A Perennial Underappreciated Northern Rhône

Just about every major wine reviewer out there has nothing but praise for Jérôme Coursodon and his incredible Syrahs from France’s esteemed Northern Rhône region, especially his prices compared to his peers.

Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, for example:

“Arriving in the village of Mauves from the south, one first passes Domaine Pierre Gonon, then Jean-Louis Chave and finally Coursodon, all within a few hundred yards of each other. It’s a stellar trio of vignerons to be sure, with Jerome Coursodon not at the same level of stardom as the others, but he’s not too far behind, either. For consumers, it’s a good opportunity to purchase some top-flight Saint-Josephs before price escalation sets in.”

Jeb Dunnuck agrees:

“I’ve raved about the quality coming from this estate in the past, and the young Jerome Coursodon continues to deliver the goods in every vintage. All of his wines come from steep, east, and south-facing, granite soils located outside the village of Mauves, in the southern part of the Saint Joseph appellation.” 

As does the team at Vinous:

 “This 16-hectare domaine, whose holdings are centered in the highly desired granitic soils of Mauves, has a fiercely loyal European clientele that always snatches up their user-friendly but stealthily age-worthy wines as soon as they are offered, meaning that the Coursodons are often sold out of everything just a couple of months after release. These wines deserve to be better known.” 

At Mission, we’re suckers for the Syrahs of the Northern Rhône with their meatiness and subtle smoke, their violets and their dark-fruited elegance. We’re also used to paying $100 or more for that experience.

Which is why paying $49.99 for an outstanding specimen of Northern Rhône’s true character is such a big deal (hence, why we’re sending you this email. 

Jerome’s grandfather Gustav was one of the leaders who organized the St. Joseph appellation in the 1950’s. Domaine Coursodon has been at the forefront of the region’s qualitative standardization since its inception, yet its wines are still not as well known as its neighbors. That’s a good thing for your cellar and your wallet.

2020 Domaine Coursodon L’Olivaie St. Joseph $49.99

95 POINTS: VINOUS - The style of Saint-Josephs at Domaine Coursodon ranges widely across bottlings, from the vibrant, up-front and fruit-driven Silice to the often lavishly oaked and age-worthy La Sensonne. Relative to his peers, Jérome Coursodon bottles on the early side because he thinks it preserves freshness and helps ensure the wines’ age-worthiness. I can vouch that bottles with ten to fifteen years of age on them drink exceedingly well, so it's hard to fault his logic and practices. Inky magenta. Heady aromas of fresh black and blue fruits, incense, exotic spices, violet and olive paste. Densely packed and energetic on the palate, offering intense dark berry preserve, cherry-cola, floral pastille and salty olive flavors, plus a hint of minerality and building spiciness. Finishes subtly chewy, focused and impressively long, with well-knit tannins adding grip to echoing dark fruit and floral notes. 

Elsewhere $300+!!!!

Combining Masterful Blending with Daring Design, Grab These Stunning Editions of 21 Year Blended Scotch Whisky for a $70 Discount

Chivas’ Royal Salute 21 year old—an homage to the royal family—has long been an elite staple of the blended Scotch whisky world. When the house recently launched its limited edition collaboration with designer Richard Quinn in stunning porcelain flagon, master blended Sandy Hyslop used the design as an inspiration for a new blend, offering elegance and richness with floral notes and candied fruit on the finish. 

To be clear, this is NOT the standard Royal Salute 21 year in a fancy bottle. It’s an entirely new and bespoke blend of 31 different single malts—each over 21 years of age—along with grains of the same heritage. 

Rich and fruity overlaid with notes of red apples and peaches, combined with creamy crème brulée, hazelnut chocolate, zest of orange and distinct floral notes, the palate is a masterpiece of indulgent apricot and mango notes, followed by vanilla, chocolate and ginger spice.

GIven that most stores are selling these outstanding whiskies at $300 and above, take advantage of our low price of $229.95 while we still have bottles to sell!

Chivas Royal Salute Richard Quin Orange Roses Fashion Edition II 21 Year Old $229.95

Chivas Royal Salute Richard Quin Daisy Fashion Edition II 21 Year Old $229.95

Amazing Brunello For Just $49.99

Ready-to-drink wines with bottle age from classic, old world appellations at ridiculous prices are becoming our specialty here at Mission, and we’re thrilled to see so many new faces perusing our wine aisles as of late. 

Continuing with that theme, let us introduce you to the outstanding deal we just secured for a fantastic Brunello that is ready to adorn your dinner table tonight—no further aging required! La Poderina’s quality is well documented in the wine world and the 2017’s accolades are clear. 

Hand-harvested Sangiovese grapes, 20 months of oak aging, top quality vineyard sites, and some of the oldest vines in the region to create a stellar Brunello. 2017 was a warm vintage, so the wines are built for short-term drinking rather than the long haul. Enjoy the supple tannins, ripe cherry flavors, savory aromatics, and mouth-coating texture. Grill up a steak with fresh rosemary and olive oil, or grab some of your favorite BBQ for an incredible pairing.

