2004 Muntada

The 2004 Cotes du Roussillon Villages Muntada – smells fascinatingly floral, along with notes of kelp, shrimp shells, and steamy stones. Juicy, refined, and surprisingly lean on entry, it searches out every taste bud in imprinting its message of tart black currant, flowers, and multiple minerals. With a concentration, clarity, lift, and interplay of floral, mineral, and fruit elements, this is like a black Mosel Riesling! It is easy to forget the tannins, given their fineness. As for cellaring, I think one simply wants to follow carefully the evolution of this unusual wine – expensive though that would be. It did not incidentally hold up very well from the open bottle (in that respect surely not Mosel Riesling-like!) decaying with more or less the rapidity of a great red Burgundy. The title “Roussillon’s Greatest Grower” has long been Gauby’s to lose. Watching him defend it with his new methods against so many talented recent arrivals will be exciting. Importer: Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA; tel. (610) 486-0800