G Moulinier, Terrasses Grillees, Saint Chinian

Found this bottle in a remote corner of my cellar. Expected it to be well beyond its drinking window, but what a pleasant surprise! Fully mature, well balanced, integrated oak and soft, sweet tannins. Dark fruit, figs, bacon, grilled meat; the ideal summer bbq wine. Well stored bottles like this one can easily last 3-5 more years. Not bad for a wine from such a modest pedigree after 21 years!

Still quite nice and certainly in harmony. The meaty bacon flavors are still here, but the oak is fully integrated and hardly noticeable. It's a very good wine to drink with food, but it is of course what it is - and not breaking the glass ceiling into the big boys league of the great appellations of France.

Another off bottle. Hit rate's decreasing, leaving me with faint hopes for the rest of this stash.

A bit onedimensional, nothing wrong with it, but nothing extra.

Third bottle, and this time it's tired. Some of the flavors are still alive, but there's none of the energy, tension, or structure that made the previous two bottles so compelling.

This time around there's none of the weird, funky nose, just a beautiful Rhone-like Syrah of substantial power and complexity. With air it became ever more savory and supple. Superb wine.

This is one of the most perplexing wines I have ever tried. 60% Syrah with the rest Grenache and Mourvèdre, aged mostly new barriques. At first the nose seemed dominated by peculiar dried fruit and salty minerals that I associate (perhaps wrongly?) with heat-damaged wines. But this wine has so much more to offer. Super youthful and powerfully virile, this wine needs some time to blow off its strange nose to show beautfifully compact, cedar and leather-tinged Syrah fruit married …

Remember this when it was young; it reminded me of a somewhat technical Côte-Rôtie, oak was quite present, but so was the notes of young, cool syrah. The wine has kept very well. It is balanced with classical notes of bacon and olives, sweet, black fruit. There is certainly an animalistic, Rhône-like character here, and the wine worked very nicely with a rack of lamb. But it is ready, no need to wait, drink up. (Kandestederne, summer 2012).

Ripe black fruit, sweet spices, liquorice, iron, refreshing acidity, resolved tannins, smooth, lingering aftertaste. Balanced and tasty. On the second day this was still good (or, rather, even slightly better). No need to wait any longer.

Close to 95 point nose. Very complex - could easily pass for high level Cote Rotie. The palate does not quite follow however. The finish is surprisingly short.

Opened 17:15 CET - Subdued aroma's of black olives and prunes on the nose. Soft and warm on the palate, with some black coffee, pepper and other spices and a refreshing acidity. 18:43 - More open now. The black olives in the nose remain, but now there's als black berry fruit, prunes, black coffee and white pepper. This returns on the now very structured palate, with some sweet wood also shining through. The aftertaste is rather long, but slightly bitter …

Rated by Martin Zwick, Squires BB 12-11-05 (also Belmaati): 1999 Dom. Guy Moulinier, „Les Terrasses Grillées”, Languedoc, France Pirate. This is as one said "nectar of the gods". WOW, what a nose! Impressive texture with dense flavors of mocca, spicy elements, black olives,ripe blackberry. Remarkable length and depth in combination with finesse and elegance. Very looooooong finish. In my view also a little bit mysterious this wine. On the other hand, for Jürgen it was a "fabricated north-rhone-wine". My recommendation! …