2008 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Réservée

. Laurence Feraud referred to her Cuvee Laurence as "the house Burgundy" and said that she worried that customers didn't understand that the family's objective was for the wine to be ready to drink on release, not to be stored away for further aging. "Sure, it will age, but I hope that people don't put them away for many years and then drink them with disappointment. It's a great wine to be able to sell to restaurants, which was the original intent of my father." She told me that she believes that "2009 will turn out like 2005, but without the tannins. There's structure and the flavors are well-focused but not too opulent, which will allow them to be drunk after just a bit of aging. They might turn out a lot like 1999, in fact, which is a vintage that was short-changed by a lot of people at first, especially after the craze for the 1998s." Laurence also emphasized that the 2007s are wines that aren't showing very much right now and was insistent that her 2005s should be avoided for the near future "or maybe even longer. They are completely closed and impossible to read now." There appears to be a Da Capo bottling from 2010 on the horizon, by the way, as Laurence believes that the material is there to justify it. (Hand Picked Selections, Warrenton, VA; Martine's Wines, Novato, CA; J et R Selections, Bloomfield Hills, MI)

Two thousand eight was the latest harvest of the decade here, according to Laurence Feraud, "and that was good because we needed the maturity after the lousy beginning of September. If you didn't allow your grapes to build up sugar and lose some of the shrill acidity then your wines turned out green and hard, with little fruit." The Ferauds began the 2008 harvest on September 28t and finished during the second week of October. "During the days the temperature went up to 25 degrees [centigrade] and the nights were around 10 degrees and it was dry, so we got a steady increase in ripeness," Laurence noted. Paul Feraud describes 2007 as "a unique vintage, without precedent. The wines seem sweet but they are actually quite dry. The Capo, for instance, is incredibly rich but it has less than 3 grams of sugar." Added Laurence: "It's a fantastic vintage for drinking soon but the wines also have great concentration; the only question is their structure." She also advised drinking the 2006s on the young side "because they are all about fruit," and said that the 2005s are way too tannic to approach any time soon. "We left them in barrel for two years and the tannins never softened," she told me. "The Cuvee Laurence got four years of elevage and it is still an animal." (Hand Picked Selections, Warrenton, VA; J et R Selections, Mt. Pleasant, MI; Martine's Wines, Novato, CA)