2015 Pierre Usseglio pre-shipment offer
'This was another sensational tasting with brothers Jean-Pierre and Thierry Usseglio, and this estate has been on a hot streak over the past two decades' - Jeb Dunnuck, robertparker.com
We visited in November last year and met the two generations of Usseglio a week after they had made the final blend of their wines. They were aiming to do the bottling in January or February so the finished wines will be resting now in their cellars. The Usseglios are proudly descended from early 20th century itinerant Italian farmworkers and built their enterprise from scratch, so their parcels of vines are scattered across the region and they have all the soil types available, so plenty of galets roulés, which is the classic rolled stone scenery, but a lot of vines on sand and - crucially - limestone, which provides freshness.
The Usseglios don't prune incredibly hard but do an early summer green harvest, normally leaving only 6-8 small bunches on each vine. They farm as sustainably as possible. All the picking is done by hand and they do a lot of sorting manually too. The pickers are trained to discard unhealthy looking fruit, a more detailed inspection takes place on the tractor and a final triage is performed at cellar reception. Once fermented the wines mature in a mix of mostly concrete or large old foudres for the Grenache, with a certain amount of smaller barrels for Syrah and Mourvedre.
The 2015s here were quite something. Jeb Dunnuck of robertparker.com uses the word sensational several times and that's no exaggeration. The Chateauneuf is aromatically rich and complex and has outstanding shape and texture in the mouth; it would be a great wine in any context and - as Dunnuck says - a no-brainer case purchase. But the 'reserve' bottlings are exceptional, both the Mon Aieul and Reserve des Deux Freres quite outstanding. The Mon Aieul has genuine old vine intensity with vivid freshness and very long with melting tannins. The Deux Freres is more structured and does see a touch of new oak but that is integrated, it is full-bodied and richly flavoured and again finishes very long. /CW
Offered subject to remaining unsold; available autumn 2017
