Wine of the week: La Vieille Ferme Rouge 2019

The 2019 version of the red version of France’s La Vieille Ferme is about more than nostalgia

Long before I started writing about wine, I bought wine. And Rich Liebman sold me a lot of that, at the old Greenville Avenue Goody Goody in Dallas. There was South Africa’s KWV (which, if nothing else, was cheap). There were the 1.5-liter bottles of Fetzer chardonnay and merlot, which passed for high-end drinking at my house.

And there was La Vieille Ferme.

In those days, La Vieille was rough, tart, and often unripe – in other words, what most of us thought French wine should taste like. Rich loved the red, which never did much for me, though I sometimes bought the white (and I don’t remember his store carrying the rose).

So this Birthday Week wine of the week is for Rich, a long-time supporter of the blog. That’s because the La Vieille Ferme Rouge 2019 ($10, purchased, 13%) is nothing like what it was in the old days. This vintage of the red blend is the best I’ve tasted in years. It’s still a little rough and tannic, but in a good way, so that you’ll know the minute you taste it that no one at the winery intended for it to be smoooth. Look for black fruit that is not especially tart or green, and a more than decent “this doesn’t taste like cheap wine” finish.

Will it end up in the Hall of Fame in January? Maybe. It’s that much improved. Regardless, though, I’ll always think of buying wine from Rich when I drink it. Which isn’t a bad legacy for a wine, either.

Imported by Vineyard Brands