Domaine De La Roubine 2021 New Arrivals

Eric Ugghetto used to fight fires in Paris. His wife Sophie used to be a welder. In 2000 they returned home to Gigondas in the southern Rhone to take over the family’s gnarly old vine plots in Vacqueyras, Sablet and of course, Gigondas.

They are salt of the earth type people; welcoming and self-effacing, quietly confident and comfortable in the way they tend their vineyards (no pesticides, no herbicides, certified organic) as well as their authentic and disarming style of the wines. These are people and wines that remind me that France still holds so many wine treasures beyond the palaver and egos of Burgundy, Bordeaux and their ilk.

Here, you can still breath in the garrigue covered hills when you get out of the car but then smell it again when you stick your nose in the glass, or glance at the granite jags in the nearby Dentelles du Montmirial mountains and feel that coolness and mineral drive as the wines travel across the palate. Here, it’s still possible to glimpse the concept of terroir in all its glory.

Roubine’s vineyards are mostly on the northern side – read cooler - and under the limestone cliffs of the Dentelles de Montmirial. Gigondas and Vacqueyras share a similar soil profile with lots of clay giving the finished wines a rounder, slippery, plush texture and the limestone gives heightened florals and energy. They’re two superb examples of the wines from these locales.

In Sablet (a perennial every PWS staff member), the profile turns to more sandstone and pure sand. This accentuates more structure and muscle but also the aromatics range from florals and herbs through to hung meat and charcutuerie. It’s a more swashbuckling style that reflects the openness of the people and the country. Not simple though, more an openness and rusticity in the best sense. I love it.

Ughetto keeps winemaking fairly simple. Alcoholic fermentation is in concrete and whole bunch is prevalent across the crus. So too is some post fermentation maceration to elongate and calm the tannin profile. After that, it’s straight into wooden vat (never small new wood) and, voila, that’s it.

It’s this simplicity in the methodology as well as the primacy and quality of the fruit that is the main driver of wines here and that’s what you feel in each wine. Each is subtly different to the other (as you would expect) but all share a wonderful openness and disarming quality. I might also say, they all highlight the greatness of grenache as translator of soil and site. Immediacy, aromatic purity and nuance but also texture and chew on the palate.

As you can probably get by now, I love these wines and although they’ve never been easy to sell – something none of us can understand – they are amongst the best wines we import. They are a time capsule of a style of French wines that eloquently communicate terroir and the agricultural underpinnings and geology of a place. They were once everywhere but these days they can only be found in the less fashionable districts of the French wine landscape. Long may it be so!

Cheers

Michael