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Rhone 2015 EP offer... at last!

It's a little overdue, I know, but I hope people will find it worthwhile. There are some usual suspects on the list and a couple of new faces.

On my annual jaunt to Canterbury at the end of April, a small group of tasters sampled the 2015 Brusset 'Esprit de Papet' and Raymond Usseglio's 2015 Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Both were enthusiastically received (and purchased in surprisingly large quantities).

Then, last week, Jancis Robinson published her reviews of the new releases from Chateau Juvenal, one of the rising stars of the Ventoux. Needless to say, she loved the four wines she tasted.

Now, to add to these three names - and to the wines of Chateau de Beaucastel/Famille Perrin which were first offered last November - we have some new names to add to the list:

Pierre Gaillard is a winemaker based at Malleval in the northern Rhone. His first vineyard was St Joseph 'Clos de Cuminaille', a wine we sold when we started the business. We are thrilled to have it back, especially in a vintage such as 2015. I spent well over two hours tasting with Pierre on a warm Good Friday afternoon and enjoyed every single wine he showed me. It became difficult to decide which wines to leave out of the offer! Even so, we have list 9 wines from Pierre's northern Rhone portfolio so please check out the list to see what we selected.

Pierre also owns an estate in Roussillon where he produces Collioure red (we are offering two cuvees, the classic blend 'Magenta' and the Mourvedre-rich 'Crestall') and white and some stunning Banyuls. I urge anyone who enjoys these wines to check them out, especially the Hors d'Age 'Solera'.

Finally, I am really pleased to have met Jean Steinmeier of Domaine Ste-Anne in St-Gervais on my last trip. I have been visiting there as a tourist for well over a decade but now we get to list these excellent wines, a lovely, fragrant Cotes du Rhone Blanc, an all too drinkable Villages wine called 'Notre Dame des Cellettes' and two special cuvees, the Mourvedre-dominated 'Rouvieres' and the pure Syrah 'Mourillons' which is oak-aged.

For us, this is the most interesting Rhone offer for a few years, albeit a fairly small one but the range of styles has expanded quite considerably. We hope our customers will enjoy discovering them as much as we have.

The pdf is here - and you can simply click on the wine to learn more or to buy the wine (or, of course, you can email or phone with your order).

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