2009 Coteaux du Languedoc Copa Santa

The especially sweet berry ripeness of Clavel’s 2009 Coteaux du Languedoc La Mejanelle La Copa Santa serves as a better foil for the flavors it acquires from its stay in barriques (ca. 20% new) than was the case with the corresponding 2008. High-toned kirsch with cherry and black raspberry preserves are tinged with vanilla, caramel, resin, lanolin, and coconut, as well as shrouded in a smoky aura and laced with welcome mouthwatering salinity. Rich though underlain with considerable, fine-grained tannin, this finishes with satisfying persistence and ought to be worth following for half a dozen or more years. There have been some significant changes at Pierre Clavel’s domaine since I last wrote about it in issue 183. In addition to completing the conversion to an organic viticultural regimen and experiencing significant changes in personnel, Clavel has acquired a 17-year lease on an impressive and well cared-for 35-acre property only a few miles from his winery and just into the Pic Saint-Loup sector. Simultaneously, he has relinquished the long-term rental after a quarter century on the majority of his acreage in La Mejanelle (along the coast just east of Montpellier), the sector that first brought his wines notoriety. “The vines of La Mejanelle are endangered,” he explains, “because the city (of Montpellier) has constant designs on them.” As before, Clavel has major holdings in the deep chalk-clay terroir of Saint-Christol, as well as a small vineyard around his winery in Assas (whose fruit, however, has not thus far advanced beyond the cut for his intro-level “La Mas” cuvee). In what I take to be a sign of the times, Clavel has been moving his wooded cuvees from barrique- to demi-muid-elevage, and his new reds from Pic Saint-Loup as well as his 2010 Copa Santa reside almost exclusively in tank or foudre. I could in fact imagine a welcome convergence of Clavel’s approach, with his less-expensive and until now exclusively tank-raised cuvees also eventually benefiting from at least brief sojourns in foudre to help discourage reduction. But that will take additional time and money (and it’s not as if Clavel can be getting rich on the reasonable prices he charges). A Charles Neal Selection (various importers) Daly City, CA tel. (415) 225 5144