2015 Domaine les Pallières Gigondas Les Racines
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Tasting notes
Cut from the same cloth, the 2015 Gigondas Racines offers darker fruits, as well as more minerality, yet is slightly closed and needs 2-3 years of bottle age. Garrigue, black cherries, currants, scorched earth, and licorice all flow to a full-bodied Gigondas that has ripe tannin and terrific length. It’s a classic beauty well worth your time and money.
Critic scores
Jeb Dunnuck
John Livingstone-Learmonth, Drink Rhône
More reviews and scores
I preferred the Domaine Les Pallieres 2015 Gigondas Les Racines, which comes from 75-year-old vines (80% Grenache) at lower elevation. There's a sassafras-like spice note to this wine, along with ripe cherries and hints of clove and allspice. Like the Terrasse de Diable, it's full-bodied and silky in texture, but the Racines seems to carry its alcohol better. Both of these Gigondas are matured exclusively in 60-hectoliter foudres, so there's no obvious oak influence.
Brilliant ruby. Explosive dark berry preserve, incense and lavender scents, along with hints of allspice and dusty minerals. Sweet and focused on the palate, offering concentrated boysenberry, spicecake and floral pastille flavors that smoothly blend depth and vivacity. Closes on a gently tannic note, showing strong persistence, excellent clarity and a lingering floral quality.
The 2015 Gigondas les Racines looks to be slightly superior to the Terrasses du Diable at this point and has a more minerality, dark fruit and garrigue in a medium to full-bodied, concentrated, even backwards style. It has depth and length, and will benefit from a few years in bottle. Oct 2016, www.robertparker.com