WINESCENE

It’s A New Dawn, It’s A New Day. It’s a New Era for the World of Wine

As the Covid-19 Pandemic continues, and as the world starts to reopen, the wine industry finds itself in a very different position than it has been experiencing over the past 15 months as businesses far and wide sort of are returning to normal. But with all the changes that the Corona virus caused to so many industries, the wine world, like those others, has seen things change too, and there may be no going back to where things were like in 2019.

First, travel is still not back to the pre-Covid levels, but it's getting there. This is impacting international wineries across the globe. A case in point is how Australia and New Zealand's borders are still closed, just like Canada.  This has restricted many a winemaker whose wines are imported to the USA from not only Europe, but the rest of the world from traveling and doing their usual visits to importers, seeing retailers who buy their wines, holding wine dinners and most of all, being part of the big wine events where they see their customers-the somms, wine buyers, retail shop keepers, along with the major wine reviewers.

Getting wines reviewed has also changed, as more winemakers and importers have chosen to go the ZOOM route, and hold virtual tastings. While still a great idea, and one we support as we suggested the concept in 2016 and was laughed at by importers, it has become so commonplace that the lack of uniqueness and too often, the low production value of many of these video based events has waned on the audience. So now that things in the USA are opening up, and people are starting to go out and about, the use of video in tastings has to change too.

In some places, capacity restrictions remain in place and confusion rules the day. Outside only. Inside with limitations. Local regulations, or even personal choices by wineries are making things unpredictable across the USA in tasting rooms, just like the lack of clarity surrounding airline travel internationally and what steps are necessary as they vary country by country as well as county by county here in the United States.

What does this mean? For wineries in the USA who are operating tasting rooms and sell Direct To Consumer, they are blessed by having loyal followers on their mailing lists. And given the downturn so far for international travel, it means wine lovers can visit more regions domestically and discover more new wines and wineries. This is a boon for the regions in driving distance to metropolitan areas, but also for the lesser known regions as well.

I for one have become enamored with the wines from Walla Walla Washington and have planned a five day deep dive there. My passion for wines from members of the Family Winemakers of California has caused me to book a trip to an upcoming event of theirs in San Francisco.

But it’s been my recent trips to the Baja California wine country in the Valle de Guadalupe, the Texas Hill Country and Arizona's wine region outside of Tucson with my partner in wineTOURia, Victoria Varela, that has opened our eyes and palates to so many under-discovered wines from those lesser known, and hardly regarded wine regions. We found many wines that easily rival what's being made in California, and in some cases show how great wines are being made in places on the wine roads less traveled.

For wineries in the USA, and for wine associations, marketing to the locals and regional wine fans is already starting. And as flights resume and rental car prices drop,  travel to wine regions will rise and for wineries, their ability to grow their DTC - direct to consumer - business will rise as well. Prices will also rise as demand will increase and the profit margins made through a DTC or wine club approach that widely outpaces selling to wholesalers and distributors.

As services to wineries like WineDirect and VinoShipper address the state by state shipping and compliance issues, making it easier for wineries to ship to their customers near and far, we're going to see an even bigger effort from the smaller wineries for more direct to consumer mindshare and wallet share as they endeavor to take business away from the large wine holding companies. This direct to consumer mentality will over time shift the wine case allocations away from retailers, and even some restaurants, as the wine club and tasting room sales offer richer margins and deliver a more intimate relationship with the customer who have now grown accustomed to ordering wine online and having it delivered to their door.

And with this comes new opportunities. Wine right now should only be shipped either in refrigerated trucks or held until the temperatures cool down. Sadly, neither UPS, nor FedEx, have trucks on the road that are refrigerated locally, putting wines of all prices at risk if shipped during the summer months to most of the USA once they reach the buyers hometown. 

For those traveling, only Alaska Airlines lets wine ship for free from wine regions, so unless you’re up in first class on another airline, and you check wine under your checked baggage limit domestically, you pretty much will have to pay the freight when you fly to get your wine finds home. And even then, if you’re changing planes you run the risk of the wines sitting on the tarmac unless you’re flying overnight coast to coast and the weather is cool when your boxes are making that connection.