Elsewhere $65+, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Brunello this good for $49.99.

2017 La Poderina Brunello di Montalcino $49.99 (ELSEWHERE $65+)

94 POINTS: JAMES SUCKLING - Plenty of dark cherries, cedar, sandalwood and licorice on the nose. Full-bodied with firm and polished tannins that nicely melt into the wine. Pure and beautiful fruit. Give this time to open. Better after 2023.

92 POINTS: ROBERT PARKER - The 2017 Brunello di Montalcino is characterized by some of those same earthy notes of crushed limestone and baked clay that we saw so clearly in the other two entry-level red wines released by this estate. Wild cherry and dried raspberry cede to oregano, basil or balsam herb. The tannins are on the dry side, and perhaps the heat of the vintage reveals itself there with greater clarity. This wine is best served in the near term. 

An Former Italian Powerhouse Returns to Glory

While Piedmont’s Barolo region is used to great press, long considered one of the world’s classic appellations and home to the longest-lived Nebbiolo wines, there’s a new movement happening further north in Alto Piemonte that has the industry abuzz. 

Whether it’s A16’s Shelly Lindgren focusing on Alto Piemonte as the original source of great Nebbiolo in her new book Italian Wine, or the critics from Vinous devoting more time to reviewing the region’s small production wines, it seems like everyone is talking about two things:

Incredible wines. Incredible prices. 

Critic Antonio Galloni recently gushed about the wines of Boniperti, writing: “This is a beautiful set of wines. The small estate encompasses just 4.5 hectares of vineyards in three small blocks, two in the Colline Novaresi and one in Fara. The Fara Barton is the top wine. It emerges from a relatively warm site that is also one of the earliest to ripen in the appellation. It sees as much as a month on the skins and is aged in cask.”

But the key sentence from Galloni’s review was this: “Boniperti's entry-level offerings are every bit as compelling as the top selection.”

So how are the inexpensive wines so darn good?

As Lindgren spells out in her book, Alto Piemonte was the home of Italian nebbiolo until economic woes coupled with diseases in the vineyards caused a downturn in production during the 19th century. By the middle of the 20th century, the region was almost forgotten by growers who had fled due to poor weather conditions and a piddling economy. Just forty years ago, there were only three wine producers left in the entire region! 

But in 2024, Alto Piemonte is in the middle of a new renaissance with growers unlocking the power of these ancient vineyard sites and harnessing that potential into exciting wines at incredible prices. Because the region is underappreciated and largely misunderstood, few understand that these vineyards were once some of the greatest in Europe.

With Antonio Galloni calling it "one of the most glorious, under the radar regions in the world" and bestowing a number of outstanding scores to producers like Boniperti, we're hoping the region starts to get the attention it deserves. Not only that, Galloni had high praise for Cristiano Garella, the winemaker for Boniperti, calling him “the leading figure of the current generation.” 

If you’re curious as to the quality of these wines, look no further for outstanding Italian quality at prices you can afford. 

2021 Boniperti Vignaioli Carlin Nebbiolo $25.99

93 POINTS: VINOUS - The 2022 Nebbiolo Carlin is an exuberant, fruity wine endowed with tons of charm. Succulent red cherry fruit, cinnamon, orange peel and spice fill out the layers nicely. This, too, is beautifully done—a gem. 

2019 Boniperti Vignaioli Favolalunga Vespolina $22.99 

92 POINTS: VINOUS - The 2019 Favolalunga is laced with bright red berry fruit, wild flowers and spice. This fruity, aromatic Vespolina is a real charmer. The purity of the flavors is compelling.

2020 Boniperti Vignaioli Fara Barton Nebbiolo $41.9

94 POINTS: VINOUS - The 2020 Fara Barton, Boniperti’s top wine, is terrific. Dark and layered, the 2020 offers up tons of Nebbiolo character. Macerated dark cherry, menthol, licorice, spice and a host of balsamic inflections build in the glass. The 2020 spent 30 days on the skins and matured for 14 months in 22HL casks. It’s a gorgeous, classy, elegant wine that can be enjoyed with minimal cellaring. 

Bruichladdich 18 Year Finally Arrives!

One could easily equate the rebirth of Islay’s Bruichladdich distillery to the rebirth of the Scottish single malt industry and the dawn of American craft whiskey by proxy. 

The reopening of the Islay distillery in the early 2000s was nothing short of a global phenomenon with then-distiller Jim McEwan traveling across the planet like a rock star, creating legions of Bruichladdich superfans in his wake. At that point in time, Bruichladdich was selling older stocks inherited from the previous owners. They were actively distilling whisky, while blending and selling casks still on hand from the old regime. 

With the success of its Botanist gin soon after, it wasn’t long before Bruichladdich sold to Remy-Cointreau. That injection of investment paved the way for their monumental 10 year old single malt almost a decade ago, but since that original age-stated release it’s been a while since we’ve seen something this exciting from the little-distillery-that-could.

Until now. 

