Garagiste

• By Jon Rimmerman
  1/2/2008 (link)

  (RIGOT Prestige des Garrigue) Old Rhone Dear Friends, Welcome to 2008 everyone, I hope the holidays were relaxing and joyous for all. I have stories to recant from my holiday adventures, which I’ll do over the next few weeks - I’d love to hear yours as well. Looking forward and of great importance to us are a few ideas I’ve been working on for the last 2-3 years that should (hopefully) change the way our industry does business and relates to the national consumer - stay tuned for some major announcements in the coming months. In addition, we’ve listened to your suggestions and ideas for improvement and we'll do whatever we can to implement solutions that make the fruit of my travels worth waiting for. Our customer base is our extended family and we strive treat each of you as we would a guest at our dinner table - with respect, an open ear and a cellar stocked with imagination. With that in mind, I feel eager and ready to tackle the new year with vim and vigor (with lots of surprises ahead for you) so here we go with a very intriguing start... Think Cotes du Rhone can’t age? Tell that to Fonsalette and the Rigot Family. If you are a fan of Rayas and their inspired and ageworthy Cotes du Rhone’s (Pignan, etc) this is for you. Deep in the bowels of the Southern Rhone, Domaine Rigot has a trove of treasure that is most unusual - perfectly stored bottles of their best wine (the Prestige de Garrigue), from some of the finest vintages of the last few decades. The Prestige des Garrigue is their equivalent of a cru level Chateauneuf du Pape made in Cotes du Rhone (a la Fonsalette) and it is made to age. The only catch is that you have to wait a decade after release to acquire the cellared bottles from them. They store approximately 200 cases of the production of this wine for release ten years after the vintage (when the wine is at its best) and the rest gets released one year after the vintage to allow the consumer to see both sides of the fence. We are just in time for the release of one of one of the Rhone Valley’s best overall vintages since the 1989/1990 duo - 1998. I think many would agree this wine was one of the more prolific highlights of the last Paris expo (from an attendee accolade standpoint) and in my mind it was worth the price of admission alone. Not just because it proves how ageworthy the finest terroirs in Cote du Rhone can be but because the winery chose to pour this en-masse instead of just pouring their new release (which is what everyone else did). Proving a point can be costly to their cellar-stock but their utmost faith in the vineyard material and the traditional practices that bring out the magic of Grenache (at a nearly ridiculous price) are reason to celebrate. Considering they only have a few hundred cases of this and all of them are allocated (mostly to restaurants in France), I feel quite excited to be able to offer this to you. This wine is one of those anomalies in the Rhone - a beverage that gets loads of attention from the European palate and magazines (Coup de Couer’s, etc) but has no notoriety in the US due to their refusal to submit samples to our critical journals. That’s a very good thing for you because it allows a small stash like this to be available. Refined, elegant and nearing peak, the aromatics and freshness of kirsch drenched garrigue will set you back on your heals. Still lightly tannic, this will continue to evolve for at least another 5-10 years and it is priced for guilt-free experimentation. For the price, I don’t think I need to go into excessive detail but if we can save you money and still bring you some of the most interesting artisanal and eco-sensitive wines in the world, that’s a day’s work worth the time and effort. Try finding a 1998 Chateauneuf of this quality for this price? Enough said. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for top drawer quality, tradition and support of a family winery that is going out of its way to shoulder the burden of ageing wine for you - all on their dime. Refreshing indeed. ONE SHIPMENT ONLY of the 1998 - we cannot get more. 1998 Domaine Rigot Cotes du Rhone “Prestige des Garrigue” Thank you, Jon Rimmerman Garagiste Seattle, WA Rhone4599