But what about the family jewels: their flagship Chateauneuf-du-Papes - and Hommage, a grande cuvée of that Chateauneuf issued by Beaucastel only in its finest years? Would their greatness be obvious from first sip? Would they be noticeably better than the less expensive bottles arrayed before us at a tasting during Perrin's recent visit to Philadelphia?
I've had dubious luck in the past with obscenely expensive bottles of wine - tasting a faded dud of a '73 Petrus (bad vintage, wet cork), slugging through the inscrutable earthiness of an Ornellaia (opened too young). Thank goodness I wasn't the one to lay down hundreds of dollars on those.
Then again, that is the high-stakes risk of prestige wine. It's best gambled upon by those who won't miss the C-notes either way. But if you're lucky enough to be within stemware's reach when a legendary bottle is pouring in its prime, you may remember its flavor forever.
That was exactly the case with the 2001 Hommage - currently unavailable in Pennsylvania, but going for $324.98 at the Wine Library in Springfield, N.J., and as much as $575 in other stores. What most struck me was how this wine - in the context of Perrin's complete lineup of bottles, starting with La Vieille Ferme - was clearly in a league of its own, like a timpani amid tom-toms and snares.
I could already taste the increasingly intense gradations in complexity and power as we stepped up to Perrin's appellation wines, drawn from villages around the southern Rhône. The 2005 Vinsobres "Les Cornuds" - a recently crowned appellation controlee made from syrah and grenache - was like drinking a mouthful of black licorice sparkling with peppercorns and star anise. (The '04 is currently available in State Stores for $16.)