So just as the pandemic brought forth new opportunities in selling to consumers, the rise in shipped wine will also bring with it new business opportunities for those with grit, determination and imagination to figure a better way for wine to be shipped year round.

That’s why Victoria and I have started wineTOURia, our wine industry transformation agency, that’s all about reducing the distance between producer and buyer. We see the future and are setting out to be part of that change from the inside out and the outside in. It’s been many a year since my winemaker pal Doug Margerum of Margerum Wine Company once called me “the ultimate wine insider.”  

Well now it’s time for me to be just that, so along with Victoria with her sommelier skills and wine knowledge, we’re going bring the same magic my tech focused agency efforts have brought over the past 19 years (54 exits, $5.5 billion in returns to investors, founders and employees) to the world that matters the most to me.

Eric Asimov on VinePair

New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov gave an interesting interview on VinePair. When media leaders take the time to share their thoughts it's always a good interview to check out. 

Asimov, who may be the most populist style writer of wine critics talks about the trends in wine, the Natural Wine movement and supermarket wines. His perspective on supermarket wines, also known as mass market wines included a discussion about The Prisoner. He also talked about millennials and their impact on the premium wine world.

My view on supermarket wines are rather polarized. Most of the wine on mass market shelves are the wine industry version of Miller Lite. It's wine made to a formula. There's a way they wine has to taste and year after year, the big brands seek to make a wine that will always taste mostly the same, year in, year out.

Give it a listen.

 

Old and New Wine Events Make April The Grand Pour

A new event is always a tricky endeavor. Take it from someone who has been involved in hundreds of events and thousands of event days through the years. But wine events, like a vintage is always full of unknowns. Will winemakers support the event? Will the trade buyers show up? Will the media care? How do you promote the event? Those are just some of the challenges that new event organizers will face.  So do those repeat event organizers who have the beneft of reaching out to past attendees and a track record for what the event will be like.

This April, surrounding the every other year Decouvertes du Vallee du Rhone, put on by Rhone Valley Wines the week of April
15th in Ampuis, Mauves, Crozes-Hermitage and Avignon, there's some very inviting events that are both new and worth knowing about.

Let's start with the Grenache Association's Grenache Night on Tuesday April 16th. It's scheduled the night before the two day Avignon days of Decouvertes du Vallee du Rhone (DVR).  While most of the other "offs" surrounding DVR are Rhone only producers, the G Night event often brings producers who are big into Grenache from other regions from around the world. 

A new event being held the next night, Ventoux Rising,features a group of winemakers from the region surrounding and on the hillsides of Mount Ventoux. The Ventoux is the next big thing from the Rhone Valley. Much like Lirac, Beaumes de Venise or Cairanne which have all received their boost after staking a claim at DVR in the past, the Ventoux has reached a point where the wines are as sophisicated as many Chateauneuf du Papes, and in some cases, just as sought after. Just check out producers like Chene Bleu, whose super Rhones are in high demand at top shops and restaurants, Domaine Vintur and their Le Gentleman or Clos de Trias Vieilles Vignes and Pied Porcher, or Fondreche's Persia and Divergent These are wines that are on par with the top southern Rhones, but at fractions of the price vs. comparable Gigondas, CdP's or Vacqueyras. 

For twenty years the small Languedoc village of Montpeyroux hosts Toutes Caves Ouvertes Montpeyroux. This year the event will be held on Sunday April 21st starting at 10 AM . The center of town is ransformed into a wine carnival, as all the streets become wine storefronts for the 25 or so wineries opening their caves to the public. Tastings, food, music and more are there for all day event. The event is as much for the trade as it is for the locals as the town pours out, and in typical French fashion, has a flair and flavor of where everyone is your new best friend.

