WTN: 01 Domaine des Escaravailles La Ponce Rasteau

[Jenise]

This wine explains why I was so right to be so ambivalent about the Coste Chaude we had on Sunday night. Though a bit on the hot side at 14.5%, the rest of the wine is exemplary with a nose of pepper, tar, strawberries and black currant nuanced with a bit of saddle leather and that
sage-y wild hillside herb that grows in warm, barren places. It's full on the entry, midpalate and finish, and tannins still hold court there. This wine has time to go and the fruit to go with it, and should drink well for the next five years at least.

[David M. Bueker]

I've never seen either of the wines you just posted on. Where did you get them?

I thought for a while that Rasteau would really break out & become more widely available/popular, but the appelation as a whole seems to have gone back underground along with Gigondas.

[Jenise]

I bought this one from Garagiste, the other seems to have been a WineBid purchase based on--best I can remember--a huzzah on WLDG classic from someone like Chris Coad. I've actually not liked any of the Rasteaus I've had young--they've been strong/rich/sweet and that's not what I want from a CdR, but now that I've had one suitably aged I kind of get it. Young, this one reminded me of Pom Blueberry-Pomegranate juice--inky black but tangy--and now it's softened to the black currant and strawberry (to suggest the grenache shows) stage. Still a big wine, but no longer over-the-top.