Hey, everybody, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Chris, I do wine at Binny's, and today we're gonna be talking about some wine, and I'm joined today by Roger. Hey, folks, Roger here, I work in beer. And Pat. Hey, it's Pat, work in spirits. I brought the wrong wine. Typical. And Greg, who also brought the wrong wine. I'm Greg, I do communications here at Binny's. Excellent communication, Greg. Yep. So today we're gonna talk about the Rhone Valley, the broad Rhone Valley, and in particular, from the perspective of some of the less known appellations, both North and South. So for a little overview, to start off with, we're gonna be looking at Crozes Hermitage and Saint-Joseph in the North, both Syrah-centric areas. And then we're gonna move down to the South and look at Vacqueyras and Gigondas, two appellations that are dominated by a little mountain range and directly adjacent to each other. They make very similarly styled wines, but there are differences, and we're gonna dig into that a little bit. One of the best things about the Rhone is the fact that it has some of the least intimidating wine in the world, some of the most easy to get into wine in the world coming out of the Rhone Valley, and also some of the most complicated. It's such a great way to get into wine. It's a great starting point. This is absolutely true. I mean, if we're looking at the broad Cote d'Irone appellation, the wines can be quite easygoing, juicy, the perfect kind of bistro wine that pairs with all kinds of food. It's not intimidating at all, and you don't have to know all the ins and outs of the grape varieties and everything to enjoy them. Although, that can be quite complicated because you can have a couple dozen grape varieties in Cote d'Irone, which seems crazy, but it's true. And they're all like nobody's ever heard of them before. Yeah, a lot of them are. Now, are most of the wines blends of multiple grape varieties? In the South, yeah, that's definitely true. Grenache is the dominant grape variety. Supporting roles are played by Muvved and Syrah. But then you have a whole laundry list of other things that are allowed, including whites. And you can, in a lot of cases, you can blend white grapes into the red wines. And that's true in the North too, but the approach is much more straightforward there. Syrah is really the only red grape there with a handful of whites that can be bottled as white wine, or a little skosh of them can be put into red as well. Is that like common in other places around the world? The only other examples I can think of are literally people like doing an homage to Rhone wines. Yeah. Sauter home white Zinfandel? Well, I'm thinking more like the Australian producers that were mixing some Vignette into the Shiraz. Yellowtail white Zinfandel? The Shiraz. Who let him on this one? So white Zinfandel has no white grapes in it. It's just red Zinfandel made into a slightly sweet rosé. But yeah, you're right, Greg. It's very common around the world now for people to emulate Cote Roti in particular, where you can have up to 20 percent Vignette blended into your Shiraz. Most people don't use quite that much, but it is very common to do it. And in the US and Australia and around the world, people have taken up that approach because it lends a floral aromatic top note to the wine. And it is also said, strangely enough, to fix the color of the Syrah in the wine. So it's like a little chemical reaction where the Vignette actually serves to make the wine darker and deeper, almost opaic purple. So, counterintuitive, but that's the way it is. Trippy. Weird. Yeah, very weird. So from the wine novice perspective, I feel like when I think of Rhone, I think of Côte d'Irône. Where does that come into play here? Yeah. So Côte d'Irône is a very broad area in the southern Rhone Valley for the most part. There are little pockets of Côte d'Irône up in the north, but nobody really thinks about those too much. And it's Grenache dominant for the most part. And they range from easygoing, medium bodied, fruit forward wines to pretty serious wines that can emulate the style of Chateauneuf de Pape or something like that. That was my next question. Is some of the best wines I've ever had in my life are Chateauneuf de Pape? Is that part of the Rhone Valley as well? I second that. Yeah. So Chateauneuf de Pape is the most famous appellation in the southern Rhone and it's surrounded by the Côte d'Irône areas and a number of villages that are allowed to use their name. It's kind of complicated. There's a tiered thing going on here. So there's Côte d'Irône, Côte d'Irône village that has maybe 95 villages that can contribute but they have to come from those specific