“A selection of the best parcels, the Le Clos is quite possibly the finest wine I’ve tasted from this estate.” – Jeb Dunnuck

Agreed!

Yet we could just say a legit $130 cult red with 94 points down to $29 and call it a day.

For math fiends, that’s $101 in your pocket, after monstrous savings of almost 80% off.

Still, how unfair is it to the rest of the wine world to boast such vineyards and a winery right ON the Mediterranean in the south of France?! What other low-hanging grapes can watch idyllic sunsets or yachts sailing by all day? Even the best terroirs up north in Châteauneuf-du-Pape must be jelly…

As Wine Advocate acutely points out, “A relatively new project that was founded in 2008, Clos Saint Sébastien comprises 20 hectares of steep schist hillsides overlooking the Mediterranean. That’s not to say the team of proprietor Jacques Piriou and technical director Romuald Peronne started completely from scratch - these hillsides have been home to grapevines for centuries. But through investment and hard work, they have been able to produce wines of remarkable refinement, combining richness with freshness, power with elegance. With a remarkably consistent climate and stable team at the helm, these are wines to seek out year after year.”

Jeb Dunnuck adds, “The progress made by Clos Saint Sébastien in recent years is truly remarkable. Located in Banyuls and originally founded by Jacques Piriou, a wine enthusiast who ran a shipyard, the estate was taken over in 2008 by Romuald Peronne, the grandson of a winegrower and a trained agricultural engineer and oenologist. Today, the wines offer a true and complex interpretation of this steep and demanding terroir, partly planted “en échalas,” meaning on stakes like in the Northern Rhône Valley. These wines shine with precision.”

And shine it does. In all its GSM blend splendor, it masterfully occupies a sweet spot, not baked by the sun, thanks to the cooler vintage and sea breezes that bring in minerality, salinity, and complexity. As Agent Somm describes it best, “we’re talking red and dark fruits, juicy, earthiness, savoriness, a touch of spice…” It’s got it all. There’s NO WAY you can get that from elsewhere under $30… or even at that full retail of $130 if you didn’t have your eyes on Wine Spies today.

But perhaps it’s Decanter that puts it best, “This is Collioure, in all its astonishment and difficulty. It could be a little mountain Burgundy of the south – or perhaps France’s miniature Etna. Its main grape variety, Grenache, is the Pinot of hot places: pale, delicate, nuanced and subtle, capable of casting spells with its perfumed twill of dappled acidity and tender tannin. If you want ‘saline’, if you want ‘stone’, your tongue will find them in white Collioure; they rival the reds in force and beauty of expression. The hills are hammered and squeezed into a series of schist amphitheaters: beckoning nuance, intimating wealth of expression. And all… still hidden. Peronne is energetic, a bull on a charge, though his wines have finesse. Many of the other growers in Collioure are poets of labour, theologians of stone, working as if awed and humbled by the landscape in which they find themselves.”

How can you blame them? Just Google Collioure!

But do it after you stash some away, there’s only so much to be had.

94 Points – James Suckling “A refined, textural and elegant red with aromas of cherries, plums, warm herbs and baking spices. It’s medium-bodied with finely grained tannins. Such a delicate texture, silky and precise, yet it has plenty of volume and power in a seductive mid-palate. Succulent and lively, bright toward the finish, with juicy sour berries and spices mingling around. Peppery and long. Drink or hold.”