A wonderful Grenache from an out of the way place - Eric Texier CDRV St. Gervais

3/3/2008 -

(Eric Texier)

I tasted many great wines on my recent jaunt through France and Germany but Eric Texier's Cotes-du-Rhône-Villages St. Gervais Vieilles Vignes les Cadinières really was a particular stunner for me. I'm not really a Grenache lover so I hesitated when he poured this for me, but as soon as I stuck my nose in the glass I knew this was not your normal everyday Grenache. It had aromas of dark violets, deep cherry and lots of herbs. It was a dark color too. Not that often light, thin color that overcropped Grenache gets. This was beautiful, exhibiting nuance after nuance. Pure and ripe palate with crunchy Grenache fruit. Firm structure and really gushes. There is superb delineation and the velvety tannins coat the mouth with lipsmacking acidity . There is a structure that suggests some mid-term aging. Just such a delicious drink.

St. Gervais is one of 16 Cotes-du-Rhône Villages that are said by the INAO to produce higher quality wines than just the regular Cotes-du-Rhône appellation. Of the 16 Cotes-du-Rhône-Villages it is the most western of them all and is located in the Gard department. The soil is red clay with decomposing limestone from the Mesozoic era. The reason I probably like this wine so much is that are cooler than the rest of the Southern Rhône, at a high altitude, resulting in a later than average harvest time. Texier, one of the most thoughtful and focused winemakers in all of France, vinifies this wine with the stems and without pigeage, which decreases the high sugar and alcohol levels of Grenache. This means it is ripe but by no means like the uber-ripe freak shows that certain wine critics list over. It is $23.99 and with case discount that goes down to $21.60 per bottle, which is a fantastic value for a wine of this quality, made the right way (low sulfur, natural yeasts, no filtration and minimal to no use of new oak and minimal intervention all the way through.) There is very little of this wine. Only 186 cases and believe me we did not get it all and Eric loves drinking this stuff himself while watching Mulholland Drive.