villages. And then there are Côte d'Irône where a village is allowed to actually add its name to the label. So things like Plain Doudou and Sable are actual villages but there's still Côte d'Irône village. Côte d'Irône, Plain Doudou. Gee, I feel like we need a whiteboard to remember all of this. No, it's like that meme from Always Sunny with Charlie standing in front of the conspiracy theory board. Think of it as an aspirational area. So, villages can actually climb the ladder of the AOC system. So, if you're a Côte d'Irône village, you might aspire to have your village name allowed on your label. Your alderman greases up enough council members and then you're better off. How pretentious. Oh, French wine and pretentious. I didn't think we'd get here so fast. You can aspire to do better. I'm going back to my Sutter home. In fact, there are a number of villages who have matriculated to AOC status through this process and we're actually going to taste two of them today. Both Vacqueyras and Gigondas used to be Côte d'Irôme village and are now considered appellations unto themselves. So I shouldn't be pronouncing that Gigondas? No. Okay. That's good to know. These are both weird situations where in the local patois, you pronounce the S. S on the end of a French word. So it's Vacqueyras and Gigondas. Now doesn't patois have a S on the end? So it's not patois? Patois, yeah. Gigondas became an appellation in 1971 and Vacqueyras was very, very recent. Just 1990, it got its own appellation. And they're both very similar in style to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Grenache-based, big, bold wines. But there are differences that we'll dig into. So, so like in a nutshell, we're on the east of France, we're off of the Mediterranean, but it's still influenced by Mediterranean. You start south and you really think easy-going, soft red blends that are super easy to drink and get into. And the farther north you get, the less Grenache there is in the blend and the more Syrah there is in the blend until you get some of the world's classiest expressions of Syrah. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Easy-peasy, right? Yeah. So you can draw a straight line down Eastern France, through Burgundy, down through Beaujolais, through Northern Rhone, Southern Rhone to the Mediterranean. So this is a long strip of a wine producing region. And yeah, you've got lots of really famous areas contained within here. And just to put a finer point on the climatic conditions, the Northern Rhone is considered a continental climate. It's far enough removed from the Mediterranean. So the influence has kind of dropped off. But Southern Rhone is definitely Mediterranean, more Provençal in style, in food and wine approach. So that's what's up with that. The other major contributing factor to the climate here is the wind known as the mistral that blows from north to south. Can't forget the mistral. Yes, the mistral. Yes, the master wind is the translation. It's like a Zelda dungeon boss. No, but it's so cool. Some of the most famous pictures are of these bushes and the vines themselves being swept horizontal because of the wind. It's constantly blowing and pushing them over in their growth. It's wild. Yeah, it's a very profound influence on the area. You have to train your vines to withstand it, and you have to be able to withstand it yourself because it's madly persistent and very strong. It can blow like 50, 60 miles an hour for a sustained period of time. And it's blowing down from the north, bringing really cold air, but very clean, fresh air down through the Rhone Valley. And the valley serves to accelerate the speed of the wind. So you can imagine the wind getting boxed into this valley. So it gets really, really brisk. And one of the great things it does is it keeps things dry and moderate and it really mitigates the need for things like pesticides, because the pests tend to get blown away. They don't like it. They can't handle it. Bugs are blown to bits. That's right. Yeah. Clean, fresh air sounds kind of nice right now. I'm in my basement. Yeah. That familiar dank as we all know. So where are we going to get started on this tour of Rhone? So we're starting in the north, where the most famous Appalachians are Côte Rôtie and Hermitage, and they're on opposite sides of the river. We're going to look at two lesser known areas that make good wine, but they're definitely in the shadow of these more famous areas, and they're both on opposite sides of the river. So we're going to start out with Croes Hermitage. This is an Appalachian on the east side of the river, in the shadow of the Hermitage Hill, or Hermitage, very, very famous, probably the greatest Serrat expressions