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Tasting note
Bottled for just a week when I tasted it (remember, six years and change is only the legal minimum), Ganevat’s 2003 Vin Jaune – which ended its pre-bottling life not quite filling a 500-liter cask – delivers an astonishingly intense, complex, and (even if you’re familiar with the genre) unusual aromatic display of deeply-toasted walnut, curry, lemon zest, and a greenhouse-like amalgam of exotic leafy and flowering things. Had its author not called the fact to my attention, I would never have imagined that this harbors 18% alcohol (evidently a legacy of its freakishly warm vintage) because it still seems much lighter, not to mention brighter, than would a sherry of comparable alcoholic weight. Finishing with riveting intensity, if not the interactive sense to its undeniable complexity that one finds in most of the best Ganevat wines, this seeming monument to its vintage will probably prove nearly ageless. (I haven’t yet had a chance to compare another vintage of Ganevat Vin Jaune, though heaven knows I’m anxious to.)
Score: 94
David Schildknecht, The Wine Advocate, June 2012
