Duo of 50% Grenache Blanc and 50% Grenache Gris for a huge bottle of white wine that marvels by its character and depth. It is easy to understand why this parcel is considered by Gérard Gauby as a Grand Cru. This great white wine is a superb combination of smoothness and mineral tension. The length is masterful with magnificent bitterness and a salty finish.
"The 2006 Coume Gineste smells of narcissus, orange and lime zest, and cardamom. Pungent and positively gripping on the palate – even though it boasts enormous underlying richness – this seems as though suffused with chalk and iron filings. Tenacious and more formidable than loveable for now, this red-like white (Gauby red, that is!), is apt to age fascinatingly like any of the top cuvees from this address, certainly for well more than a decade. The Gauby whites generally receive a very coarse filtration, but this went into bottle with none."
92 - The Wine Advocate.
Gerard Gauby (increasingly assisted by his son Lionel) continues – restlessly, experimentally, but with obvious focus – to pursue his rigorous biodynamic viticultural regimen as well as his stylistic ideals of elegance, refinement, distinctive minerality, and moderate alcohol, none of which – he demonstrates – are incompatible with ripe flavors and sheer density. The key quality factor in stony, sun-drenched Roussillon, Gauby opines, is density of root structure sufficient to support steady vine metabolism, because shut-down or stop-start maturation under stress is what ultimately causes tannins to harden and pH and sugars to rise independently of maturation.
Gauby has been the regional leader in white wines as well, which seem especially to benefit from the high-elevation and mixture of schistic and chalky soils around the town of Calc. A recently-acquired parcel of Grenache Gris vines planted in 1947 that he is “restoring” represents, says Gauby, the last such acreage available in his neighborhood.