on the planet. And it's a very big region by Northern Rhone standards. It has the most area under vine by far, and it's variable in terrain and soil types too. So you can have some really good crows that's on kind of the rolling hills, and then there are some areas that are very flat and have clay like soils instead of granite, and the wines are not quite as good from there. So you got to buy carefully. The wine we're looking at today is Vincent Paris Croze Hermitage, which comes from kind of a unique little patch of soil in this big area, which has those big river stones that you see in Southern Rhone. They're not very prominent in the north. They're known as galley roulette or rolling stones or rolling rocks. So if you like your Latrobe Rolling Rock, you can remember that that way. Wait, that's the one that you took out of all of the Rolling Stones references there? Either that or Goat's Head Soup. That's how I remember it. What? How does it feel? Yes, Dylan. Anyway, so yeah, this is a really unique soil in the northern Rhone. This producer is an all-star across the river in Cornas. This is the only wine he really buys grapes for, or at least the majority of his wines, he owns the vineyards in Cornas, which is another famous appellation for Syrah. This wine is fresh, bright, fruit-driven, with a fair amount of mineral in the nose, I think. It doesn't go into oak, it's aged in tank, and he only makes about 300 cases of it. It's a very, very small producer. How much does this usually retail for? This is on sale right now for $19.99. It's normally 22 bucks. Is that very common? Tank treatment instead of a lot of oak aging? Yeah. Oak, especially new oak in the Rhone, is not a traditional practice, although people do it now. They're led by Guy Galle in Cote-Rotis back in the 80s, started applying 100 percent new oak for super long time to his famous single vineyards. But it is much more classical to age in cement, actually, vinify and age in cement, or in large old oak foudras, or now stainless steel, of course. When a lot of people think about the big robust kinds of reds that are coming from this area, you definitely think of the oak aging and the influence of the oak. But this is a pure intensity and expression of fruit that's just right from the place and right from the grapes. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Like you guys both mentioned Chateauneuf de Pape being the source of some of your favorite wines. Generally, you don't see any oak fluents on them. It's just big, ripe, warm, spicy fruit from the grapes. Yeah. There are a lot of modern producers who do use new oak now, but it's not the norm at all. All right, so this is the farthest North wine we're going to taste today? Yeah, we're going to jump right across the river, literally, to St. Joseph. All right, cool. This is on the West Bank. I'm on board now. Down by the river? Down by the river. So this is one of the most famous producers in the Northern Rhone, Jean Louis Chave. Super famous for making perhaps the greatest expression of Hermitage white and red on the planet. Very well respected. Such deep roots in this area. It's almost unbelievable. His family goes back to 1481 in this area, growing grapes. I think that's somewhere around 16 generations. It's crazy how long they've been around. They probably have like disparaging opinions of the Italians that moved in in the 1700s. Well, I think the Italians were there much earlier than that. The Rome dominated the Rhone Valley very early on. I mean, we've got a history going way back. As you know, Chateauneuf de Pape is named for a pope. So I jumped the gun here and just tasted this wine. This wine is incredible. It smells so classy. So this is a little more expensive, but it's only $28, and you can compare that to the hundreds of dollars you'd spend on the same producer's Hermitage. This is so much bang for your buck. It's incredible. And not only that, a lot of his wines are bottled as Domaine wines. And this is bottled under his Negotiant line, Gilles Chave. And it started out with Purchase Fruit, 100% Purchase Fruit when he first started making it. But he's moved to 100% Estate Fruit now. Total control of the vineyards and meticulous in every way. So this is a 100% Syrah from San Joseph, from an unimpeachable source. I mean, just incredible. Okay. Well, all right. Let's actually talk about this wine right here, because we gloss over these things sometimes, but people need to stop right now, stop the podcast. Go buy this wine. Go write down this wine, go order a bottle or a case. This wine is incredible. It has this loamy, perfumey note that you get in wines that cost $200 a bottle. This wine is amazing. If this was like from some famous appellation, like Bordeaux or something, or if this was the equivalent quality in an appellate cab, this is $200 a bottle. Yeah. Honestly. