2017 | Louis Barruol | Cote Rotie La Doree

It smells like a lamb steak cooked over wood and barded with resinous herbs, though there’s fruit, too, plummy and rich.

Producer Information

It was the most frantic year of Louis Barruol’s life. In 1992, he was 23, and pursuing an MBA in Paris, far from his home in the Southern Rhône Valley town of Gigondas. But his father, Henri, who had managed their family winery, Château de St.-Cosme, for 35 years, had suffered a stroke two years earlier and could no longer do the job. The economy was in a slump, and prices for bulk wines like the ones St.-Cosme produced had crashed. “I had to take over,” says Louis. “I had wanted to finish school and take a few years to travel and try things. A couple more years, and we might have been bankrupt.” He quickly shifted how his father’s team worked in the vineyards, changed the aging regimen in the cellars, and began bottling St.-Cosme’s wines. He hustled to sell them in France and abroad and also managed to earn his degree by commuting weekly between Paris and Gigondas for a year. “It was difficult—there were so many things I did not know,” he says. “It was great!” Barruol loves a challenge. Fast-forward to 2013 and he can be proud of what he has accomplished so far: He has transformed St.-Cosme from an anonymous bulk-wine source to the top winery in Gigondas, and arguably into one of the best estates in the Southern Rhône. Building on his father’s work, he has allowed his vineyards to sing. In the cellars, he has not been afraid to innovate, incorporating ideas from other regions. And at age 44, he has plenty of time to build on his projects outside of Gigondas, with wines from the Northern Rhône, neighboring districts in the Southern Rhône and even New York’s Finger Lakes region.

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