But the Rhone and Languedoc aren't the only places for knock out wine events in April. Way down south, in Perpignan, a new event that brings producers from the Occitane (Roussillion) and Northern Catelonia in Spain
is happening. INDIGENES. the Northern Catelonia wine fest makes its debut in Perpignan on the Sunday April 28th and Monday the 29th at the Church of the Domenicans.

 

Direct To Consumer Is The Wine Flavor of The Month

The term "direct to consumer" or  DTC is being bandied about the wine world more and more every day. Unfortunately, if you're not a winery shipping your wine directly to the consumer, you're not DTC. This means etailers, retailers, importers, wholesalers and brokers are not DTC as the whole idea behind direct marketing is to eliminate the middleman.  Even being a direct importer, or an exclusive retailer doesn't make put them in the DTC camp as they are in the middle of the sale to the consumer.

With all the buzz around Direct to Consumer, I fully expect some retailers to position themselves as DtC even though they're not.

Real DTC is about that one to one relationship with the customer.  It is not about working through the endless maze of the wine sales route that is present due to the three tier system, where the winery doesn't always even know who bought their wines without lots of time and effort to hopefully find out.

At it's very core direct to consumer is all about the relationship between the brand and customer, and that implies the very premise of disintermediation of anything in between, because for real DTC there has to be no middleman. 

What's real DTC?

Let's start with Sears. For years DieHard batteries, Craftsman tools and Kenmore appliances were all great example of selling three very successful product lines as direct to consumer brands, as the only place to buy those branded products was at Sears.

When you shop at the Apple Store or apple.com and buy a new iPhone, that's DTC. Many forget when the only place you could initially purchase an iPhone was from Apple (grey market excluded) Today buying an iPhone from Verizon or T-Mobile or at Best Buy is all about Apple selling through the channel to broaden distribtion and gain market share because in effect the iPhone is the razor, while apps, music and video are the blades.

The same DTC approach holds true when you shop for a new pair of running shoes at the Nike store vs. going to a sporting goods retailer. Nike makes more money, and builds a closer relationship with the runner.

When you buy an airline ticket from United or Delta's website you've gone direct, vs. going through Expedia or American Express who are "travel agents," the long time middlemen of the travel industry which the internet put a massive hurt on. Just look at how hotel brands want you to book direct on their site, and reward you with points versus giving you less perks when you check in via one of the opaque booking sites.

Brands that choose to go DTC go that route so they can keep more of the profit margin, which is why more and more wineries are going "direct to consumer" and it's why they are stepping up their hiring and spending on it. Margin is the difference between the COGS (cost of goods sold) and the selling price. If you sell via the wholesale channel your margin is likely 50% or less. If you go DTC and sell at full retail your COGS can drop to half that and your profit take is much greater.

For example, that bottle of wine that costs a winery to make at $5.00 all in (bottle, wine, cork, capsule, label) is wholesaled for $10.00. The wholesaler then sells it to the retailer for $15.00 or more. And the retailer sells that bottle for $25.00 or more. In essence the winery by going indirect to the consumer is losing $15.00 or more per bottle. When they sell that $5.00 bottle direct to a customer from the winery, they make the $20.00.

As with any "buzz word" or hot topic, I fully expect some retailers (or etailers) to jump on the Direct To Consumer platform, but they don't pass the duck test, yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2016 Fondreche Ventoux Rouge

I'll admit, I'm enamoured with the wine of the Ventoux region and have been for many years. A few years back I suggested to  Los Angeles' Emporium Thai restaurant owner John Sungkamee that he add Even Bakke's 2012 Clos de Trias Rouge to his small wine list that I helped him assemble. One night, at a WineSiders dinner John brought a bottle of it along. That caused pal Jordan Ogron, owner of Tesse, and its companion wine shop, Boutellier, to take notice and add the wine to his list, with the 2013 release that was very much in line with the 2012 Ventoux red.

Wines of the Ventoux are considered Rhone wines. Nestled at the top of what some would call Northern Provence, to the east of the area known as the Vacluse, a few years back, Doug Margerum made a Rose from the area that defied description. To this day I feel it was the best Rose he ever produced.