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Well, I've always held this wine in high esteem and I'm glad you like it. It's quite amazing. Just to be clear, this is Gilles Chave's San Joseph Ophorus Bottling 2017. Ophorus 2017. So in two words or less, how does someone ask for this bottle at their local Binny's? Chave San Joseph Ophorus. Okay. 2017. 2017. It has a little picture of St. Joseph on it that I'm digging too. Strangely, I think that might be St. Christopher. I don't know this for a fact, but Ophorus St. Christopher. This area is obviously dominated by Catholicism, and this vineyard site was originally, there's a San Joseph Vineyard, which is not the entire Appalachian, was originally owned by Jesuits, and is now owned by Gigal. But I think he named this wine for St. Christopher. All right. So up deep down core of raspberry, brambly over rot raspberry, and then there's like perfumy. You're a real son of a bitch, Adamson. Real distracting, Roger. It's important to aerate the wine. The cracked black pepper that's on top of there, and there's the spiciness, kind of like a gamey spice on top of everything. Yeah, you've nailed it. High tone floral notes are very common here, and that black pepper is a signature of syrah. That's the result of a chemical called rotundin. It smells dead on like black pepper or white pepper in some cases. And this wine displays all that in spades. I mean, it's just absolutely gorgeous. And don't forget to mention that it has some tannic structure. You could age this for a little while, despite how beautifully it's drinking right now. And that's tannins right from the grapes. It's not even wood tannins. That's right. This is aged in old oak fudras, but at this point there's no real tannin being imparted by the wood. Yeah, they're an oxidative vessel only. Right, exactly what Pat's saying. Neutral in terms of wood notes, but oxidative environment and the aerobic environment because of the porousness of the wood. Dead on. Maybe it's the peppery-ness, but this I just definitely want to have with steak. It's one of those classic pairings, but it may be cliche, but man, I really want a steak right now. That's, do you like steak? If you're into lamb, try this with some lamb chops. Blow your mind. What cheese would you pair with this, Chris? I think you need a pretty robustly-flavored cheese for this. I would probably like a cheese called Saler, which is like France's answer to cheddar. It's really good, a little bit hard to find, but it's worth your while. It's like a great raw cheddar. Your hearty, hearty aged cheddar is a great pairing here. Yes. They could sub in a nice aged cheddar then. They can't find your Saler. Yeah. You could also go with something more local from the Rhone Alps like Beaufort, which is like a Swiss cheese approach like Gruyere. I've had that cheese. It's good. Indeed. I've had that cheese. It's good. One last thing I'd say about San Josef in general, is that it's another kind of a bit of a minefield. In the southern part of the Appalachian, you have granite soils and the original vineyard site and the best made wines. If you travel north, you get more clay soils and the wines just aren't as good. In both Crows and San Josef, choose your producer wisely. I don't know why you drink a San Josef besides the one that we just tried. That was perfect. Just drink that one. Variety is the spice of life. Also spice. There are other excellent ones, however. Chaves really stake to claim in San Josef, buying a lot of vineyards, even though Hermitage is their main stomping grounds. They have several bottlings, and they're all really good. All right, what's next? Are we following the wind and going south? We're following the wind. Yeah, yeah, following the wind north and south. Chris, how do you say this one? Because I have never known how to say this one. So this is called Vacqueyras. Vacqueyras. Vacqueyras. Vacqueyras. I've been calling it Vacara, like a chump. Yeah. People would look at you cross-eyed in the Rhone. They'd be like, what are you talking about? Anyway, this is a really interesting bottling. This is made by a guy named Xavier Vignon. So this is Xavier Vacqueyras 2015. This is an area down south dominated by Grenache. You have to have at least 50 percent Grenache in the blend, but not 100 percent. So this is about 65 Grenache with some Syrah and Muv-Ed blended in. So we expect it to be softer, more towards strawberry than raspberry, a little more plush. That would be a good expectation. I like the stylings of this bottle. It's giving me a