Well, the 2011 Domaine Richeaume 'Cuvee Columelle' was the wine of the night by a wide margin. This Cab/Merlot/Syrah blend, which is a stones throw from the great Trevallon, is for my money is right up there qualitatively with Trevallon, yet in a different style. It is more refined with silky tannins and pure, elegant fruit. Trevallon's more civilized brother if you will. Well the 2012 is that much better than the 2011. It is the best Columelle I have tasted since the epic '98. It needs an hour, maybe 2 to fully integrate and breathe, but once it does this is a great wine, that will outdo many a classed growth Bordeaux costing 2-3 times, or even 4 times as much. I am thrilled to offer the 2012 Domaine Richeaume "Cuvee Columelle" for as little as $48.99 on a 3-pack. The price has only inched up a little since last vintage which is always a nice thing. I'm happy with the e-mail for the 2011 so I don't need to add much, here it is below.
So you're in Wichita, Kansas, not exactly an NBA town. For some reason, Lebron James is playing at the local arena and you can get courtside seats for $48. Do you go to the game?
This conundrum is at the heart of this offer. The winemaker is incredible. The wine is amazing and will age for decades. But it is from a region (Provence) that is not very sexy and no one has heard of the wine because it is so popular in France that if you sold it through the 3 tier system, it would cost too much ($60-80) and no traditional importer would have the guts to buy it and try and sell it.
But it's Black Friday and I only have a little of this and most people are out shopping, so only the hard core Fass readers are even reading this, so consider this a post-Thanksgiving gift to the die hard Fass fans who are so devoted that they are actually reading this stealth offer instead of buying X-Mas gifts.
I am stealthily offering the 2011 Domaine Richeaume "Cuvee Columelle" for as little as $45.99 on a 4-pack. This wine is simply stunning. Delicious. Interesting. Fresh. Meaty. Crazy Complexity. Gorgeous Herbs de Provence Nose . For a Wine Lover, this is the ultimate wine for the cellar; it's incredible, will age well and no one else you know will have it. It's a totally unique wine and the only reason it costs this little is because it comes from a region that is not known for wines of this quality.
I have a very long history with this estate. I remember when I was working at The Wine Bottega in Boston in 1999 and the 1998 Richeaume Columelle showed up on the shelf one day. I asked my boss what it was. He looked at me and just uttered, "You don't know, do you?" I said I didn't and needed to know. He said the only way to know is to buy a bottle and take it home and drink it and then you would know. Took it home and popped and poured and drank the whole bottle over 4-5 hours. This was an astounding wine. I didn't know the grapes, didn't know where it was from, and because I was enjoying it so much, at that point it did not matter. It became my favorite wine for a year. We couldn't really sell a lot of it because it was at a weird price point, from a weird place and we couldn't get much anyway.
The wine, nonetheless, fascinated me. The Cuvee Columelle, from Provence is a blend of Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and other grapes that only the winemaker knows. Think Mas de Daumas Gassac/Domaine Trevallon/Chateau Simone and you are on the right track. The wine is amazing. It is aged in new oak, which I am usually not a fan of, but it is done do perfectly, like a chef using salt, I did not even know it was oaked until I did research the next day. It had freshness, meatiness, cigar/tobacco, tremendous length and backbone due to the amazing acidity. I bought a bunch that next day for my cellar and drank them all years ago.
Let's fast forward 12 years to the modern day. I have my own company and can sell pretty much whatever I want. I did some wine-searcher research and saw that no Columelle has been sold in America for 4+ years. I wondered why. I then had my "EUREKA" moment and realized why. It is too expensive once it goes through the proper 3 tiers of distribution. The wine, which is affordable to many people in France, becomes unaffordable here. The other Richeaume wines are around and they top out at $30 a bottle. That is about the breaking point of the serious wine consumer in trying bottles from off the beaten path places. If it is over $30, from a new place, producer, etc, they generally don't want to try it. I am taking extra slim margins on this because I want as many people as possible to try it.
It is a stunning wine. Full of dense layered fruit, incredible freshness due to the acidity and a super structured backbone and most importantly this is as distinctive as wine gets in Provence. I love Bandol as much as the next guy but I find the most thrilling wine from Provence to be Domaine de Trevallon. For some reason serious Cab/Syrah blends from Provence shine through, with the Columelle being no exception. The estate is practicing organic, with no outside fertilizers being used and they have many solar panels on the property. Yields are kept at 20 hl/ha while the appellation allows 55 hl/ha. The fermentation only uses wild yeasts and the Syrah and Cabernet perfectly express the terroir of the area. You do get the Provencal herbs galore on the nose and a lovely mineral quality that runs throughout. This wine will also age spectacularly. A friend just told me had the '98, the wine that turned me on to this estate all those years back and he said it was stunning and still had years to go.
I am so happy to be finally selling Cuvee Columelle again as it is wine that deserves to be in your stomachs and cellars. For all the discerning people on my list this is the perfect wine for you.
2012 Domaine Richeaume "Cuvee Columelle" - $52.99
($146.97 3-pack)
No comments:
Post a Comment