Tag Archives: Little James’ Basket Press

Wine of the week: Little James’ Basket Press Sauvignon Viognier 2015

Little James’ Basket Press Sauvignon Viognier Little James’ Basket Press Sauvignon Viognier, a French white blend, offers value and quality, plus crisp, fresh fruit

The Little James’ Basket Press Sauvignon Viognier 2015 isn’t quite as spectacular as the same producer’s non-vintage red blend used to be (and which is now a shadow of its former self). But the white remains well made, affordable, and full of value in this age of overpriced and underperforming wine.

The Little James’ Basket Press Sauvignon Viognier ($12, purchased, 12.5%) is made by Chateau de Saint Cosme, a top-flight Rhone producer that seemed to understand great cheap wine better than most. The red and white made the Hall of Fame for a couple of years, but we all know that things happen in the wine business. In this case, it was a new importer, and the red turned into something only a focus group could love.

But the white remains fresh, crisp, and fruity (as well as available after going missing in this part of the country for a couple of years). Look for grapefruit and a little minerality from the sauvignon blanc, balanced by ripe apricot fruit from the viognier. It’s a spring and summer wine, pairing with almost anything on the grill that isn’t hamburgers. In this, it’s better made than most of its grocery store contemporaries and worth the extra couple of bucks that it .

Wine of the week: Little James’ Basket Press Red NV

Little James Basket Press RedThe blog’s seventh annual birthday week begins on Monday, so what better preview for all the fun than Little James’ Basket Press Red ($10, purchased, 13.5%)? This is cheap French red wine that does everything that great cheap wine should do:

? Varietally correct. This is a red Rhone blend with lots of Rhone-style red fruit, It’s made with grenache, which seems to take on a different life every time I review it. This year, it was sweet cherries, and much less dark than last year. And it’s even different from the review two years ago.

? Tasty. The bottle was empty before dinner was over, which has turned out to be the best way to determine how much I like a wine. It’s not as spicy as years past and the funky aroma is fading, but the tannins and acid still balance the fruit. Think steak frites.

? Unpretentious. That means a screwcap, a clever front label, and a weird tasting note on the back label with the phrase “irresistible crunchy fruit.” I have no idea what that means, but it’s still infinitely better than the usual junk that passes for back label tasting notes.

? Non-vintage. The key to the Little James is a solera, in which old wine is mixed with new wine and vintage doesn’t matter. In fact, for a cheap wine, this often adds complexity that the wine wouldn’t have.

Highly recommended, and certain to return to the $10 Hall of Fame next year. The only drawback? The importer has been sold, and I’ve had difficulty finding the wine in Dallas. Thanks, three-tier system.

Wine of the week: Little James’ Basket Press NV

Here ?s a challenge to the California wine business, and especially those who think the Wine Curmudgeon is too hard on it. Use your incredible resources and talent to make a wine like this ? a non-vintage red ? instead of the buckets and buckets of boring, fruit-juice grocery store plonk that you do make.

Because this French effort is not just a great cheap wine, but a great wine. As the guy at the store said to me when I bought it: ?This may be the best bottle we have, ? and his store has bottles that cost hundreds and thousands of dollars.

The point is not that California can ?t make a wine as interesting and delicious as the Little James ($10, purchased, 13.5%). Regardless of anything else, California is probably the world ?s pre-eminent wine region ? the best weather, the best winemakers, the most money to spend. Rather, it ?s that it has spent so much effort training consumers to buy wine with the name of the grape and a vintage on the label that it can ?t conceive of anything else. If it doesn ?t say Merlot 2012, no one knows what to do.

But they should. The Little James comes from a top-notch Rhone producer that mixes wine made with old grapes and wine made from current vintage fruit. The result is a $10 Hall of Fame wine: Classic Rhone barnyard aromas, red grenache fruit, some spiciness, and more tannin and acid than I expected — a rough, though not unpleasant, peasant finish that speaks to a more traditional style of winemaking. A food wine for barbecue and burgers; highly recommended.

Wine of the week: Little James’ Basket Press NV

This bottle could well be the future of the much-troubled French wine business. If so, the future may not be as dire as so many fear.

The Little James ($12, purchased) is a red blend made by Chateau de Saint-Cosme, a 450-year-old Rhone producer whose offerings include several $100, high-score wines. It ?s not exactly like Silver Oak or Screaming Eagle doing a $12 wine, but it ?s close enough.

How do they do it? By mixing current vintage wine with older wine, which is less expensive than using all current vintage juice. This version of the Little James is about half from 2011, and the rest comes from wine as old as the 1999 vintage.

Why do they do it? Because the French wine market, save for the most expensive wines, has been slowly vanishing for the past two decades. There are dozens of reasons, but the main one is that the rest of the world makes cheap wine just as well, if not better, than the French, and their unsold wine sits on store shelves or in warehouse vats until it ?s thrown out.

The Little James is part of the attempt to recapture that market. It ?s 100 percent grenache, a sturdy Rhone grape, and it smells and tastes of the Rhone. There is barnyard and bacon fat on the nose, and earthy, black fruit that gives way to a darkish finish. All in all, it ?s an impressive effort that would pair with pizza, roast chicken, and almost anything with roasted mushrooms. It ?s certainly not what I expected given the cutesy label and name (and a tip o ? the Curmudgeon ?s fedora to Eddie Eakin at Dallas ? Veritas, who told me about this).

One caveat: Prices for the Little James are all over the place; I ?ve seen it for as little as $10, and as much as $17. At $17, it ?s not that great a value, and I suspect those retailers are trying to capitalize on St. Cosme ?s reputation.