An Offer for the Beatles: "Yesterday" - Incredible Cornas and St. Joseph at 15 Year Ago Prices

My Babies in N.Rhone Are Growing Up 
 - Prices Are Increasing
 - Some of My Customers Are Getting Priced Out
 - I've Been Researching Like Crazy for New Ones

Cave Pinheiro 
 - A New Micro Production Estate 
 - 2,000 Bottles Made, Only 500 Cornas
 - He Knows Every Grape on Every Vine

2018 Cave Pinheiro Cornas
 - Reminds Me of the Brilliant Cornas of Fauterie
 - Gorgeously Mineral Nose
 - Dark, Ripe Plums, So Meaty, Gamey and Savory
 - Palate: Cassis and Blackberry Fruit 
 - The Perfect Balance You Can Only Get from Production This Small
 - A Case Purchase Consideration Given the Price, Quality and Vintage ($35.99!)

2018 Cave Pinheiro St. Joseph Classique
 - Nose: Ripe and Classic: Smoke, Leather, Violets, Licorice
 - Palate: Juicy, Concentrated, Terrific Trademark Fassy Acidity
 - More About Finesse than the Denisty of the Blachons
 - A "Yesteryear" Value at $23.99 Direct from the Estate
 - NO TARIFF

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

The Beatles

Recently I had a terrific experience with the 2017 Cave Pinheiro St. Joseph. It's his basic St. Joseph as he does a cuvee higher than this that is very limited. I only tasted it over a few hours in the cellar and never really spent time with it and it surprised me like no other wine has this year. It needed 2-3 hours to open and then it was singing. I left some for the next day. It was easily 100% better and that was a great surprise. But overnight improvement with the wines I bring in is par for the course. But the third day this wine was still great. It was unreal.  No red wines make it to the third day. None. This was just as good on day 3 as day 2. I went to my database to check how much it was last time and it was like $23.99 or something insane like that. I was wowed and very exited to sell the 2018s from Aurelien Pinheiro as they were not only unreal wines they were also not tariffed. Boo yah!

Interlude 1: Northern Rhone Prices Are Increasing
I've been saying for some time that the wines of the Northern Rhone are insane values for the

money?  Well, the market seems to have caught on and prices are increasing.... a lot. The wineries whose brands I built here are still selling well but they are pricing themselves out of the reach of some of my customers. So I've been on an intense research project to dig deep and find new producers who I can build brands for and increase their prices.  And so it goes.

Interlude 2: Cornas
Let's talk about Cornas. I've learned two things at Fass Selections. The Cornas hierarchy is not what I thought it was in that coming into opening this company I thought it was Clape and Allemand with some Verset pre-inflation prices thrown in every once in a while. Now I have a new hierarchy with Cuchet Beliando, Louie Sozet, Mikael Bourg and Domaine de Fauterie at the top. As do many of you. Something else that I've learned is great Cornas doesn't have to cost much money, especially if you have my model and get in on the ground floor.  The Instagrammers are still swilling (and Gramming) Clape and Allemand.  Let 'em. 

I've said it forever and I'll continue to say it the average person drinks better in France than the average person here. In France a person can perhaps enjoy St. Joseph, Cornas and Crozes Hermitage while in the USA it's a few select Crozes and St. Joseph and mostly IGPs now. Just a fact of inflation and how these once minor appellations like Crozes and St. Joseph have broken through and Cornas went through a rennaissance. That means prices have gone up. I'd love all of you to drink like the average well educated French wine lover.  To me, Cornas is one of the great wines in France,  It combines the fruity, feral qualities of Syrah with the elegance of Burgundy plus pedal to the medal minerality.  It is also built to age. Good Cornas at anything under $60 is an amazing value.

The Wine
Today I'm selling a $55-$60 Cornas for $35.99 a bottle. Today I've got a limited amount of the 2018 Cave Pinheiro Cornas for $35.99 a bottle on a 4-pack. NO TARIFF. That's just silly for a Cornas and even sillier for this Cornas as this wine is so damn good. First of all the wine is so, so fine. My goodness is this refined. I wasn't prepared for the refinement. It's got a gorgeously mineral nose with granite and really shows the mineral side of Cornas which is why it reminds me of a small scale Fauterie. Some dark, rich ripe plum fruit and huge cassis and berry plus it is so meaty, gamey and savory.  This is as meaty as Cornas gets but it's so striking as the minerality cuts that meat. Some gorgeous black and green olives as well. Just dynamite.

The palate is so elegant and refined with serous mineral-driven flavors. Yet it's also powerful and deep as is the signature of 2018 but incredibly balanced. It's complex and deep and very concentrated and mineral. An ager for sure. The cassis and blackberry fruit finish pumps out flavors in a refined and linear way with intense mineral and velvety tannins. This finish and mid palate show so much class and refinement. The freshness is remarkable and the acidity is very Fassy. Smoke, olive and game echo throughout. A stunner. This is only the second vintage and it was VDF in 2015 because it comes from such young vines. Truly remarkable wine and even more remarkable that it comes from 10-12 year old vines.

I also have the regular 2018 Cave Pinheiro St. Joseph Classique for $23.99 a bottle on a 4-pack. This is a superb deal and great intro into the style of the estate. Beautiful elegant, finesse-driven, mineral St. Joseph with extra oomph and fruit because it's 2018. It's got a ripe and classic nose with smoke, leather, violets, licorice other florals as well and it's all so wild and feral. He used 5-6 year old barrels for this. Lovely minty menthol spices as well after some aeration. Palate is terrific. Juicy, and concentrated with terrific trademark Fassy acidity and unreal freshness. Loads of blue fruits on the palate. Very pure. Very fresh, very elegant and very mineral with a long granitic finish of pepper and berries and loads of minerals. Licorice also echoes. Really lovely. Compelling and very different from Blachons. The finish is brilliantly long and fresh with a highly drinkable quality to it. Thisis a finessed style compared to the more deep Machons and I sell nothing like it and am very happy that I am selling something like it now. And so will you. The value proposition here is unreal.

Cave Pinheiro

One of these estates I had read about and also been recommended by a friend. The estate is named Cave Pinheiro and is located in the beautiful, village of Chateaubourg, which is like a mile from Cornas.  This is south of the best known villages in St. Joseph by all of a couple of miles.  Really out there. This pic is from 1 minute away from his estate. Gorgeous and very hilly. Aurelian Pinheiro was a hard man to contact and the winery has no website and only a FB Page which is not checked much if ever.  But it all worked out and then it was a special mission to find him as there was a non descript warehouse. Sometimes,  the non descript warehouses are where all the magic happens.

2018 Cave Pinheiro Cornas - $37.99 ($143.96 4-pack) 

2018 Cave Pinheiro St. Joseph - $25.99 ($95.96 4-pack)