Pick My Next Bottle – The Wines of Christophe Baron and Elizabeth Bourcier

The March installment of Pick My Next Bottle focuses on the wines of Christophe Baron and Elizabeth Bourcier. The Cayuse Release Party is a little over a week out and I thought I would prep for the event with a bottle of La Rata, Cayuse or No Girls.

As I mentioned in the first installment, the purpose of this series is to provide insight into specific wines or producers you may currently have in your cellar. The winning bottle will be opened this Saturday and a Bottle Note will be published the following week.

The wines I have chosen are all from the 2015 vintage and should just be showing well now despite the challenging vintage. Elizabeth Bourcier now makes all the wines in the Bionic Wines Portfolio and La Rata, of course, is her stand alone label. Elizabeth has also been the vigneron since the inaugural vintage of No Girls. In 2015 Christophe was still making Cayuse.

The Contenders

• 2015 La Rata – The 2015 La Rata is beautiful stuff and checks in as 54% Grenache, 36% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 10% Syrah (2014 was the first vintage where she added Syrah to the blend) brought up in mostly neutral, larger barrels. It’s very much in the style of all of Elizabeth’s wines and has a medium ruby, translucent color and a beautiful perfume of ripe raspberries, strawberries, green tobacco, green olives, and rose petals. Seamless, medium-bodied, incredibly elegant, and yet always with intensity and length, drink it over the coming 7-8 years. 94 points from Jeb Dunnuck.
• 2015 Cayuse God Only Knows –  The 2015 Grenache God Only Knows Armada Vineyard is superb, wafting from the glass with a bouquet of kaleidoscopic complexity that features aromas of rose hips and peony, ripe cherries and orange rind, mingled with savory bass notes of garrigue, licorice and bay leaf. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, layered and expansive, with a deep core of fruit framed by very fine-grained, velvety tannins, concluding with a sapid, even saline finish. Its concentration without weight, as well as its striking aromatic amplitude, mark it out as one of the finest expressions of Grenache to be found in the United States.  97 points from the Wine Advocate.
• 2015 No Girls Tempranillo – Offering up aromas of cassis, dried berries, candied peel, panforte, raw cocoa and baked earth, the 2015 Tempranillo la Paciencia has already integrated its 30% new oak. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, seamless and layered, with a deep core of savory fruit and a structuring chassis of rich, fine-grained tannins and a mouthwateringly stony finish. 94 points from the Wine Advocate.

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Thanks for voting! I’d love to see a comment below on why you picked one bottle over another and let me know if you will be at Cayuse Release Party.

Also, let me know if you have any suggestions for the April Installment of Pick My Next Bottle.