Count of Monte Cristo vibe. Yes. Will it escape? So it's very common. This has an embossed label. It's really common in the south for the different Appalachians to have specific embossed labels with little emblems on them. So both of these wines, Vacqueyras and Gigondas have their embossed emblems, and the most famous being Chateauneuf du Pape. What that means is literally the regional logos raised in the glass itself, not like an embossed paper label, but the bottle itself has a coat of arms or a seal. Quite right. This one is two crossed keys. Yeah. Keys are a common theme in this area. So this is Vacqueyras. As I said, it only became its own AOC in 1990. Prior to that, it was a Côte d'Irône village. And this is an area that's dominated by a mountain range, these really impressive spiky limestone uprisings called the Dantelles du Montmoreil. And there are several Appalachians that kind of surround them and are informed by them as far as elevation and also aspect goes. This area is a little bit lower in elevation, in fact, directly below Gigondas, where we're going to get to next, and has a little more sun exposure. But they tend to be slightly more, maybe, elegant than Gigondas, which can be quite big and bold. When you're talking about regions that are across from the river, from each other, that often means different directions of exposure. So even though they're really close together, they still have different levels of ripeness, right? Yeah, that's absolutely true. Although here we're in the Southern Rhone. There are vineyards on both sides of the Rhone, but both Gigondas and Vacqueyras are on the western side of the river and kind of surround this line of limestone outcroppings. Well, that would have been a much better comment for earlier in the podcast then. And not really relevant to this part of the tour. Okay, sorry. Chris, I've noticed that it's kind of interesting. So the first vintage was 2018 followed by 2017. Now we're on 2015. So these have some legs on these then. I don't know. I'm surprised they're drinking five-year-old wine. If you taste this vacqueyras, I think you'll find a pretty firm tannic backbone still. Yeah, it remains very fresh. But yeah, it tastes quite youthful still. Lots of bright red fruit. Very warm and spicy. But yeah, not lacking in tannin at all. In fact, just talking generally about Rhone vintages, there's been a string of fantastic vintages in both the North and the South. All the way back to 15 up through 18. Thanks, Global Warming. Probably true. The vintages have been very warm and leading to some drought conditions. But as we know, grapevines can flourish without an abundance of water. So unless it gets real severe, little water is good. And the good thing about this area is most of the rain falls in the winter, like most of the best places. So this Vacqueyras, I mean, it definitely doesn't show its age. It comes across as more youthful, even with like a little bit of like green aloe, underripe vegetable kind of acidity to it. And then just like vibrant fruit and then this like vein of classiness. It's not overwhelming like it was on the San Josep that we just tried. But this is like lively and it's like just serious enough that your wine geek is going to take it too seriously. And it's just fun enough that you could guzzle it too. I could guzzle it too? Yeah, I think so. Like you said earlier that these are fruit dominated wines that don't show a lot of oak. But that doesn't mean they're not serious. They're both fruity and fun and structured at the same time. And this is a wine that's definitely modeled after Chateauneuf du Pop. You know, it's aiming high. I mean, we're talking about a bottle that Binny's has on sale at $17.99 right now. Wow. Yeah. And I've seen this around the country at more like $35 a bottle. And it definitely can compete with a $35 bottle of Chateauneuf without a doubt. Not that there's that many of them around in the world, but there are some wine styles that have been modeled after this, that fans of those wines should really check out France and not miss out. Like, if you're into a Paso Robles red blend, if you're into a Cali red that's on the soft and fruity side, all modeled over that Southern France GSM kind of base. Yeah. If you're looking, if you were part of the fans of the Australian red phase five or 10 years ago when that was like, don't miss out on the genuine article from the Rhone. It's really good. Yeah, that's right. This is the epicenter of that and it did spread. GSM is super common in Australia. You do see a lot of it in Paso Robles and in Santa Barbara in California. So you are dead on with that. But this is the godhead of all of that and they're fantastic. Do you