The Bordeaux Part I Experience - Rol Valentin

Sunday evenings can often be spent over at my parents house 15 minutes away from mine for a great Sunday roast complimented with a good bottle of wine. There can be as many as 6 of us when my girlfriend and my sisters boyfriend are around but last Sunday it was just my dad and I as everyone else was out of town for the weekend. Not everyone in our family is SO passionate about wine and im sure my dad and I can bore a little when we get into geeking out on wine stats, facts and tasting notes, especially when I get my pen, pad and camera out! Knowing we had an opportunity to really get into the depths of a wine we planned ahead to have a real wine night outside in the new garden house (the wine den) my parents have been working so hard on. One thing you should know about my father is that he is a huge wine enthusiast interested in and investing in wine since the early 70’s and is the main reason for my passion for all things wine. Both of us have had a trend in drinking a lot of Australian and Rhone wines recently so what with the en premier only a few weeks gone we decided to have a Bordeaux evening and pulled out some big and bigger guns from the past.

Château Rol Valentin 1998
85% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc – 100% new oak for 18 months

Chateau Rol Valetin is located on the north-western part of the St Emilion plateau with 4.6 hectares of planted of vineyards. The vine age is typically 35-40 years yielding only 14,000 bottles.
Poured after a 2 hour decant this wine was dark throwing a little sediment and showing great and prominent legs. Quite an intense aroma before I even got into the wine but burying my nose into the glass showed raspberry and plumb with grated tobacco leaf, really quite interesting and enjoyable. Quite light on the pallet showing ripe fruit, a good balance of acidity and a little astringency with a succulent round finish of ripe plumbs, vanilla and tobacco. This wine was bought en premier in 1999 but today averages for around £73 and was a great opener for our second wine (previewed in the background of the image below) of the evening. 91/100

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