FRENCH WINE

WINERY NOTES - Since the 2004 vintage, we have expanded our work with the Levet family to include a second bottling of Cote Rotie known as “Les Journaries”, a cuvée drawn from grapes harvested from old vines in the “La Landonne” lieu-dit. This wine is more subtle, more elegant and “quieter” if you will than the “Chavaroche”. At the same time, it is very much a Levet wine with a bouquet of violets, wild berries, a touch of animal and resinous-like tannins that speak of the inclusion of stems (a hallmark of the Levet tradition). The “Journaries” is approachable at an earlier stage than its companion “La Chavaroche” but, that being said, it is a wine that not only ages gracefully but almost requires a touch of patience. We now import approximately 1500 bottles plus magnums of this cuvée each vintage.

VINOUS 93 POINTS - "Opaque magenta. Mineral- and spice-accented dark berry and cherry aromas are complemented by a smoky nuance that builds with air. Concentrated blackberry and bitter cherry flavors show very good depth and take a sweeter turn on the back half. Finishes emphatically spicy and quite long, with supple, well-knit tannins lending shape to clinging cherry and floral pastille notes."

Very dark. There is an aroma of stylish black berry fruit inside the bouquet, which has an oaked, grilled outer, black cherry, the fruit clear, some nutshells also. This is sleekly fruited, with crisp tannins, mineral, vin de terroir within the oak. There is a close link between nose and palate. It drives along on a smooth route, presents very fine juice. Graphite and close-knit juice appear on the finish. "It is square, runs straight down the line, has graphite, minerality.

JEB DUNNUCK 90-92 POINTS: "The largest production effort is the 2016 Saint Joseph Silice, which offers lots of blackberry jam, Asian spice, and peppered meat aromas and flavors. This ripe, sexy, beautifully textured 2016 is going to be another terrific value for the true wine lovers and drinkers out there. I continue to love the wines from the young Jerome Coursodon, who pulls from roughly 16 hectares of vines all in the southern part of Saint Joseph, mostly just outside the village of Mauves. The 2015s are monster, blockbuster styled efforts that I suspect won’t appeal to the traditionalists out there, but are singular wines. The 2016s are more elegant and finesse-driven, yet still pack in more sweet fruit than just about everyone else out there."

This small family Domaine of 1.5 hectares is situated in the heart of the Saint-Joseph appellation, in Ardèche, the Northern section of the Rhône wine region in Southern France.Although her family had for many years supplied grapes to a large local négociant, Martine Rouchier and her husband, Christian, determined in 2010 to begin making their own wine. They immediately began converting their vineyards to organic viticulture, a process that they completed beginning with the 2013 vintage. By 2015, Martine and Christian were practicing not only completely organic and biodynamic farming and fermentation. but also fully “natural” winemaking, in that their Saint-Joseph is made entirely without added sulfur. Domaine Rouchier produces two cuvées parcellaires of 100% Syrah: Luc is a .5-hectare lieu-dit of vines planted in 1972 on the hills above St-Jean de Muzols. The vineyard lies on a west-facing slope at an elevation of approximately 250m in soil comprised of clay and schist. Chave is a 1-hectare lieu-dit planted with vines dating to 1958. With Western exposition, Chave lies on soil dominated by granitic gneiss. Both cuvées employ two weeks of whole-cluster fermentation in concrete over indigenous yeasts, punctuated with pigeage (punching down) and remontage (pumping over). The young wine is then aged over for 16-18 months in neutral (5-9 years) oak barrels of 228L . The finished wine is then bottled unfiltered and entirely without SO2.

Lionel Faury may be best known for his earthy northern Rhône crus of Côte-Rôtie, St-Joseph, and Condrieu, but he also farms on the plateaus of the Collines Rhodaniennes. The Collines Rhodaniennes sit at a slightly higher altitude than the famous crus across the river and offer terrific values for Rhône wine lovers. If the great crus offer more longevity in bottle, this Syrah delivers irresistible approachability while young. The Faurys’ old-school style offers wonderful aromatics and textural complexity that always make them a pleasure to drink. Lovely notes of blackberries and violets shine amidst a backdrop of granite minerals and soft brambly tannins, offering just as much lively refreshment as earthy intensity.

JAMES SUCKLING 94 POINTS: "Attractive peppery and spicy nose with an air of complexity and real interest. Plenty of stony aromas, violets and blackberries. The palate has a fluid, supple build with plush ripe dark plum and blackberry fruit flavors amid muscular but resolved tannins. Drink now."