want to hear at all about this producer? We don't have to, but he's kind of interesting. Yeah, Xavier. So yeah, this guy is Xavier. Xavier. Xavier. Xavier. Xavier. He's a really interesting cat who is consulting winemaker for dozens and dozens of wineries in the Rhone. Some of the top Chateauneuf de Pop houses look to him. He really is all about blending. He has access to all these different wines that he's helped make, and he bottles them under his own label or blends them. He makes all kinds of super weird stuff where he puts together things you would not expect from the broader region. He's a fascinating guy. I actually toured the Southern Rhone with him one day, and man, he's a font of knowledge. I don't know if there's anybody more knowledgeable about the area. And he has roots in Champagne, where he learned to blend very precisely. He worked on Dom Perignon blending for a while. And he's also super obsessed with the concept of vines soaking up mineral salts from the soil. It's like his singular obsession. It's kind of weird. No, that's amazing. That's like super science. Yeah, he also runs a lab that does all kinds of testing in the area. So he tells this story where he had an epiphany. This is a really weird story. He was working in Bordeaux. And I may be misspeaking, but I'm pretty sure he was at Haute-Briand working kind of as an intern or something. And he was tasked with finding the Haute-Briand. And they were using egg whites, which is a typical finding agent. And the seller master came in after he was done and tasted the wine and said, what did you do? You know, this doesn't taste right. Did you find this properly? He's like, yeah, I whipped up the egg whites and put them in, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, did you forget to add the salt? And he's like, oh, yeah, I forgot the salt. And this made him realize he said it tasted totally different and bizarre. And this is not even natural mineral salts. This is adding salt to the finding agent. The story is so weird salt to the finding agent. So the finding agent already has a certain amount of mineral in it. And its job is to chemically pull out other other chemicals from the wine itself. So since the absence of salt, it pulled out something else instead. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what the explanation is. But yeah, basically the finding agent is a protein to pull proteins out of the wine. And make it clear. So you can use all kinds of things to do that. As you know, they use beer as well. Things like eyes and glass. But it's a protein to attract protein. But yeah, he said that he had kind of ruined this whole batch of Eau Brienne by not adding the salt to the egg whites. And this made him think, what kind of role do natural mineral salts play in wine? And how do vines actually take them up? And what are the concentrations of them? And so he's got this singular obsession about figuring out things on the molecular level. See like, this is fantastic. Because it sounds like just this boring, sciency sidetrack. You're right, it does. But this is like such a, this is a problem. Consumers aren't really educated about wine or much of anything that they consume. I'm not, I know I'm not. And there's this like mysticism and magic and art that wine is supposed to be. But there's like just so many specifically scientific processes, just like beer, just like spirits. You guys know, it's not all, if you leave it up to the amateurs to just assume that they can dump in something for a flavor, it's going to make it, it's going to completely miss the mark. And I mean that's fantastic. There's been this debate going for a long time about terroir and some people think that literally terroir is the vine pulling the the minerals out of the soil and then producing a certain flavor in the grapes because of the presence of those minerals. But they can't find the presence of those minerals. Like there are guys in labs, even a naturalistic, minimalistic wine making choice is a scientific decision. You're just allowing those processes to go on their own. Yeah, there's no doubt. I mean, minerality in wine is a pretty broad subject. But for the most part, it boils down to the idea of basically sulfur compounds that occur during the very complicated process of fermentation, that smell and taste like rocks or whatever. It's really less mystical and romantic than most people think and more scientific. Yeah. Professor Xavier there is trying to figure it out. That's right. This guy is very intense. He's deep into everything. Cool. Super cool. Now, where are we going? So next, we're going to climb up the mountain side here to Gigondas, literally directly adjacent to Vacqueyras