The Ventoux region has the mountain and the valley floor. Producers like Bakke and James Wood of Vintur, crank out amazing, undiscovered gems as do the wineries like Martinelle,  Domaine Vindemio and Domaine du Fondreche make wines that rival the best in the Southern Rhone, but at reasonable prices (for now.)

Yesterday at a Super Bowl party with friends, I popped open the 2016 Domaine du Fondreche Ventoux Rouge, a typical Rhone blend of 50 % Grenache, 30 % Syrah, 20 % Mourvèdre. This is my kind of wine, much like Doug's M5's precursor, the M3. The larger components of Syrah and Mourvedre gave the wine a very big black raspberry, blackberry, blueberry flavor, while the Grenache added layer upon layer of ripe strawberry and bing cherries.

In many ways when it comes to Rhone wines like the Fondreche, I drift back to my early days of wine drinkng, in the 80s, when the Guigal Cotes du Rhone was my baseline for sub $10.00 Rhones. It still is, even though the price has gone up. But for the upper end of the scale I'm still using Chateauneuf du Pape and Gigondas as the baseline for quality,  taste and value. 

The Fondreche can easily hold it's own as a dinner wine, in the QPV race as it is a very smooth, supple and fruity red wine that posesses a rich body. It has lingering flavors of fruit and herbs and is a classic example, just like the Guigal, of why I enjoy finding sub $25.00 wines that drink better, and will last a few years in the cellar that many other comparably priced wines that don't have anything like what the Fondreche has to offer.

 

WSJ on Non-Mainstream Wines

There are reviews and then there's what Lettie Teague does at the Wall Street Journal. Her column today is why I enjoy her writing more than that of most "consumer" wine reviewers. The reason is simple. Lettie is willing to go off the beaten track more and more, and helps draw attention to wines from the roads less traveled.

One example stood out. The short, but direct comments about Savage Grace's Cabernet Franc. It's a wine I own, and have bought since the 2015 vintage, maybe 2014, back when I met Michael Savage in his tiny Woodinville, WA winery in the warehouse district. Back then I was really enthralled by his racy, very Austrian tasting Gruner and Riesling, but when I tasted his very Loire tasting Cabernet Franc that's when I knew Savage was onto something.

Teague didn't stop there though. Her comments about Rose really hit home.  Drink Rose wines from somewhere other than just Provence. With just about everyone jumping onto the Rose bandwagon these days, i.e. Jon Bon Jovi, and making them not just in Provence, there's more than one reason to explore where real Rose comes from. For many years I've held a Rose Day on Memorial Day, At those events I've sourced the pink treat from the Loire, Roussillion, Languedoc, Bandol,  Tavel, the Rhone Valley, Austria, New Zealand, Washington State, Santa Barbara, and yes. Provence.

The best wines were not always from Provence, so even while I'll admit that year after year the Corail by Chateau de Roquefort usually stands out, that's more because it's not the light patio wine like so many wines from the Cotes de Provence tend to be, as it's much more like the Tavel's by Prieure de Montezargues, Domaine de la Mordoree and Trinquevedel that all show how complex, in their bone dry, yet fruit rich style, they can be. Granted, the Roquefort wines are in a class by themselves, as they rival the wines by Chateau Pradeaux in Bandol (and their exceptional value Coteaux d'Aix en Provence),  Château Vignelaure that is also from Aix en Provence and my favorite, the Chateau Vannieres from Bandol. These all provide the deeper pink colored thrill that Lettie is describing. These are real wines vs. the poolside pinks that tend to be more en vogue, and are the same type of wines that my friends Doug Margerum at Margerum Wine Company and Mikael Sigouin of Kaena make in Santa Barbara, and which both Chene Bleu and Domaine du Mourchon produce in the top end of the southern Rhone Valley. These are wines for food that can be served at the start of a meal, or be the wines with the meal.

Wines like these are why going off the beaten track is often the better bet, than playing it safe and buying wines that are "good" but clearly not better.

