92 Robert Parker - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

"An impressive Chateauneuf du Pape is the 2005 Les Pierres Dorees. Made from 75% Grenache and 25% Mourvedre, this wine displays a much more animal personality, with notes of black truffle, blueberry, damp earth, asphalt, and licorice. A structured, masculine wine very much in keeping with the style of the vintage, it is full-bodied, concentrated, and needs 3-4 years of bottle age and should evolve nicely for 15 or more years. These are all noteworthy wines and generally sell for very realistic prices, so kudos to Patrick Lesec! I can’t speak highly enough of the job that Patrick Lesec does as a negociant, putting together interesting and high quality blends of Cotes du Rhones and Chateauneuf du Papes. He seems to have a talent for finding top quality sources for old vine Grenache, and his philosophy of bringing wines up is one of minimal intervention in a reductive environment with little exposure to oxygen. That’s important, because his wines often take a few years after bottling to strut their stuff. I have been very impressed with how the wines do perform in bottle, having purchased 1998s, 2000s, and 2001s, all of which seem to come into their own at about age four or five. I also noticed that his 2005s generally showed better out of bottle than they did last year prior to bottling."