Liveblogging Noah Earle; '07 St. Cosme Cotes-du-Rhone

Noah Earle is finishing up the night for the BlueBird Festival here at Top Ten. He has something of a cult following around town and from the music he's making I can certainly understand why. He's very folksy and expressive and the acoustics here are excellent.

Paul pointed me to the 2007 Cotes-du-Rhone from Saint Cosme ($17), a 100% syrah wine made for the Gigondas firm of Louis and Cherry Barruol. The grapes for the 2006 vintage were mostly declassified Gigondas fruit, with some fruit from Vinsobres and Rasteau. To my knowledge the 2007 blend is the same. Parker is a big fan of Louis Barruol, a winemaker/negociant who learned winemaking at university and in his father's business. The Barruol wines are fairly sought after, typically being made from fruit culled from old vines, with long macerations, barrel fermentations, and bottling unfiltered.

That being said, the wine is really excellent. It's chewy and soft and really aromatic, with a lot of dense black fruit. Parker gives a 90 and I can see why; I think it's as good as most of the wine in the region and should be able to stand up to most of the wines of Chateauneuf, etc.

We'll be tasting a bunch of Rhones on Thursday, the 20th; I know there's some Cote-Rotie and Chateauneufs in the lineup. Paul's particularly excited about the wines from Domaine de la Mordoree. Hope you can make it!