When I go to the Northern Rhone I taste an awful lot of wine. Besides meeting with my producers, I taste many wines at the Salon des Vins and also at the Greek's shop and home. One thing that always amazes me is that some of the top stuff over there rarely if ever gets here. I really don't get that. It gets me thinking. In general, I'm a big believer in markets. Better things generally cost more and there is a general alignment between price and quality. But sometimes, for whatever reason, the market just totally fails and something is under or over priced. Why? Generally speaking, some wines have great marketing which drives demand and increases prices. I am thrilled to offer the 2011 Domaine Barge Cote-Rotie "Combard" for as little as $59.99 on a 3-pack. The wines are ridiculously underpriced compared with the other top tier Northern Rhone wines. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the Popular Kids (Jamet, Chave, Ogier, etc.) aren't great. t's just that today's winemaker is close to or at those levels for around a quarter of the price.
What a wine this 2011 Combard is. When I tasted it at the Greek's store along with a number of other Barge cuvees I was blown away. I did not have a better bottled Rhone wine on my trip. First of all it has a $500 nose. That was someone's remark who was at the store tasting the wine as well. This store is so amazing. You walk in and just the greatest wines are open and anybody can taste them. It's almost like a dream. Chave, Gonon, Gripa, Darnaud, Barge. Anyway the nose, especially now that is has 5 years in the bottle is classic Cote-Rotie. It is a unique aroma as for this new cuvee (2010 was the first vintage) the soils are mostly volcanic which is unique in Cote-Rotie. I found out that in 2013 and 2015 the wine will be called something else in addition to Combard to denote exceptional vintages. If those are any better than this I cannot fathom. This is downright Burgundian in all the best ways. The nose is all about the the old school Cote-Rotie. Very animal, sauvage, cooked red fruits, meaty, flowers, leather, berries, exotic spices. Just a symphony of aromas. It's so perfect. It's so Cote-Rotie. I could and did smell this for hours. It kept changing and opening and getting bigger. I love old school Cote-Rotie which is hard find these days and this, as soon as you stick your nose in the glad you are there. The palate not only loves up to the nose but exceeds it. As John Livingston Learmouth says about this wine it has a "Burgundian exactitude." The palate has a silkiness and so much finesse which is a jolt after drinking and tasting many high octane Cote-Roties that dominate the marketplace. It is very, very long in the mouth. The meaty character continues onto the palate with rich dense tiny red fruits that explode and then spread like silk across the palate. Insanely fresh and long and just dripping with character. The tannins are ultra fine. Just so suave and silky.
The vine age varies from the oldest vines in the Barge family planted in 1860 to some 15 and 40 year old vines. The vineyard is so steep Julien Barge had to install a monorail like you see in the Mosel. This is 92% Syrah and 7% Viognier, and it normally has much less Viognier, but the year dictates what the year dictates. And if you do with this high quality, you will be paying a lot more than $60. You see the prices for Gentaz these days? Just sayin'.
Traditional Cote Rotie is what everyone pines for because as the appellation has evolved it has also evolved towards the more modern style, which not everyone likes. There are also producers kind of in the middle that predictably split people down the middle. One nice thing about modern and semi modern wines from classic terroir like Cote-Rotie, Hermitage, Bonne Mares, Nuits St Georges is eventually the terroir, after appropriate age will shine through. There is no modern or traditional after a wine from Cote Rotie is 30+ years old. There is just Cote Rotie speaking. The great terroir always shines through. I think people, now more than ever, gravitate towards traditional wines for a few reasons one notable one being that in the more globalized wine world we live in today there is a fear that an appellation can get stripped of its identity through homogenization. It almost happened in Barolo and Barbaresco but thankfully some of the more modern guys dialed back some of their more modern techniques of the mid 90's and are making better wines than ever. There is also the great fear that a great traditional domaine will not continue for a variety of reasons. Notably in Cote Rotie this happened to the great Gentaz-Dervieux estate and now those wines are over 1K a bottle. But as there is a herd mentality somewhat to wine appreciation in the social media and somm world there are some insanely great traditional producers that get overlooked. When you think of traditional Cote Rotie there is Jamet who is considered the king and then a few others like Gallet and Levet but it's hard to really think of even ten. That's a shame as when I am over there I taste a ton of great old school Cote Rotie and Domaine Barge was one I could not wait to offer is. To me, this is wine that is like a mini version of Jamet. Gilles Barge is making wines of undeniable finesse and freshness in a very traditional way from some of the greatest terroir in Cote Rotie. These wines scream classic Cote Rotie with sizzling bacon-meaty, clearly defined fresh and vibrant minerality and tons of smokey/savory complexity. There is so much to love in these wines. They are as "Vielle France" as Cote Rotie gets. Yet pure, vibrant and fresh. No brett. Just clean naked Cote-Rotie. The wines remind me of the magical balance one can get if they somehow merged classic Cornas with Chambolle-Musigny. Another world class completely under the radar wine. This is very limited and will be allocated!
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