Teresa and I got an e-mail from our friend and Words & Wine business partner Raphael Pommier (Rachel's other half and the seventh-generation French winemaker who runs Notre Dame de Cousignac) and let us know that one of his Notre Dame de Cousignac wine was finally available in California, at Bevmo! of all places.We'd been able to find only one or two Notre Dame de Cousignac wines here in the U.S. for a little while (a wine shop in New York carried his rose, one of our favorite wines) but in the last couple of years, the only way to get Notre Dame de Cousignac wine was to smuggle a few bottles over yourself from one of our Words & Wine trips. Well, not anymore!
Raphael's 2007 Notre Dame de Cousignac Cote du Vivarais red wine (Cote du Vivarais is a smaller AOC appellation within the larger Cote du Rhone AOC appellation) has been picked up by Bevmo! and you can now currently buy it, whether you live in California or not!
All you need to do is go to Bevmo's website and search for "Notre Dame de Cousignac" (or just search for "Notre Dame" if you're lazy like me; it's the only entry under either query). Then, if you live in California, you can select your closest Bevmo store and order it online for pick-up. The site will even show you how many bottles are left at that particular Bevmo! (Teresa and I happened to pick up the last two bottles in the Brea store -- when we asked for more, the assistant manager said it was "flying off the shelves" -- and Brea now shows no more bottles left; sorry folks in the greater Brea area). If you're not in California, you can select to have the wine shipped to you in your particular state, and they will do so. It's like magic, only better, because it involves wine.
Anyway, please do your part to help support Rachel & Raphael and Notre Dame de Cousignac by buying up as many bottles of Notre Dame de Cousignac as you can find. If we can show Bevmo! that there's a demand out here for Notre Dame de Cousignac wine, they'll buy more from Raphael's distributor and potentially bring out more of Cousignac wines (including hopefully their outstanding and delicious rose). And that will make everyone happy.
Speaking of roses, for those of you who came on our 2006 Words & Wine trip, you'll remember one of our winery stops was at Gassier in the Coteaux de Provence region, where we met their winemaker Julian and he gave us some flip-flop stickers they were planning on using on one of their wines. You may also remember that we commented that they absolutely needed to call the rose "Flip-Flop wine" and Julian hemmed and hawed about that. Well, take a look at what we found at Bevmo! one shelf away from the Notre Dame de Cousginac wines:
Yep, that's a 2008 Gassier Flip-Flops Rose right there. Just like we named it. Apparently they decided to go with that name AND bring it to America, just like we told them to do (we must have been the ideal focus group for them). But we're still waiting for our royalties from our work naming the wine (we'd be happy to take them in Flip-Flop Rose) and expect to hear from them any day now.In the meantime, we picked up a couple of bottles of that and recommend that you do as well, as it's super tasty and you'll really enjoy it, even as the weather gets colder and we move further and further away from rose season (do yourself a favor and pick up a case for next spring and summer; you won't be disappointed. Trust us). Same drill as before: go to Bevmo.com and search "Gassier" and select whether you want to pick it up or have it delivered to you.
So that's your wine update for now, but we'll have another update later this week, some big, big news about our upcoming Words & Wine/Forgotten Grapes wine tasting weekend to Santa Barbara and Paso Robles in April. Be prepared, because we'll have all the information you need about the itinerary, pricing, and how you can join us on this can't-miss Forgotten Grape weekend.
Until then, don't forget to pick up your Cousignac wine!
