Grand Cru White Burgundy Rhône
2004 Beaucastel
Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc Roussanne "VV"
The Rare Beaucastel Blanc
($25 Below the Lowest Price in the Nation)
"The extraordinary 2004 Roussanne Vieilles Vignes from Beaucastel boasts... the thick texture of the greatest of Grand Cru white Burgundies, and amazing richness and length."
-Robert Parker, Wine Advocate
If the white wines of the Rhône are often overlooked, one can quickly identify two key factors.
First (and let us speak frankly because it's a Friday and we're all ready for the weekend), many of them just aren't any good - they are blousy and alcoholic and disjointed and mushy, the vinous equivalent of marshmallows.
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Second, however, the white Rhônes tend to be rare; all of Beaucastel's phenomenal blancs are rare birds indeed, though today we focus on their singular, old-vine Roussanne wonder.
From the quivering 2004 vintage (a year that clearly favored the whites), the Beaucastel Blanc Roussanne VV turns marshmallow into mineral.
As easy as the "Grand Cru white Burgundy" line is as a gimmicky marketing tool, in this case it happens to be spot on - the wine is textural, with the depth of material that recalls a forceful Meursault.
Yet this is not Burgundy, this is not Chardonnay - this is the Rhône, this is Roussanne and the two of them together present an ensemble of flowers and ripe fruit which is exotic and saturating. This is a wine that tests one's vocabulary, though the real mystery, the real fascination, is the combination of hedonism with definition - the decisive cut of the 2004 vintage.
Parker's impressive review is below.
Beaucastel is a monument of the Rhône; the Perrin family has come to define what it is to make great wine in the Southern Rhône. They hardly need an introduction and we won't bore you with one today.
As it happens, we get plenty of requests for great white Rhônes and the few offers that we have stood behind, have sold out quickly. As this bottle comes to us between $25 and $60 below the best U.S. pricing out there, we expect the same today.
To order, please email us at offers@crushwineco.com or call the store at (212) 980-9463.
Ian McFadden
Director, Fine & Rare Wine
Crush Wine & Spirits