Just opened one and set it aside in the decanter so I can pour at dinner tonight.
PnP initial thoughts line up to some negative comments posted above. Tons of fruity tart cranberry (somebody above nailed it when comparing to ocean spray cranberry juice). Hopefully the wine opens up over the next few hours. Will report back.
I believe that’s the one poured at the tasting room when we visited in October. Did not like it either. We had the same opinion. In fact, none of the reds were enjoyable and I hope it was just because they were way to young to be opened.
This is helpful. My only data point on this was the '16, maybe 3 months ago, pop-n-pour and served blind. That was fantastic, exploding with all those cool climate whole cluster aromatics turned up to 11. I didn’t feel it thin, though it certainly wasn’t heavy. There was no shortage of flavor, textural and aromatic complexity in the mouth. So, if this vintage is comparable, I suppose how it shows 8 months or so from now may be more helpful.
I have not yet opened a 2017, but excellent taster Salil had a bottle last week and thought it was outstanding.
I had the same bottle he had. It was nice but really grapey. Similar to the 16 but sweeter and less structured. To me the 16 is a much better wine.
There’s a reason I am letting the ‘17 sit for a bit. Pax’s blended Syrahs have a tendency to show rather grapey on release.
I preface this by saying I’m a big fan of the '16 and of Pax wines in general, but I had my first of the '17 last night and the only way I can accurately describe it is to say that it was bizarre. The bottle had an incredible amount of sediment for such a young wine, all stuck to the side of the neck and shoulder and covered that space on about half the bottle. On pour the wine only showed one note on the nose and that was a wildly strong green olive smell. Many in the group commented that it smelled like a martini or like sticking your nose into a jar of pickled olives. The color on the wine was an electric purple. I’m not sure I’ve seen that hue in a wine before, an almost fuschia appearance. After several hours it eventually morphed into something similar to what others are describing with the cranberry notes but never really showed anything resembling any typical varietal characteristics or anything else that would indicate it is a cousin of the '16.
My hope was that maybe this was just an odd bottle or that it is just ridiculously early and this wine does not share the same ability to show so well young and that our expectations were thrown off because the '16 was incredible out of the gate. Time will tell.
My experience with the 2017 was that the frame of the wine (floral, entry, exit) all had a distinct northern Rhône resemblance. The problem I saw with the wine was
acidity. This is my least of all problems and it’s probably subjective. maybe it has a little too much acidity although some Cote roties go that far. I think the acidity issue may be because of my #2 issue.
the mid palate. The mid palate was a little hollow. A great northern Rhône has a midpalate that has savoriness, red fruitedness, or dark fruit. Maybe with 10 or 20 years the mid palate fills out with tertiary flavors however this issue resembles to me a lot of California pinots that do not ever have the midpalate of a burgundy.
finish. There really wasn’t length to this wine but to be fair many northern Rhône’s are delicious but don’t have tons of length.
To be fair though I would give this wine a 90 with upside. I really liked florality, the purple lilac component without weight, and the viscosity. I think part of the problem is expectation management with the Galloni score.
What seems so crazy is that so many people are drinking this wine so young and expecting it to be ‘accessible’ to the point that a 3-5 year old wine would be. To me, it’s the same as trying many northern Rhone wines young - many are simply not approachable at all, unless you give the wines hours and hours or days to aerate and open up. Perhaps the 2016 was more wide open at an earlier stage but I’m sure its best days still lay way ahead. This runs in direct contrast with what so many on this board do with other producers . . .
Why not just buy them, sit with them, and try them after a few years?
On the other hand, if a producer is going to release a wine that young these days, perhaps they need to either ensure the wine is ‘approachable’ or put big ‘disclaimers’ somewhere to sit on the bottles?
Cheers.
I have three of the 2017. I plan to drink one in the next few months and sit on the rest for a few years. I know it may not be ready but I think it will give me a good impression of what it will be when it hits it’s stride. I did have a 1oz sample of it when I was at the store and thought it was good for having been opened for a few hours.
This is what I experienced. IMO, the wine is shit. I have another bottle and will save it for many years to test the hypothesis that this will somehow blossom. It is uncommon but not unheard of for a wine to be shit on release and terrific older – 1994 Grand Puy Lacoste comes to mind. Very uncommon and I certainly would not bet on this.
So I was in Miami, which is a wine wasteland, over the holidays and I walked into a wine store that had three bottles of the 2016 at roughly $60 a bottle. I bought them all and drank them all. The ‘16 is a different kettle of fish then the ‘17. The ‘16 has those olive, gamey, dark fruit characteristics that I associate with northern Rhône. I can’t understand how someone could rate it 100 points - as in there is no better wine than this - but it’s a pretty nice wine and replicated a good northern Rhône at a similar or lower price point. Anyone evaluating the ‘17 on the reputation of the ‘16 should try both wines side by side. The ‘17 is a huge disappointment in comparison. I don’t think the issues is the ‘17’s youth. I just don’t think it’s very good.
A