Might and Magic: 2000 Domaine Drouhin Laurène
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I love Domaine Drouhin. I’m a member of their wine club. I’ve been to their winery. I intend to pay them a visit this year for their Thanksgiving celebration. And in my wine “cellar,” such as it is, I have several bottles of their finest wines spread out over a few vintages (including a magnum of 1998 Laurène).
So last night, I realized the time was right to bring my only bottle of 2000 Laurène to Ray’s Boathouse and our pre-marriage dinner with my new in-laws. It turned out to be an excellent choice. Here’s how the wine went down:
- Aroma: Very rich and delicate, with a few layers of ripe red fruit and a delectable earthiness.
- Flavor: Incredibly full-bodied, with a wealth of raspberry and red currant flavors combined with that same rich forest floor intensity. Slightly juicy but quite refined and lovely.
- General impression: Wow! A terrific Laurène vintage with enough age to have refined the flavors into a perfectly balanced Pinot Noir. A major crowd-pleaser.
My future mother-in-law put it this way: She has had three red wines in her life that she enjoyed. This wine was #3. #2 happened to be a wine I sent her for Christmas last year (an organic NSA Merlot). #1 was about 25 years ago and it was a fluke, apparently.
My future father-in-law didn’t know that Oregon had any wineries, but this wine quickly got his attention. He loved it and had about double the amount of wine he normally drinks. We’ll see how he feels today….
So there you go! Lofty company for the 2000 Laurène. I think I’d like to get another bottle or two and save them for 3-5 more years each. The 1999 Laurène tasted better to me by a margin of 0.1% or so, which makes me want to age some of the 2000. The 1998 was quite different from either of these wines: much more earthy and even more delicately balanced, if that’s possible. The 2001 is terrific but will get even better with age. The 2002 is the same way.
By the way, after my first sip of this wine, my immediate impulse was to buy a whole lot more Domaine Drouhin Laurène so I could drink it every day. It’s that good!