Chateau de Saint Cosme
Valbelle
Gigondas
2009

The producer

Having produced wine, and been in the hands of the Barroul family, since the 15^th century, the modern history of Chateau de Saint Cosme doesn’t start until 1992, when Louis Barruol takes control and they start bottling their own wine.

The estate – today with 15 hectares of very old vineyards all surrounding the chateau – produces wines that have transformed the appellation. Saint Cosme makes four single vineyard wines in Gigondas – Valbelle, Le Claux, Hominis Fides and Le Poste - all reflecting different parts and soils on the estate and offering an extraordinary reflection on the complexity and beauty of the best of Gigondas. Valbelle and Hominis Fidis fruit is grown in sand and limestone soils whereas Le Claux is from centenarian vines in gravel and clay soil, and Le Poste from 50-year-old vines in limestone and marl soil.

Chateau de Saint-Cosme also runs a negociant business, making wine from other parts of the Rhone Valley, from purchased fruit. These are labelled “Saint Cosme” or “Domaine Saint-Cosme”.

The wine

One of Saint Cosme’s single vineyard wines, Valbelle was the first of those wines, first produced in 1993. Valbelle is made from 90% very old Grenache plantings from sand and limestone soils, complemented by 10% Syrah. The fruit is co-fermented and following aged for 12 months in casks, 20% of which are usually new. Layers of raspberry concentration with complex all spice, pepper and cured meat notes, the palate is generous and full with firm structure.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.