is... Let's pronounce Gigondas. Gigondas, higher elevation, running up to those Dantelles du Mont-Mont-Réel, these beautiful peaks that dominate the area. Really, if you haven't seen it, look up a picture. They're gorgeous. That literally means the lace of the Grand Mountain or something, or Great Mountain like that. What a wimpy sound in mountain range. Yeah. We got the Rocky Mountains here, boy. That's right. And the Black Hills. Don't think of them as being that high. I mean, we're talking about, I don't know, 700, 800 meters at the tip probably. And Gigondas, I think, probably goes up about 600 meters in elevation as an appalachian. Oh, wow. That's really up there. Yeah, it's pretty high. I mean, as far as close to the top of the mountain. It's pretty cool. Yeah. It's beautiful up there too. Yeah. It's really amazing. And there are all kinds of different aspects to this appalachian too. It's strangely west and northwest facing mostly. Most people are looking for a southern exposure in the Rhone, especially in the Northern Rhone. So this high elevation and the exposure toward the north can lead to a little more elegance and finesse in the wines, although they're generally quite bold. No, I skipped ahead and tasted it, and it's great. And it's like the Vacqueyras except like amplified. Spoiler alert, does not suck. Amplified. Oh yeah. I would say it's funny you said finesse because it reminds me of the past of the Xavier wine, but the Vacqueyras, but not as much tannin. So to me, it doesn't seem as austere. It's really quite good. But like the raspberry is just really dialed up to 10. What does this one cost, Chris? This is a mere $25.99, a real bargain. Wow. Yeah. See, this is criminally underpriced still. Roger spent that on a four pack of sour gummy worm milkshake IPA once. Spend your money more wisely. Oh man. So just so everyone knows, dry hopped with honeycomb cereal. Domaine de Piaugier Gigondas 2017. Domaine de Piaugier Gigondas 2017. Domaine de Piaugier Gigondas 2017. So this is a pretty small family owned estate, located in the village of Sablé, which is directly north of Gigondas, but down the hill. And Sablé is one of those Côte d'Irôme village that's allowed to put its name on the bottle. An aspirin to its own AOC, of course. Anyway, this is owned by the O'Tron family. And they do a great job. They only have three and a half hectares in Gigondas. So pretty small lots and very little wine main, but great attention to detail. All hand harvesting, organically grown, a very serious little family producer that's worth your while. How many hectares do you have on your palatial estate? I think one. So there's like three and a half brophy estates worth of vines planted in this estate. All I grow is crabgrass. Yeah, this has gorgeous, rich, sappy red fruit. It's so good. With great acidity. It's not classy like the St. Joseph, but it's a balls out Grenache. Yeah, it's like a basket full of strawberries and raspberries, and it's super fun and super delicious. I highly recommend it. You can find the Sablé on Binny's shelves for probably half the price of this, or maybe 15 bucks or something, so also a good wine. When I was a kid, we had raspberries growing in our backyard, and I hated it because it attracted wasps, but it still takes me back to my backyard when I was a kid. One of the things that I was going to say is it does have such a pronounced berry character, and sometimes when you describe things as raspberry-like, people mistakenly equate it with they go to the jelly or jam route as opposed to the fruit. Yeah, it's not that- They're not thinking about the acidity. It must be inherently frustrating, I would imagine, in wine when you're recommending wines, and people think like jammy is such a common descriptor. And I think people commonly just use it to mean fruity, but it's like, no, jammy is sweet fruit, whereas this is fruity, but there's still plenty of acidity. Like it's plenty dry, but it has a great berry fruit character to it. Yeah, that's true. It's the end of the summer raspberries that have been hanging on the plant for a long time and they've actually ripened away some of the like austere green underripe acidity. This has the acidity of a fresh fruit, but not the underripeness of one that's like early spring. Agreed. If you've ever picked a warm raspberry right off the bush and popped it in your mouth, it's like that. You've got to have a warm, like a loaf of bread. Come get them on their warm, kids. Seriously, have you ever done this when the sun is shining on the bush? I think you sound like the worst guy to go berry picking with. I do. Because I'd eat them all? Because you like them warm, maybe? Look, I'm telling you, it's an