 

 

Three for Three, Call it a Threepeat

Here at my apartment building I have a Friday night dinner group who cook together, share what the week was like and now get to enjoy wines that I pull out of what seems to be a bottomless cellar. This past Friday I pulled some really interesting reds, all which have Syrah as part or as the only grape, and all that were so very different. 

The 2013 Sparkman Cellars Wilderness. This wine remains one of my favorite Washington State reds. As far back as the 2009 vintage, the oddball blend, that seems to change from year to year, just amazes me a few years after release. The 13 is entirely different than the Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc-based blend. This is more dark grape-based, with Grenache, Syrah, Petite Sirah, and some Cab as well. The wine is super smooth, elegant, long on the palate. It's also very, very easy to drink. So easy, it was gone, in a flash. Now, here's the backstory surrounding Sparkman. It was 2012 and my wine rep friend Rita DiLello and I had made a trip to Seattle to see her sister Linda, dine at Linda's restaurant, Terraplata, and hit the wine country as part of celebrating a friend's birthday. We headed out to the Woodinville Wine Warehouse district and on a lark, stumbled into Sparkman's tasting room. They were holding a fundraiser for a charity back in New Jersey that had been hit by Hurricane Sandy. The offer was simple. Five dollars. Five shots with a Nerf basketball. Put one in and win a Magnum of the 2009 Wilderness. On the third shot, BOOM, I hit nothing but net and won the Magnum.  

 

2015 Patrick Jasmin Syrah Vin de Pays de Collines Rhodaniennes "La Chevalière" This is one of those hidden gems. I first found out about this wine by accident, with the 2013 release. I bought half a case and am down to the very last bottle of the 13, but for the 15, that I first tasted in Marseille in 2016 after buying a bottle days after release from Antic Wine in Lyon, France, had me searching for it in the USA for months. It finally arrived in, and I immediately bulked up with two cases from The Wine House in Los Angeles. Now that the wine has settled down, the Northern Rhone Syrah, which is really the young vines of Cote Rotie, really was a powerhouse. While it doesn't have the elegance of Cote Rotie, as Northern Rhone Syrah goes, you won't find much better value for money than this. Silky smooth, ripe, lots of blueberries, some black pepper and blackberry are the flavors. A long finish and like the Sparkman, a wine that didn't last long in the glass or on the table.

2014 Ex Umbris Syrah, Washington by Owen Roe. When I first opened a bottle of this gem a few years back after it arrived, I was surprised how rich and tannic it was. But it was only about one year in bottle. To be candid, I was disappointed then, as I just was expecting more. So I did what I usually do when wines are too young. I put it in the cellar and then let it rest. Well, the two years or so rest has done the trick as the 2014 Ex Umbris was a powerhouse. With BBQ chicken and BBQ 100% All Beef Burgers it was FANTASTIC. It's lost that baby coating of oak and has become a very integrated North American Syrah. I would compare this in flavor more like the Aussies, then the French. It was more brambly and bright. It was firm, not soft. And it was very, very tasty.

Buying wines like these three are not for those who want to open them up upon release. They all need time. But with time they will give you joy for many years.

Time To Change The Way Restaurants Think About Wine

I'm jaded. I get to travel and eat in restaurants all over the world. No, I don't do food tourism any more though. Those days are long gone as the thrill of a three star Michelin has been replaced by discovering the new place in a town or city I've been to before. And, what turns me on is intelligence in wine lists, especially where the by the glass list stops being formulaic or simply this week's release.

What I'm finding is that in Europe, many a list will have library bottles at prices that encourage purchase, while here in the USA the lists either lack any real depth of older vintages, or if they do, they are priced so high, that rarely will the bottle get purchased, except in the nation's more expensive dining spots.

Take for example a bottle I can buy of a current release for $35.00 retail. While I'd be happy to pay a fair mark-up on the $25-28 wholesale price that the restaurant would have paid, say $50.00-$55.00  for that bottle, seeing the wine at $90-110 a bottle on the list makes me pause and want to pay $20.00 a bottle corkage or so for a more mature bottle from my cellar of the same wine, only from a prior vintage. 

