1949 Cazes - Rivesaltes

The white grape-based Cazes 1949 Rivesaltes displays spiciness, verve, and remarkable sheer juiciness at the same time as a complex array of dark and decadent elements. Peat, tobacco, black tea, and decadent forest floor confront spiced oranges, mouthwatering salinity, and an almost crystalline sense of shimmering mineral elements such as I would rarely associate with fortified wines. There isn’t one bit of superfluous sweetness in the penetratingly and dynamically persistent finish of this incandescent beauty. What’s more, as the glass stood open, this elixir’s performance become even more impressive. Emmanuel Cazes and Lionel Lavail, the director of the vast Cazes estate and related properties and projects, were joined by enologist Claude Gros in showcasing for me a wide range of wines. The venue was Les Clos des Paulilles – a venerable property on the coast between Port-Vendres and Bayuls that Cazes has recently purchased and is in the process of renovating, and whose first wines rendered entirely under their direction will be 2013s. (I mention a 2012 and two 2011s as “also recommended” below, treating them under the Cazes rubric. This property, incidentally, boasts an unusually high percentage of white grapes for its appellation.) Very recent trends in red wine chez Cazes have included later malo thanks in part to achieving lower-pH musts. Despite their having converted to biodynamic viticulture already in 1997, Cazes and Lavail say that many of their vineyards are only now very significantly changing their ripening patterns. Picking in the Cazes’ home sector around Rivesaltes is always early, but the team avers that in recent years, allegedly thanks to the cumulative effects of a biodynamic regimen, they are consistently picking earlier than any other growers in France, yet without sacrificing ripeness. In 2012 they began the white wine harvest already on August 9! In addition to wines bottled under the Cazes name that I have reviewed below – including a couple of projects outside their estate but under their wide umbrella – please see in this report under Mas Lavail an account of wines from Lavail’s own joint project with Nicolas Batlle in Maury. Lavail also showed me an impressive supplemental range of old fortified wines during a tour in the U.S., as Cazes is now making available many of their old reserves (under the rubric “Collection Cazes”), those I have reviewed on this occasion having been bottled in 2012 or early 2013. The perpetuation of this entire genre is endangered because although there are a lot of old stocks salted-away in its region of origin, the number of estates still active in vinifying their ilk keeps dwindling and neither fashion nor the bottom line are kind to these surprisingly versatile, quintessential “slow wines.” The home base for Cazes is their acreage near the seacoast north of Perpignan – today the world’s largest biodynamically-farmed tract – just outside appellation Rivesaltes’ namesake village. These old nectars are expensive, to be sure, and can sometimes be capriciously successful or less-so; but the best are thrilling to drink for their riveting complexity and seductive richness not to mention in light of the realization that they are so old yet so alive. What’s more, they will last almost indefinitely and even from the open bottle will give pleasure over as much as a year (which is why I make no further mention of age-ability in the notes that follow). Of the old Cazes Rivesaltes I tasted in the course of this year, only a 1931 disappointed on account of its harsh volatility. Note that while each of these is typically specifiable as “ambre” if rendered from white or gris grapes and “tuile” if from (at least in part) black, it’s often difficult after so many years of controlled oxidation in cask to tell one from the other by means of taste, much less color; and what’s more – with the exception of younger examples – Cazes does not distinguish on labels between these two subdivisions of Rivesaltes. Nonetheless, since our database requires specification of “sweet red” or “sweet white” wine, I have duly complied according to whether or not the estate records that the wine in question was rendered from black grapes. Importer:Robert Kacher Selections New York, NY; tel. (212) 239-1275 x 2042, also imported by Importer: Winebow, Montvale, NJ; tel. (201) 445-0620