WTN: `00 Paul Jaboulet Aine Crozes-Hermitage Les Jalets

[D Honig]

Cooked? Color was pale and dull, a light brownish red. The nose smelled first very brambly, but then clear notes of burnt toast and caramel, with some plum skin. Tasted of charred beef (just the charred part, not the beef part), Kalamata olives and burnt sugar.

[Otto]

Cooked?

Sure sounds like it! Sorry.

[Jenise]

Some of the things you list here are what you would find in an older C-H: olives, beef, caramel, plum skin. But they're not right in an 00, and the color seems suspect too. The typical flavor of cooked-ness would be stewed prunes.

[Carl Eppig]

We picked up ours at the downtown Hookset NH Pkg Store two weeks ago for $13.99 U.S. Because you don't see aged out wines laying in a rack very often, we were very concerned that it had cooked in the infamous NH warehouse. No problem!

It was dark ruby red to the eye. It had a lovely aroma of black fruit and spice, that carried over to the tongue tip. Deep blackberry, plumy, raisiny, smokey spicy nuances in the fruity and earthy complexity. Light oak and tannins with the slightest edge was included in what raced across the palate and contributed to a languishing finish.

Matched it with sauteed loin ends in Morton Rub, finger rolls, and salad. Excellent!