2024 Kermit Lynch Selection, Côtes du Rhône Village Rouge, Rhône Valley, France.
Famous Berkeley Wine Importer Kermit Lynch has long had a hand in crafting tasty Rhône wines for the US market and his new Côtes du Rhône Villages bottling, with its artist label, is a generous, deeply colored and ripe Grenache based wine that nicely over delivers for the price and is a great any day drinker. I was late to get a hold of this one, as it has been available for a few vintages now, so I was excited to see it at my local, Nielsen Bros Market in Carmel by the Sea, and was pleased to find it a good step up in quality compared to the regular and delicious Kermit Lynch Côtes du Rhône, which was a go to when looking for something cheap and cheerful. This dark purple/garnet hued and friendly aromatic 2024, a blend of 57% Grenache, 31% Syrah, 5% Cinsault, 4% Carignan and 3% Mourvèdre, shows off a warm Mediterranean full bodied palate of crushed boysenberry, Summer plum, black cherry, pomegranate and strawberry fruits, along with lilac, ground pepper, snappy sage, dried lavender, a stony element, salted licorice and a hint of tobacco leaf. This is wrapped in silky tannin and has a baby Châteauneuf du Pape opulence of texture, making it so very easy to love and it was a no pretense gem with a Friday night pizza. While most high production co-op made wines lack finesse and depth, this wine proves otherwise and you can always trust Kermit Lynch in finding quality, especially in the Rhône and Provence regions, as this wine shows.
The Selected by Kermit Lynch Côtes du Rhône Villages is made by Denis Deschamps at Les Vignerons d’Estézargues from old vine grapes coming from, as Kermit notes, the plateau of Signargues on the right bank of the Rhône, which has the classic clay and limestone soils, along alluvial veins with the famous rounded stones “Galets” scattered through the vineyards. This distinctive bottling, with the all certified organic 40 plus year old vines adding pedigree, complexity and concentration, saw a native yeast spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts in concrete tank. The grapes were mostly de-stemmed and macerated with daily punch downs and pump overs for about two weeks before the must was pressed to cement vats where it matured between 10 to 12 months before being bottled. Kermit Lynch has some great partnerships in the Rhône Valley, with long ties to Daniel Brunier of Vieux Telegraphe, with their Domaine Les Pallieres in Gigondas being the jewell, as well with Louis Barruol of Château de Saint Cosme, he is very experienced with the Southern Rhône’s terroirs and most elite wines, all of which goes into his other projects like this one. The Les Vignerons D’ Estézargues is a co-operative cellar in the small town of Estézargues, very close to Avignon, which uniquely works exclusively with organic growers and makes very natural, low intervention wines that are indigenous yeast fermented, see almost no additives, except for a touch of SO2 and mainly bottled unfiltered and unfined. This was all key to getting Kermit’s attention and the wines, especially this one, are superb, transparent and solid choices.
($20 Est.) 90 Points, grapelive