In the Northern Rhône, 2015 will go down as one of the great vintages of our time.
 
John Livingstone-Learmonth compares it to 1947. Having participated in every Côte Rôtie vintage since 1961, Marcel Guigal says 2015 is "surely the wine of a lifetime ... on the level of 1929, 1947, 1961."
 
Young Julien Barge made the most of this great year. Just three years after succeeding his legendary father Gilles, Julien crafted wines that rival anything ever made in the long history of this Côte Rôtie dynasty. They promise to become mythic.
 
Our unique relationship with the domaine gave us access to the iconic Côte Brune and the sublime Cuvée du Plessy at low ex-cellar prices. 
 
Back Story
Since 1929, when they became the first Côte Rôtie growers to sell domaine-bottled wine, the Barge family have been dedicated to the canon of traditionalism: long fermentations, skillful use of whole-clusters, gentle extractions and aging in largely neutral barrels, including demi-muids, Côte Rôtie’s ideal vessel.
 
And since 1979, they have been standard-bearers for how one makes Côte Rôties of great purity and expression from both individual sites as well as blends from multiple lieux-dits.
 
Cuvée du Plessy is the family’s homage to traditionally blended Côte Rôtie, named for vineyard owner Joseph du Plessy, with whom Barge has collaborated since 1978. A marriage of fruit from the Côte Blonde, Lancement, Janet and Baleyat lieux-dits in Côte Rôtie’s historic heart, the 2015 is an ideal combination of structure and complexity.
 
From the beginning, the family’s crown jewel has been the Côte Brune lieu-dit, whose vines of 40 to 60 years of age are planted in the brown schist soils of Côte Brune’s steep upper slope. In 2015 only 400 cases were produced of this magical expression of the Brune vineyard's power.
 
With the 2015 vintage set to go into the history books as one of the greatest Côte Rôtie harvests ever, you won’t want to miss this opportunity to acquire two of its most compelling wines.