WINE SPECTATOR 92 POINTS: "Lively raspberry and blackberry coulis flavors pump through, lined with a mouthwatering anise note. The finish is streaked with singed apple wood details, leaving an energetic feel. Very solid. Drink now through 2027. 2,940 cases made."

WINE SPECTATOR 94 POINTS - "On the darker side of the ledger, with currant and blackberry fruit laced with mesquite, bay leaf, iron and tobacco notes. A light smoldering charcoal hint through the finish melds with the fruit and other components. Best from 2020 through 2038. 83 cases made, 6 cases imported."

Francois Villard La Brocarde comes from vines planted on the Cote Blonde with up to 13% Viognier in the blend. The wine takes its name from the La Brocarde lieu-dit. The berries are whole cluster fermented and up to 30% of the grapes are destemmed. The wine is aged in between 80% new, French oak barrels to 100% new, oak, depending the character of the vintage. The wine spends close to 18 months in barrel before bottling. The production is quite small as only 100 cases are produced in an average year.

WINE SPECTATOR 92 POINTS - "A bright, fresh, mineral-driven style, with mouthwatering white pepper and rose petal notes gilding a core of damson plum and blood orange flavors. The long, sleek finish is mouthwatering. Drink now through 2030."

Fleurs de Mai comes from very old Syrah vines planted by George Vernay on the upper plateau. Prior to being planted to vines, the vineyard was a peach orchard, and Fleurs de Mai references a variety of peach. This medium ruby-colored effort gives up plenty of exotic, peppery, almost tropical notes as well as blackberry and black raspberry fruits, medium body, fine tannins, and a sexy, incredibly gulpable style.

eROBERT PARKER 95-97 POINTS: "Offering more spice, cured meats, chocolate, cassis and vanilla bean, the 2011 Cote Rotie La Turque is more sexy and open-knit than the 2010, with full-bodied richness, sweet tannin and a hard-to-resist profile. It should start to shine at a relatively early age for this cuvee, but still have two decades or more of longevity."

Paul Wasserman: “In cask this was all umami on the nose. Incredibly complex and compelling. The kind of nose so great you hate to move on to actually tasting the wine. Tapenade, green peppercorns, tarragon, Szechuan pepper, jus de viande. Like with the Crozes les Habrards, there is a lot of the color green. It actually reminded of a specific dish we make at the farm, the most umami dish we make, the one I have pregnant cravings for. It’s an Italian dish. Rabbit in a sauce that has anchovies, capers, and vinegar. Bottling has closed this up a little, and made it darker. It starts with griotte cherries, and the savory has moved from green to blue-black, to plums and vegemite. It is now closed on the palate too, but it is quiet rather than austere; it has the reserve of a truly great wine built for the ages. You definitely need to give this a two-hour decant to get it back to its life in cask. But it does go back there. Painfully slowly. La Force Tranquille. But when it finally cracks, the finish is superlative. Long, fresh, savory, complex. As the French say: PMG (pour ma gueule); or as the seagulls do: Mine!”

After winemaking in Australia, New Zealand and Burgundy — where he struck up an ongoing friendship with Ben Leroux at Comte Armand, Jean-Baptiste Souillard worked as an oenologue for Jean-Luc Colombo before starting his own micro-négoce in 2014. For JBS, freshness and digestibility are King. Mirroring the cellar, the winemaking is basic as. Natural ferments, with plenty of whole bunches, neutral oak (old barrique) and delicate extractions are the order of the day. Tasting through the 2016s —deliciously savoury, bunchy wines of complex fragrance and subtleness — it’s clear the Northern Rhône has an outstanding new talent in its midst (and he’s only getting started.

A legendary wine from one of the original Rhône valley winemaking estates. The first Sorrel family vineyards were planted at the turn of the 20th century, predating WWI. Marc's son Guillaume now heads the estate, continuing to craft highly sought-after wines of grace and splendor.

VINOIS MEDIA 92 POINTS - "Smoke-and mineral-accented black and blue fruit preserve, licorice pastille and incense scents, plus a hint of musky earth in the background. Nicely concentrated, spice-laced black currant and bitter cherry flavors become sweeter and more energetic with air. Delivers solid punch but comes off graceful, finishing with very good persistence and dusty, slow-building tannins."

His winemaking technique is distinctly non-interventionist - he rarely de-stems, he doesn't use new oak and his wines are often aged for up to two years before bottling. This traditional approach gives an old-fashioned style of Hermitage which is full, well-structured and very long-lived.

