cheers.

It's the red that has a logo engraved (embossed) on the bottle. I don't know if it's only for that Font du Michelle. At the tasting they told about another wine from them that costs the double and contains 13 grape sorts.

I didn't like the way they performed the winetasting this place becasue it was very rushed:

We stood around a table and a guy with a glass in our hands and the guy said: 'now we are to tsate bla bla' - opening the wine, going around to pour into people's glasses, and before we could examine it thoroughly he went: 'and now we are going to taste....' etc.

So it had been opened 30 seconds.

The other store (that is more expensive) perform much better winetastings. There they have table where one can sit and discuss the wines, and there's snacks that match the wines (last time it was Emu, waterbuffalo, and kangaroo to hasselgrove wines). And you come when you want and stay as long you want, and the wines are poured by yourself so you can wait some time to drink it. And there's water so you can wash your glass and mouth betweeen the wines.

[snip]

Hi Archon, Mark,

Just to chime in, I checked a couple of Font de Michelle bottles, the Gonnet and the tradition (in '88 and '90 anyway) are in the same bottles, only the lable (and presumably contents) are different. The bottles are stamped with the traditional CdP motif.

IIRC the cuvée Gonnet is a selection from the tradition, perhaps blended somewhat differently but above all aged in oak. The tradition is not aged in oak (which is after all not traditional in CdP) and so might seem somewhat lighter if you've just had an oaky mouthfull.

I don't believe that the Gonnet contains more grape varieties than the tradition. Certainly I find it a bit unfair, not to say inaccurate, to dismiss this wine as 'expensive grenache.' (with apologies to whomever I'm quoting out of context).

I haven't had the 99 yet, but I've had the opportunity to taste F.d.M. since the mid 80s, I don't think I'd ever qualify it as light...

just my $0.02...

On this lable there's no additional name to: Font de Michelle/Chateaneuf-de-pape It had a sticker with the Lilly right under the foil.