2016 Cécile Chassagne Gigondas

The 2016 Gigondas starts off with exotic, lavender-like aromas, plus hints of cola and spice. It's full-bodied and supple yet seems almost weightless, and at times, it seems almost too herbal. It's an non-destemmed blend of 80% Grenache, 10% Mourvèdre and 10% Syrah, which spent four months in older oak barrels, with a long, silky finish and fine-grained tannins. (JC)

One of my favorite K&L stories begins on an airplane with our Main Wine Buyer Emeritus and K&L co-founder Clyde Beffa. While traveling from a wine fair in Bordeaux back to the states, he was seated next to Cecile Chassagne, herself a winemaker and exporter. The two chatted and became fast friends and soon we were importing Cecile's wines. The origin of Cecile's property begins with her father, a man instrumental in carving out vineyards in the hills surrounding Gigondas in the 1960s and 1970s. Constructing terraces on the slopes, he sussed out incredible sites from the rocky hillsides in the middle of all the forests for many top producers but kept a little land set aside for himself and his family. He began planting those sites in 1970 and when he retired in 1998, Cecile took over the farming and wine making. When I started with the company over a decade ago, I remember trying her wines and always loving the purity of fruit and classic rusticity. Each year, though, as the vines grow older and Cecile becomes more accomplished, the wines express more of the terroir. For the uninitiated, the 2016 is a perfect place to jump in and try her stuff. It is an incredible vintage no less, but her wine has a purity of fruit, loaded with concentrated raspberry and lush strawberry flavors and a nose stuffed with the crushed herbs and flowers of the surrounding garrigue (that's the local forest around the vineyards). Those flavors always transcend vintage but 2016 just adds more. Appealing and supple the wine has an immediacy that is instantly engaging that continues to evolve with air. It wants food right now and would take on a little cellar time but what a treat. Once you taste the wines, you'll be happy that Clyde struck up that conversation so many years ago and why we continue to be fans of her wines.