DECANTER 94 POINTS - "85% from lieu-dit Les Plantiers and 15% from Les Bessards, which have spent 20 months in old barriques. It's a restrained and elegant style, but not without power. This has bright blackcurrant and black pepper aromas, and a good weight of integral tannin, bright acidity and sublime freshness. It's a toothsome style, with good texture and relief."

JAMES SUCKLING 97 POINTS - "A gorgeous intensity of plum, spice and grilled meat on the nose. Cloves and hints of dried spices. This is a big, structured La Chappelle. Full and powerful with chewy tannins and a long, long finish. A bit austere and muscular but gorgeous. Tar, spice, dried meat and asphalt. Needs to be aged for at least another five or six years. This is another 1991 in the making."

WINE ADVOCATE 95 POINTS - "The 2011 Hermitage la Chapelle continues to shine (I wrote 'love it' in the notes) and shows the sunnier, perfumed style of the vintage. Black raspberry, crushed rocks, olive and licorice all emerge from this full-bodied, open, sweetly fruited Hermitage. It has plenty of sweet tannin and will last for 20+ years."

WINE ADVOCATE 100 POINTS - "A wine that might surpass the 2009 and 2010 is the 2015 Hermitage La Chapelle, which has more than a passing resemblance to the 1990. This inky black/blue-colored Hermitage offers an off-the-charts array of blackberries, blueberries, crushed rocks, wood smoke and charred meats. Thick, unctuous, full-bodied and incredibly layered, with sweet tannin, it's a tour de force that’s going to have three to four decades of longevity."

JEB DUNNUCK 99 POINTS - "Reminding me of the 2009 La Chapelle (which is a personal favorite), the brilliant 2017 Hermitage La Chapelle knocks it out of the park with its massive, opulent personality. Notes of smoked black fruits, scorched earth, burning embers, and graphite as well as subtle background meatiness flow to a monster of a Hermitage that has full-bodied richness, incredible depth of fruit, and an overwhelming, sexy style that’s already impossible to resist. Do your best to hide bottles for 4-5 years, but it’s going to evolve for 40 years or more. There are roughly 2,000 cases of this elixir, and every Syrah lover out there should have a bottle (or more) in their cellar."

WINE ADVOCATE 98 POINTS - "The 2017 Hermitage La Chapelle comes from the firm's vineyards on the western half of the Hermitage slope, primarily Le Méal, but with substantial contributions from Les Rocoules and Les Bessards. Classic notes of cassis, black olives, mocha and roasted meat are joined by hints of baking spices in a wine that's full-bodied, deep, dense and rich, with a velvety texture and a lingering finish. It's lower in alcohol than the 2018, less voluptuous and maybe just a step behind that monumental wine, but it's still a serious collectible with three decades of evolution ahead of it."

Pierre Bénetière applied his learnings from world-famous Georges Vernay and is now crafting some of the most old-school, hard-to-find Côte-Rôtie on the market. A “unicorn” producer, his holdings consist of a few organically farmed acres on vertiginous terraces.“Cordeloux” comes from a ~3.5 acre plot climat named “Corps de Loup” in the southern part of Côte-Rôtie. Expect incredibly highly perfumed and densely concentrated notes of blackberry, boysenberry, and blueberry to lead the charge, with olive tapenade, smoked meat, leather, damp violet, stems, and underbrush to follow. Rock-like minerality (crushed granite, turned earth) and slight pepper and spice round it out. The palate is deep and layered with simultaneous finesse. It’s a beautiful wine, medium-plus bodied with layers of fresh black and blue fruits accentuating the finish.

Domaine Pradelle is a family estate since 1854 managed by the Pradelle brothers, Jacques and Jean-Louis, and Antoine Pradelle, the son of Jacques.The vineyard is 35 hectares and located all around Tain l’Hermitage on the both sides of the Rhone river. On the left-bank of the Rhône the grapes are used to make Crozes-Hermitage. Courbis is the name of the single vineyard.

11 months in 30hl barrels-15% new oak. Clay with gravel Now until 2017

WINE SPECTATOR 94 POINTS - "This is very solidly built, nearly bristling with briary energy along the edges while the core of steeped plum, cherry and currant fruit cruises through. Mouthwatering savory, tobacco and olive notes score the finish, all set against a lovely floral accent in the background."

WINE ADVOCATE 92 POINTS - "There are 20,000 bottles of Rostaing's 2016 Cote Rotie Ampodium, so it is the cuvée most consumers are likely to encounter. It's a fine example of the appellation, offering briary notes of ripe red fruit with spice and herb shadings. It's medium-bodied, silky and fine, with attractive notes of licorice and tea on the finish that give this entry-level wine more complexity than most."