Domaine la Bouissiere Gigondas 2005

So, I was actually planning on having my first post on this blog be an introduction to Piedmont, but it turns out I drink a lot of wine, so it looks like I'm going to be doing a lot more tasting notes. Last night I was at my parents' house for grilled flank steak and mashed potatoes with a little truffle oil, which was paired with this great Gigondas.

So, I checked the back-story on the winemakers, apparently they're French or something. But seriously folks... Anyway, the most interesting thing about Gilles and Thierry Faravels' vineyard is one of the highest elevation vineyards in the Gigondas appellation. Oh, Gigondas is in the Rhone, just in case anybody doesn't know that. There are 13 allowed grapes in the Rhone (Thank you, Scott). Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre are the most well-known, and the only 3 in this Gigondas. The family vines average 30-50 years old. Vine age and high elevation work as a team, like Sonny and Cher... I don't really know where I was going to go with that comparison, so never mind. I guess I could go back and erase it, but if you're reading this then I obviously decided not to. The point I was trying to make was that growing conditions make for a more elegant style of wine than many other Gigondas producers. The nose is very pretty, with blackberry and spice and a little cocoa powder action to it, the palate is rich, but stops short of being the big, chunky baked-fruit affair that some wines of this region can turn into. With dusty raspberry and blackberry and some chocolate on the palate, bright juicy fruit, fine tannins and excellent acidity, this wine showed well at this age, but it's not shy about telling you to lay it down for a few years.

As I continued my research, I learned that the Faravel brothers are just the type of winemakers I've always respected. They've been farming their vineyards organically since the 80's, and they use as little added sulfites as possible in all of their wines. The grapes are always hand-picked, the wines always gravity-fed from tank to barrel, and the wines are rarely fined or filtered.

I was going to give this wine two and a half awesomes, but I was really trying to stick to the 3-point system, and if I'm going to use half-awesomes, I should have just made it a 6-point system, or a 10-point system. I thought about adding a second level of scoring, like it gets two awesomes and a gold star or something, but that seemed a little silly. So, after thinking back over my original criteria, I'm giving this one two awesomes. I can't go so far as to call it perfect, but it's an excellent Gigondas, a great food wine, and at $30 retail, an excellent value.

Two Awesomes!