2009 Cotes du Rhone Les Deux Albion

A Cote Rotie lookalike at a low-end price point is the 2009 Deux Albion, a blend of mostly Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre, but co-fermented with some of the white grape Clairette, and aged in tank. While it requires consumption in its first 2-3 years of life, this wine’s wonderfully exotic nose of spring flowers, white peaches, black raspberries and roasted herbs is followed by a full-bodied, opulent, hedonistic and intellectually pleasing wine that offers remarkable value for its price point. It has taken a while, but one of my favorite producers in the southern Rhone, Louis Barruol of Saint-Cosme, is getting very good publicity just about everywhere I look. It is certainly well-deserved, considering the broad range of wines he produces, from his inexpensive and over-delivering Cotes du Rhones and Vins de Pays, to his top-flight, world-class wines made in Gigondas. This is all a matter of hard work and understanding viticulture and great terroirs. As for the estate wines from Gigondas, 2009 was a more challenging vintage for Louis Barruol than many people probably understand, because he had some serious hail issues that cut into his Grenache crop. His best vintage to date is 2007, but 2010 is going to come close, and he has certainly excelled in a much more difficult vintage for him personally, 2009. The 2010s are probably Barruol’s greatest vintage since 2007, yet slightly more tannic and backward at a similar stage in their development than the 2007s were. All of the following wines are 100% Grenache, with the exception of the first two. Importer: Vintage ‘59, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 966-9218