Tasted in Château Thivin with Sonia Geoffray, 04 April 2024.
Château Thivin
69460 Odénas
Tel: +33 4 74 03 47 53
www.chateau-thivin.com
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More reports with Château Thivin
Sonia on 2023:
“Happy memories – but challenging as not much time to sleep – it was intense. All went well and we had a good team but most of the parcels were ready at the same time, so… We hoped for a little rain but the temperature mounted so quickly – They won’t be small wines !!”
Sonia on 2022:
“All is already bottled – the last are usually done just after or just before the harvest that follows. It’s a vintage with some structure but there’s a nice fruit below too. I think that we have the juiciness of 2018 but with a little more material and the wines might age longer too.”
The wines…
Excellent – sometimes great – wines in 2022 – normal service has been resumed !!
All the wines were in bottle:
2022 Brouilly
A good width of aroma, subtly spiced. Large in the mouth with a juicy style – long sightly serious structure – but wait a year. Long finishing with some graphite minerality….
2022 Côte de Brouilly Les Sept Vignes
Here the famous bluestone soil. An assembly of their seven parcels – hence the name. ‘Normally more structured and powerful for long aging.’ There can be two or even three bottlings of this as it’s a large cuvée
A more relaxed and comforting width of darker red fruit. Incisive but broad too – so juicy finishing. A hint of structure so wait 1-2 years but this is a super wine!
2022 Côte de Brouilly La Griottes de Brulhié
Brulhié is the old (1735) spelling of Brouilly. Mid-slope parcel, south-facing – an early ripening section.
A larger scale of aroma – of impressive dark cherry depth too. Larger in the mouth too – modestly supple and very faintly tannic but hardly drying. The mouth-watering flavour spreading very wide in the finish – an intense finish with a small accent of wood today but I’m sure that it will be gone in another 6 months. Already an excellent wine…
Plain south-facing, the highest vines with a steep, close to 40% incline – more clay on the more fertile soil, and really needs a caterpillar tractor to be safe
Starting really deep – and broad in that depth – but needing some air to open out in the higher tones. Yes! Here is a seamless, mouth-filling, experience – subtly oaked today. The finish with extra concentration and width – that’s potentially a great wine and I wouldn’t hesitate to wait 2-3 years for this – the oak will be gone in much less time than that…
It was Zaccharie who bought the domaine in 1877, at that time with less than 4 hectares – Marguerite was his wife. This was bottled in September – the last to be done from about May onwards… The only wine with elevage in 228-litre barrels, all the other cuvées done in foudres. Maximum 10% new oak used here. It’s the only wine that’s a blend of terroirs – except the first one.
More concentration but still a nose that’s open, suggesting a small textural cushion. So intense, framed with a tannic grain but virtually no dryness – concentrated but balanced – a generosity that impresses and it’s the wine whose structure is the most hiddedn by the depth of fruit. Oh-so subtly oaked again but you won’t notice by the time you can buy it locally. Bravo wine for sure…
2023(!) Beaujolais Villages Rosé
In bottle a little over a month – Rose from the press – vines in Quincié.
A beautiful width of aroma – airy, floral but complex too. Moth-filling, actually quite some generosity and finishing wonderfully well – serve cold in the summer and certainly drink a little too much – it’s excellent !!
Le White:
2022 Beaujolais Villages Blanc Clos de Rochebonne
There’s a little more skin contact here – it’s overnight on the skins before pressing the next day. 460m altitude yet no frost here in 2021 – almost every year these are the last vines to be harvested.
Less depth and fewer higher tones but here is a good width of aroma. Supple, mouth-filling – a saline edge and slowly more juicy middle and finishing favour. This remains a wine of generosity but with enough energy to keep everything interesting.
And for the road:
Medium colour. A nose with some obvious age – forest floor and the faintest of marsala. Direct, mineral, fine acidity and long. That’s a great middle-aged wine. Becoming more floral in time – actually, that’s a beautiful wine. Côte de Brouilly 1995 – I crashed and burned with my guess 🙂