Description
Château Simone, Palette Rouge
“This wine seems to gain intelligence and complexity as hours pass by and every mineral-filled sip lingers for 30+ seconds. Although bursting with opulence and a distinct sauvage character right now, I cannot wait to see what lies down the road.” That quote was pulled from last year’s offering of Château Simone’s 2015 Palette Rouge, a red poised to be one of their greatest bottlings in recent history. And yet, we’re even more excited about today’s rare opportunity: By way of an exclusive, hard-fought deal with their importer, we emerged with the last 18 cases of Château Simone’s 2011 Rouge. You’ve tasted one at five years old, now you have a limited chance to taste one in its 10th year.
These wines, with age, are among the most savory and enchanting “Old World” experiences imaginable—they’re region-defining, incomparable in taste, and their cellar life is practically unrivaled. By combining ancient vines (some of which are considered to be the oldest in France), sorcerous blending skills, and maturation in a hand-dug, 16th-century cellar, today’s flagship red simultaneously captures the most alluring qualities of perfectly evolved Bordeaux, Rhône, and Burgundy. Right now, this stunning 10-year-old rouge is sublime, earthy, smoky, highly perfumed—one can only imagine what it’ll reveal in another 10!
Owned by the Rougier family since 1830, the property clings to a single hillside in Montaiguet, a small hamlet just east of Aix-en-Provence, 20 miles north of Marseille. The appellation that encompasses this village is Palette AOC, and even as a small independent producer, Château Simone produces a majority of the wine labeled within the designation. To the naked eye, Château Simone appears to be a classic family-run estate, but it’s impossible to begin discussing the property without immediately diving into the myriad qualities that make this one of the most distinctive estates in France.
The first and perhaps most shocking feature about the Rougier family’s vines is that they are north—yes, north—facing. Château Simone’s vines hug a 750-foot limestone face that is angled away from the sun. This is unusual, but it allows the vines to retain their freshness, despite the region’s fierce heat. It is one of the very few north-facing vineyards I’ve ever seen that produces world-class wine. Next, there is a shocking diversity of grape varieties present in these ancient vines. Château Simone sits directly between Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Bandol, so it’s unsurprising to see standards like Grenache, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Syrah, and Carignan—but if you look a little closer in the vineyard, you will discover Cabernet Sauvignon, Manosquin, Castet, Muscat Noir, Théoulier, Tibouren, Picpoul Noir, Muscat de Hambourg, and many others. Finally, the character of Château Simone’s wines is perhaps what is most unique for sommeliers and collectors. Despite Provence’s long and sometimes punishingly hot growing season, Château Simone does not produce heavy or overpowering wines. On the contrary, the Rougier family is renowned for bottling beautifully elegant, floral, and aromatic reds that caress and finesse the palate rather than hammer it with alcohol and extract. This is a Provençal Grand Cru for lovers of traditional Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Piedmont!
Château Simone’s colorful palette of grapes are harvested by hand, de-stemmed, and lightly pressed before fermentation. An indigenous-yeast fermentation lasts for several weeks in wooden vats and the resulting wine is racked into large oak foudres to rest on lees. After one year, the wine is decanted once more into older barriques, where it rests for an additional year before being bottled. The freshly bottled wine then matures for another year before leaving their cellar. All told, the entire process takes nearly four years before release into the US market! In our experience with Château Simone, the wines often require even more time in bottle before fully exhibiting the singular qualities that made them iconic.
As I write this, a half-drank glass of Simone’s 2011 Rouge is at-the-ready, and I’m eager to dive into the rest of it so apologies if this review is shorter than most. This is overflowing with the dried and generous red berry fruit of Grenache; the smoky, meat, earthy profile of Mourvèdre; the playful freshness of Cinsault; and myriad other nuances from the remaining grapes—not to mention the savory, secondary qualities (tobacco, leather, potpourri, truffle, sous bois) that comes with 10 years of age. Even still, the wine needs a minimum 60-minute decant to shed a bit of rusticity and a thin layer of “dust” from a decade of undisturbed rest before it displays a beautiful stream of complex red and black wild berries. Overall, it’s a savory and elegant tour de force with multiple dimensions of dried fruit, crushed minerals, and southern France’s signature sauvage note. If you’re at all interested in the evolution of a flagship red from one of France’s most iconic, if not slept-on, estates, this is your one and only shot. Enjoy!
