FRENCH WINE

100% Syrah.
The powerful nose is showing black pepper, blackberries and subtle violet flavours. The taste is full-bodied and dense, with silky and firm tannins. It could be paired with lamb, beef and spicy dishes as well as a great array of strong cheeses. It could be cellared for more than 15 years or enjoyed in its youth by decanting for at least an hour before serving.

Domaine Gripa has named their top Saint Joseph cuvée “Berceau”. It is a selection of their oldest vines from the appellation. There is only one hectare of vines that produce this label. Exclusively planted on terraces, these challenging vineyards can only be maintained by hand. The granite soils of Saint Joseph provide great freshness to the wines, despite their low acidity.

94-96 POINTS VINOUS MEDIA, JOSH RAYNOLDS - "Inky, vivid purple. Highly perfumed, mineral-laced black and blue fruit, violet, smoked meat and incense qualities on the nose. Fleshy, sweet and expansive on the palate, offering densely packed yet surprisingly lively boysenberry, candied licorice, spicecake and violet flavors enlivened by an undercurrent of juicy acidity. Deftly blends richness and finesse and finishes extremely long and youthfully tannic, leaving floral pastille, star anise and dark berry liqueur notes behind."

VINOUS 92-94 POINTS: "Bright purple. A complex, expansive bouquet evokes candied dark berries, olive, smoked meat and incense, and floral and mineral notes build steadily. Sweet, focused and penetrating on the palate, offering sappy boysenberry, cherry and violet pastille flavors braced by a spine of juicy acidity. Impressively blends concentration and energy and finishes with impressive, gently tannic persistence."

"Opaque ruby. Deep-pitched black and blue fruit, floral pastille, olive and smoky mineral character on the nose. Sweet, spicy and penetrating on the palate, offering juicy blueberry and cherry cola flavors underscored by a peppery quality that adds back-end spiciness and cut. Youthfully firm tannins add shape to the finish, which hangs on with impressive, dark-berry-driven tenacity." VINOUS

VINOUS 92 - 94 POINTS - "I tasted the components that will ultimately make up this wine, as usual. #1) Chaillets: olive paste, smoky bacon and dark berry liqueur qualities, with subtle floral and mineral undertones. #2): Dardouille: intensely spicy and focused, displaying powerful blue fruit character, impressive depth and building violet and spice notes. #3) Baschasson: heady, mineral-accented black and blue fruit qualities, along with suave incense and potpourri nuances and mounting spiciness. This is looking to shape up as an uncommonly powerful wine for the vintage, but the buffering mineral and spice character could bring its energy level up – the fruit is really blasting away right now."


Distributor Notes: "The project of Offerus has evolved since its first vintage of 1995. In the beginning, 100% of the wine was purchased from producers of high quality/ small quantity St Joseph domaines. Since the late 1990's, Jean Louis Chave began purchasing and replanting parcels of St. Joseph. Currently, over 60% of the Offerus comes from these young vines owned by the Domaine JL Chave, which sells off the juice in bulk to JL Chave Selection for elevage and bottling. The wine is fermented in large, wood, open top fermenters and then finished in old oak demi-muids (just like the Domaine St. Joseph)."

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.

Les Peyrouses displays purple color, with an aroma full of fruits and spices. On the palate, the fruitiness with notes of licorice and hints of pepper. The wine is full and well rounded, with supple tannins. A typical Cotes du Rhone Syrah, full of freshness and finesse, with a good tannic structure.

ROBERT PARKER 95-97 POINTS: "The tiny-production 2015 Saint Joseph Le Paradis Saint Pierre (100% Syrah aged in 5% new barrels) is a blockbuster that needs to be purchased by the case. Its inky color is followed by loads of liquid blackberry, cassis, crushed rocks, and damp earth/forest floor aromas and flavors. This full-bodied, ultra-pure, yet gorgeously concentrated effort has enough tannin to warrant 3-4 years of bottle age and will keep for two decades."

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."

VINOUS 90 POINTS - "Spice-accented cherry and dark berry aromas are complemented by suggestions of violet, olive and cracked pepper. Spicy, energetic and sharply focused on the palate, offering bitter cherry and floral pastille flavors that open up slowly with air. Silky tannins frame the finish, which shows firm closing thrust and good persistence."