experience to have. It's true. It's delicious. It's true because you pick them in late July or August. Right. You know? They're 90 degrees. I mean, chilled fruit is delicious, but there's nothing better than a fresh one off. Nothing better than a hot fruit. Hot fruit straight from the bramble. This is an excellent point, Roger. This does speak of fresh rather than jammy fruit. Grenache can easily move into jammy, raspberry, cherry fruit. It's well known to produce very high levels of alcohol quite easily. And yeah, it can get quite ripe. The key to this wine, I think, is that this vineyard is situated on that northern exposure in one of the cooler sites in Gigondas. And it really retains that fresh acidity and keeps the impression of fresh rather than jammy fruit for sure. Probably takes the master wind right to the face, face of north there. Is anybody picking up in either of these southern Rhone wines, the concept of Garig? Do we know about this? Yeah, I'm getting that. What the hell is that? Yeah. So Garig is a mixture of herbs and flowers and a kind of scrubby brush that grows on limestone soils in particular in Provence and Rhone. It's this French spice. Yeah. It's a spice that couldn't be more French. Yeah, it's basically Herbes de Provence. It talks s*** to you while you're using it. It does. It's like, you put me on Cornish hen how to write. Do not pronounce the H in my name. I am Herbes. So you're saying it's like Herbes de Provence though? Yeah. In character? Yeah. So it's like lavender, rosemary, thyme, all that kind of stuff. For whatever reason, it specifically refers to stuff grown on limestone soils. There's other very similar scrubby stuff that's known variously as the Maquis that grows on Corsica in some parts of southern France. So it used to be my job to copy and paste wine reviewers' reviews onto our website database. And classic Rhone Parker reviews have a tendency right after the word Grig to use the words Pine Gris, which drives me nuts. It's French for toast. Say toast, ass-. That's right. Wow, what an ass-. That really is unbelievable. Just say, oh God. This is why you can't take the wine media seriously. Except for Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, of course. Except for Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. All that aside, I'm a big herb guy. And I would say that this has a- Shocking. Of course, Roger's a big herb guy. He is wearing a tie-dye after all. First time I met Roger, he was sniffing jars in an aisle in Whole Foods. This has a distinct time- What herb pairs best with jackfruit? Time and summer savory character to this that is quite nice. This is distinctly wasting our time. Yes. Yeah. I smell an upcoming episode, you don't know Grieg. Yeah. Well, see that was news to me as well. That was to us, so Tarek for even I. Your Panda Relay criticism is definitely valid, but Grieg is a good word because it encompasses all of those different herbs and lavender and all of that in one word without having to describe them individually. Or you could say Herbes de Provence. Herbes de Provence. I could see this being nice with a Chevrolet to accent, you commonly have those coated in herbs or fruit, so I think this would complement that well. Do you have a fromage for us? All right. Don't dare cut it off. I want a cheese recommendation. I think you've nailed it there. That would be fantastic. I'm cutting it off. Soft goat cheese, man. Soft goat cheese. Yeah. With the bitterness against the fruitiness and the salinity possibly up against the fruitiness. Well, you know, there are actually cheeses, sheep milk cheeses, that are coated with this kind of herb mixture. In particular, something called Fleur du Maki. Chris, this has been a good one. This has been a fantastic one. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Some really good wines. Really good wine. Yeah. Yeah, very nice. Yeah, good wines. Good, I think, I mean, once again, this is a region that is super approachable if you're not into wine, or if you're just starting to delve deeper into wine. And if you're a nerd, you already know that you can just get lost in Rhone. And like ultimately, pretty affordably compared to California, or compared to Bordeaux or Burgundy, still world class wines at pretty much everybody's budget. Good. Well, anyway, that's been an episode of Barrel to Bottle. No, Chris, you do it. That outro is saying goodbye and then, you know, round robin. So this has been another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We looked at Rhone wine today. I'm Chris, I do wine and farewell till next time. Yeah, that's exactly how we've done that before. All right. I'm Greg. I'm Roger. I'm Pat. And I'm Chris. Keep tasting.