Why? In most cases red wines are usually too young to be fully enjoyed upon release. That means at $100 for a bottle you're drinking something which if you went to the wine shop and purchased three at retail and laid them down for a few years, the enjoyment factor would go way up, and the value even higher. 

In line with this is winemaker dinners. Over the past few years when I've pulled older bottles of wines of winemakers I know, and we've opened them along side the current releases, the winemakers have sold more of the new wines, than when the new releases are just featured by themselves. Older vintages help sell newer releases.

Given the facts, it's time for restaurants to seriously think their bottle and pricing strategies if they want to really be "wine" oriented vs. wine sales oriented. Whats more they also need to work with the wineries to find library bottles without the "library" price and instead of marking them as "reserve" wines, offer them at better prices as "legacy" bottles. That will encourage trail and comparison of the newly released wines, and in turn greater sales of both.

Restaurants need to rethink wine sales, and not rely on them as simply trophies to have on a list, but as a modern way for customer engagement.

The 2016 Roses Are Even Better than The 15's

During my stay in France's Rhone Valley, Languedoc and Roussillion in early April (2017) I had the good fortune taste through many, but not all of my favorite Rose wines.

Top of the heap has wines from Chateau de Roquefort's Corail, a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, Carignan and Vermentino showing its usual stuff right out of the gate. Then of course there's the trio of 2016 Roses from Domaine de la Mordoree, the two from Tavel and one simply branded La Remise de la Mordoree, and of course there's the delightfully crisp 2016 Chene Bleu as well as the lovely Loubie from Domaine du Mourchon in Seguret. The latter two are interesting in their style is very much the crisp, pale pink color style of Provence, with the power of Tavel.

Yesterday, along with the millennial oriented wine critic from London, Amelia Singer, we started a Los Angeles lunch with Rose from one of my benchmark producers, Chateau Trinquevedel.

As it showed in Avignon only a few weeks ago, the 2016 is as good or better than the 2015 from the Tavel producer. In many ways the 2016 is far ahead of the 2014, the one year in recent memory that Trinquevedel didn't hit the mark for me, and steps ahead of the 15 in crispness and fruit.

Where some Rose's tend to take on a powdery flavor, the steely, crisp, mineral and stone base of the Trinquevedel gives way to really bright strawberry and blueberry fruit, that is not sweet, chewy or dense. This is a lively wine that is not overpowering, but more present from first sip to last drop.

The 2016 Rose wines are gems. Many are starting to arrive in the USA and will move quickly. As Spring and summer is the time for Rose, now is the time to look and find your favorite, and then go off and have some fun with them.

The Reward at The End of a Great Event Old Auplihac Reds

Long time friend of more than 20 years Sylvain Fadat of Domaine du Aupilhac rewarded himself and his friends after a long day of work at the annual Montpeyroux Toutes Caves Ouvertes, which loosely translated means "All cellars open."

For a Sunday in April, let alone Easter Sunday, the wine producing town in the hills of the Languedoc was jam packed with people, all of whom came to taste the wines of the 21 Montpeyroux producers. 

Alain Chabanon was there, pouring three wines. So too were Domaine L'Aigueliere, Villa Dondona, Mas des Quernas and many more.

There were strolling musical troops, local artisan's cooking up a storm, but most of all there was wine. Lots of wine. Rose. White and reds. Some were AoC Terrasses du Larzac while others, and really the more interesting wines were IGP, the new name for Vin d'Pay wines that don't conform to the local appellations rules. This is where grapes like Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay and even Sauvignon Blanc fell.

But the event was topped off when Sylvain, at the end of the night, went deep into his cellar and pulled out the 1989 Aupilhac Montpeyroux and a 2001 Les Cocalieres Rouge. These are now like children who have grown up. They are mature, but not yet adults.