WINE ADVOCATE 95+ POINTS - "The 2016 Cornas Confidence is the flagship cuvée of the estate and comes from the La Côte and Tézier lieux-dits in Cornas, both of which are shallow, granitic parcels. It's slightly tighter and more focused compared to the sexier Empreintes and has more cassis and blackberry fruits as well as lots of cedarwood, ground pepper, and earth-like aromatics. This full-bodied, concentrated 2016 has beautiful purity, a ripe, layered texture, and building tannins. It’s a serious 2016 to drink over the coming 10-15 years."

WINE ADVOCATE 93 POINTS - "The terrific 2016 Saint Joseph Lautaret is concentrated and tannic, one of the few 2016 Saint Josephs I'd recommend for short-term cellaring. It's full-bodied and rich, packed with black olives and black cherries, and finishes long and velvety. Give it a couple of years and drink it over the next decade."

JEB DUNNUCK 93 POINTS - "The 2016 Saint Joseph Lautaret is a richer, medium to full-bodied, ripe Syrah that has tons of classic spiced red and black fruits, licorice, violets, and roasted, peppery herbs. This voluptuous, layered, meaty effort has the charming, fleshy style of the vintage yet still packs some serious oomph and density, and is a rocking wine."

WINE ADVOCATE 91 POINTS - "The 2016 Saint Joseph Les Coteaux looks as good from bottle as it did from tank last year. Richly concentrated and velvety, this medium to full-bodied beauty features savory notes of black olive, allspice and clove, backed by supple tannins and a long finish."

Along the steep, narrow valley that traces the northern Rhone, the appellations of Cote-Rotie, Condrieu and Saint-Joseph take their place among the great wines of France, and Domaine Faury is one of the region's most artisanal producers. When Philippe Faury took over the domaine in 1979, the family was selling wine, peaches and cherries, and the bulk of their clientele was local. Over the years, Philippe expanded their holdings to over eleven hectares, and expanded sales to an international client base. In addition, he has shared his savoir faire with his son, Lionel. Since 2006, Lionel has taken over the reins at Domaine Faury, though father and son still work side by side.

The steep slopes of the northern Rhône present a challenging terrain where farming is only feasible through terracing. On these terraced slopes, the Faurys' vines take full advantage of the southern and southeastern sun exposure, benefitting from optimum ripening. A combination of the predominately granitic soil, partial de-stemming (in about 70% of the grapes), soft crushing of the grapes with a pneumatic press, and temperature controlled fermentation offer a liveliness and freshness that one does not often find in wines from the northern Rhone. There's a real attention to detail here, and nothing is done in haste. Every method used encourages the grape towards greatness with the ultimate respect for its fragility. Pigeage, the punching of the cap, is not carried out with tools, but gently by foot - not just poetic but also pragmatic. Unlike many other vignerons in the region, the Faurys have a strong aversion to new oak. Though the reds definitely see time in barrels, there is a rotation between new and old alike, along with a variety of sizes, ranging from the smaller barriques to the larger 600-liter demi-muids. Unfined and only lightly filtered before bottling, these wines are loaded with classic flavors and show a remarkable rustic elegance.

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."

WINE ADVOCATE 98-100 POINTS: "Of all the terrific single-vineyard Côte Rôties I tasted at Guigal this year, I’m most confident that this wine will ultimately reach perfection after bottling. The 2015 Côte Rôtie La Landonne is incredibly rich and concentrated, yet it remains detailed and complex, with plum and cassis flavors accented by hints of pencil shavings, espresso, black olives, roasted meat and dark chocolate. Full-bodied and solidly built, it combines that power with a velvety feel and a nearly endless finish. Wow."

Guillaume Gilles is convinced that Cornas is at its best when one follows the most traditional of paths. Like Michel, he eschews the destemmer (in virtually all cases), works his vineyards by hand, ages his wine in old demi-muids and bottles without fining or filtering. His Cornas is as it should be and is exactly as we like it: brawny, sometimes austere, profound, sauvage. He cultivates his vineyards with an organic philosophy and his wines are made using the natural yeasts from his grapes. He produces three wines, two of which are in excruciatingly limited supply.

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.

Intense, dark-fruited Syrah from the Northern Rhône. It warrants a little decanting and is a perfect pairing with any hearty dish.