ALL GRENACHE, AN AWESOME DEAL!!
"As for the inexpensive wines, one of his creations is his non-vintage Little James Basket Press, which is created from a solera system that he started in 1999, so it tends to have about 50% of the most recent vintage (in this case 2010) blended with a little from each of the previous vintages between 1999 and 2009. It is a real fruit bomb, with a dark ruby purple color, loads of raspberry, chocolate and black currant fruit, silky tannins and a slightly evolved style due to the solera system. It is a winner, especially at the humble price it sells for.
It has taken a while, but one of my favorite producers in the southern Rhone, Louis Barruol of Saint-Cosme, is getting very good publicity just about everywhere I look. It is certainly well-deserved, considering the broad range of wines he produces, from his inexpensive and over-delivering Cotes du Rhones and Vins de Pays, to his top-flight, world-class wines made in Gigondas. This is all a matter of hard work and understanding viticulture and great terroirs. As for the estate wines from Gigondas, 2009 was a more challenging vintage for Louis Barruol than many people probably understand, because he had some serious hail issues that cut into his Grenache crop. His best vintage to date is 2007, but 2010 is going to come close, and he has certainly excelled in a much more difficult vintage for him personally, 2009. The 2010s are probably Barruol’s greatest vintage since 2007, yet slightly more tannic and backward at a similar stage in their development than the 2007s were. All of the following wines are 100% Grenache, with the exception of the first two." (WA)
Winery Notes:
Non Vintage Grenache : Solera from 1999 to 2010
Fermented and aged in vat - 100% Grenache
Little James is at Saint Cosme the wine of freedom. Our Solera is getting more and more complexity year after year. When we add the current vintage, the solera gains a new element without changing the style... This wine recalls the ancient times when the wine merchants would make wines having only one target : the pleasure. Blending several vintages is considered being a great qua- lity tradition in Champagne. I think it works exactly the same for a great Grenache.
The 2011 bottling will be composed with 50% of 2010 along with 50% from all the vintages back to 1999.
Cherry, oriental spices, lavender, strawberry. |