For the 28 year young Montpeyroux red, now the fourth time in recent history I have tasted it, I have to wonder will it ever get to old despite it losing it's label long ago?

Then there was the 2001 Les Cocalieres Rouge. This too was a first of sorts, as from the 2001 harvest Sylvain made a single barrel of wine from the new vineyard he had cleared and planted in 1997/98.

And just as we enjoyed back in the fall during a visit to Seattle, as i pulled a bottle of this true Aupilhac rarity from my cellar, the 2001 Les Cocalieres Rouge again defied description, being as good as any Chateauneuf du Pape or Hermitage wine made in the Rhone. Sylvain's careful vinification of the Syrah, Mourvedre and Grenache was there, and like even more recent vintages the rich notes of berries, cherries, plums, a hint of the 'la Garrigue" and a semi-soft caramel tone, shines through. 

Back to the 89 Montpeyroux. Of late I've had older reds from Bordeaux-a stunning Beycheville out of a 3 litre bottle,  the ethereal Vega Sicilia Unico and of course a 1989 Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape. Add the 1989 Aupilhac Montpeyroux to that list of stunners. Here was a wine that was perfectly in balance and harmony. The oak was long gone, as were the tannins, but the deep and rich fruit flavors of the five grapes was so perfectly structured. And, this was not the first aged Aupilhac that has given me that visceral feeling of greatness. The same impression comes from Sylvain's 1991, 1993, 2004 and 2005 Montpeyroux reds, and likely, as the more recent vintages age, so will others.

These are two masterfully made wines, that are aging so nicely. While the Languedoc has been overshadowed lately by the more powerful by wines from the Roussillion, and rarely gets the respect it deserves as it's so close to the Rhone Valley, producers like Sylvain Fadat deserve to be known, as these wines are not for the timid, nor are they wines to be drunk today or tomorrow.

 

As these two bottles prove, the benefits of proper cellaring and aging allow for great enjoyment. And for Sylvain, that meant opening these up for his dearest and closest friends and family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Killer Rose from 2015

The 2015 Alain Jaume Tavel Le Cretace Rose has now been in my cellar for about eight months since I purchased a mixed case of 2015 Tavel Rose's from an east coast merchant that has an early arrival pipeline with the importer, Kysela Pere et Fils.

For me, the 2015 vintage of Rose wines the world over are pretty much an abundances of riches, and while some may want to age the wines a year or more, or some retailers may want to sell the 13's and 14's they have on their shelves, the 15's are the real winners in the race and are made to be drunk NOW.

Jaume's Le Cretace is a lively blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre, made in a dry style, where the juice from the grapes is bled off providing a very fresh and fruity flavor that just lingers in the mouth for minutes. The fresh strawberry and watermelon flavors have that nice "Jolly Rancher" style of brightness, while the more austere blueberry and black raspberry follow through to provide balance, body and structure to this very elegant Rose from Tavel France. Tavel, which produces some of the best Rose's in the world sits just west of Avignon, south of Lirac and is a hidden gem in the Rhone to visit, as the producers there make incredible wines, providing a very nice departure from the bigger, teeth staining reds from the rest of the Valley.

For those who don't know Alain Jaume, the winery has been around about as long as any of the more popular large houses in the Rhone, dating back to the 1820s. They produce wines from their own estates, as well as buying fruit from around the Rhone, but until the 2000's they were largely unknown in the USA having to yield to larger market awareness to bigger houses like Guigal and Chapoutier.

My first experience with them came at one of earliest Rhone Discovery Week events in Avignon. I pretty much fell over tasting their Cotes du Rhones and Cotes du Rhone Villages, and that was before I got to their Chateauneuf du Papes. Talk about a well kept secret back then. That's why I was thrilled when their wines started to pop up on the west coast as well as the more obvious destinations on the east coast. 

Jaume's wines are almost always solid performers that you can count on, but in very good years, their wines are exceptional in both quality and value. The 2015 Alain Jaume Tavel Le Cretace Rose  proved that one more time. I'm a fan and have no qualms saying you should be too.