Châteauneuf. Luxury cuvée. Made by Cambie. From the wonderful 2016 vintage. Just $33!

Last time we featured a wine with similar specs, for a higher price, our server barely handled the crush of traffic.

Our trusted source Jeb Dunnuck raves “The 2016 vintage was truly extraordinary for the Southern Rhône and is a vintage that readers should buy with abandon. This is the greatest young vintage from the Southern Rhône Valley I’ve ever tasted, both in terms of quality as well as consistency. I’ve never seen so many traditional cuvées achieve such high quality nor so many estates produce such truly extraordinary wines… While these are ripe, concentrated, and exuberant wines, they also show an incredible purity of fruit as well as weightless, sensationally balanced profiles on the palate. They are complex, powerful wines that satisfy both the intellectual and the hedonistic parts of the brain… you will want these wines in your cellar… these wines are not going to last long.”

Moderately dark ruby/purple color, with crimson highlights, the nose opens with notes of red currants, licorice, truffle, and sweet cherry intermixed with crushed rock and flowers following suit. Beautifully broad on the palate, savory, and exceptionally well-delineated and focused, as fresh mushrooms, and plenty of raspberry fruit build to a long finale. Roasted poultry, game, cheese and charcuterie platters, just to name a few pairing ideas, would go ideal with this superbly balanced Châteauneuf.

Well, the ubiquitous consultant extraordinaire Philippe Cambie is the tour de force behind this blockbuster.

From Clos Saint Jean in the south to Jamet in the north to his collaboration with Manfred Krankl of Sine Qua Non in California, the man has been there, done that, catapulting near-forgotten properties to the TOP of the list. He’s been at the helm here at the historic Château Cabrières since 2010 the year that Robert Parker declared him the #1 winemaker he is.

At $60, this 100% single-vineyard collectible is a standout. At nearly half off, it’s irresistible MADNESS. Named after the unique lighter colored quartzy flint called ‘silex’ found only in top vineyards across France, which is abundant in this plot and evidently carries into the wine’s rich, mineral-driven core.

No press on this one. None. That’s precisely how we can offer it for this price, as it would have long vanished if Jeb went back to the Château to visit and rate the bottled goods after a barrel sample. At that time however he raved about even the entry-level cuvée as; “the finest wine I’ve tasted from this estate in some time… full-bodied, rounded, yet surprisingly finesse-driven style on the palate. It will certainly be outstanding and could be a real blockbuster once in bottle.”

And no doubt it did. This, is a cut above that one. Won’t last!