Winery - Chateau Rollat
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Rollat’s Sophie occupies the entry-level rung on the ladder, behind the elegant and polished Rollat and the dense, compact and highly cellar-worthy Edouard. But Sophie is charming and accessible, a blend of 50% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc that is elegant and bright. The fruit focus is on cranberry and raspberry, tart and well-defined, and the wine is immaculately clean. It’s light and charming, but a perfect choice for autumnal foods.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Rollat is the mid-level red wine of the three inaugural releases from Chateau Rollat. It’s less brooding and compact than the companion Edouard Cabernet. Immediately accessible, it could almost be the template for this new and exciting producer; elegant, polished and supple with ripe sweet fruit and fine tannins. Flavors of black cherry and cassis envelop the palate, gently spreading out into a full-on fruit rainbow.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
The label reads “The finest wine of Chateau Rollat Winery” and indeed it is, though in 2006 the immediate show-stopping appeal of the 2005 has been muted, or at least postponed. Here are nuanced, stacked flavors that subsume the berry and cassis fruit under herbs, earth and stone. The aromas are lively with lovely floral notes, primary grape smells, and juicy berries, but the wine is too young to see it completely. The kiss of chocolate in the finish tastes like a blessing.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Broadly fruity, a wash of berries and spice. The acids are still a little jarring. The vintage is not as deep as the 2007, and the wine shows a little heat in the finish. This tastes more like a press wine than the ’07, but it is nonetheless very well made.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
At first this seems a bit attenuated; the midpalate a bit dumb. The tannins are astringent and fine, and the fruit is clean and tart, and needs extended decanting. Sleek, Bordeaux-like, and quite firm, it has a strong streak of graphite and clean earth, with polished tannins and impressive depth and length.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
This wine is still a baby. Deep fruit flavors of boysenberry, cassis and black cherry are tightly wrapped in dark barrel flavors of graphite and baking spices; tannins are still stiff with tongue-drying astringency. This wine has texture and depth, but needs time and attention to its subtleties.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Sweet barrel flavors set off pretty fruit, a generous mix of cherries and berries, with juicy underlying acidity. This wine needs quite a bit more time to unfold. For the moment, all the components are right but the integration is not complete.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Young and hard, with sharp edges but excellent components. A bigger wine than the ’06 Sophie. Still a firm, tannic, rather hard-edged wine, but delicious. Pepper Bridge and Seven Hills fruit delivers excellent structure and depth, polished tannins, with cassis and blackberry fruit driven deep into the core of the wine.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
Less immediately accessible than the 2005, the 2006 is tight and tart and almost seems encased in some sort of a shell. The fruit is concentrated raspberry and plum, and the acids taste natural while the tannins are polished and proportionate. The wine stays focused and strong through a very long finish that dapples in toasted coconut and chocolate malt. If you are a Rollat collector (and you should be) this would be the wine to cellar for five or six years, waiting for the Edouard to come into full flower.
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* Expert NoteJanuary 12, 2012
This is a showstopper, the top of the line at Chateau Rollat, certainly one of the most exciting new ventures to open in Walla Walla in the past decade. Deep and compact, it’s a classic wine to cellar, holding its dark and smoky secrets tightly wound around a core of dense black fruits nuanced with streaks of bark, soil, earth and barrel. A subtle, moody and yet quite expressive wine, it engages the intellect as well as the palate—a rare treat indeed.
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