Fresh off the docks, the new Bruichladdich 18 year old single malt is composed entirely of whiskies distilled in the recent era (even though we can barely believe it’s been that long!). Using a majority 18 year old ex-Bourbon casks, with a few Sauternes and Port wine barrels for added sweetness, the profile delivers all the honey, butterscotch, and tropical fruits that we’ve come to love from their house style.

Remember, the standard Bruichladdich whiskeys are NOT peated. While it’s an Islay malt, Bruichladdich differentiates their peated malts under the Port Charlotte label, so those who avoid the smoky whiskies can enjoy this one with ease. Not only is the whisky delicious, but the bottle design is absolutely gorgeous and the kicker, of course, is that the whisky weighs in at 50% ABV. 

If all this wasn’t exciting enough, here’s the real hook: the Bruichladdich 18 year is just $159.95 at Mission while supplies last (price good through 2/18/24).

Given the rising price of Scotch whisky over the last few years, the incredibly fervent fan base for Bruichladdich, and the huge anticipation of this release, Bruichladdich could have charged well over $200 and no one would have batted an eyelid. It’s the value proposition here that has us over the moon about this release. 

The promise and optimism we all felt towards craft whiskey in the early 2000s is finally upon us. We all hoped for a day when these modern distillers would deliver better, more interesting whiskies for a reasonable price. That time is finally here. Let’s enjoy it. 

Bruichladdich 18 Year Old Single Malt Whiskey 750ml  $159.95

2016 Bordeaux: The Vintage That Keeps On Giving

2016 is the vintage that keeps on giving here at Mission. First, we had the 2016 Cugat from Bordeaux Superieur (still the best-selling red wine in our store’s history) and now we’re thrilled to present the 2016 Haut Lorca from Fronsac for just $14.95.

A true Bordeaux blend composed of 65% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, 2.5% Malbec, and 2.5% Petit Verdot, all five red varieties from organically-farmed vineyards in the Fronsac region were used to compile this stunning value wine. With almost eight years of bottle age, and from one of the decade’s truly great vintages, the 2016 Haut Lorca is a sleeper value that delivers the ripeness of the harvest with integrated tannins and fleshy fruit in classic Bordeaux fashion.

For those who lament that the cost of good Bordeaux has become unattainable for everyday drinking (and we agree with you!), we strongly urge you to try a bottle and take it for a spin. It’s the perfect complement for grilled meats or even a heavier mushroom risotto. Plus, we’ve kept a bottle open at Mission for days on end and the flavor never dissipates. It’s a wine that can last throughout the week on the counter with just the cork pushed halfway in, allowing you to pour it by the glass as the evenings roll along.

More importantly, the character of the vintage is present in every sip: both the structure and the ripeness of fruit that were the calling card of 2016. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate has repeatedly referred to the 2016 Bordeaux vintage as “extraordinary” with “wines that are extremely long-lived” and often “slow to mature.” Wine Enthusiast has gone so far as to ask: “Is 2016 the Perfect Bordeaux?

Eight years after the vintage, we’re thrilled to offer another stunning 2016 Bordeaux at an absolutely unbeatable price for the quality. We love finding under-the-radar French values, especially when they’re perfectly aged and ready to drink now.

2016 Haut Lorca Bordeaux (Elsewhere $20+) $14.95

WINE ENTHUSIAST: This simple, ripe and fruity wine comes from the region just north of Fronsac. Spicy and stalky black fruits are bolstered by acidity and light tannins. 

Sold Out After a Huge NY Times Review, Istine Chianti Allocations Arrive

The Istine Chiantis from the heralded Oliver McCrum import portfolio have long been some of our favorite Tuscan expressions here at Mission, yet we’ve never had any problem securing more when needed. 

That all changed two weeks ago when the New York Times published a widely-read look at the new era of female empowerment in the Italian wine industry with Istine’s Angela Fronti leading the charge. 

Due to tens of thousands of reader requests from all over the country, the Istine wines are selling out nationwide and getting our hands on more has proven more difficult than we anticipated. Just the standard Chianti Classico is now short in supply, and the single vineyard expressions are like allocated Bourbons at this point. 

Why the huge buzz? It’s not just the excitement of a new feminine movement in an industry long dominated by male nepotism, the Istine wines are just flat out amazing. Angela’s acute awareness of her vineyards, coupled with her restraint in the cellar allow for Sangiovese-based wines that express not just a sense of place, but a sense of purpose. 

As the New York Times piece spells out: “Women long ago demonstrated remarkable abilities in wine. But those allowed to take over family enterprises were historically the exceptions.” Now, “women like Ms. Fronti are taking charge of family businesses and pushing them to new and unexpected heights.”

Whether you’re interested in the new generation of winemakers in Chianti, or just looking for a fantastic red wine for dinner tonight (one that won’t be in stock for very long, to boot), check out these glowing reviews for the Istine wines. And act fast. As Antonio Galloni from Vinous writes: “The term “up and coming” won't apply too much longer, as Fronti is quickly establishing herself as a top grower and winemaker.”

2021 Istine Chianti Classico $29.99 (Elsewhere SOLD OUT) 

92 POINTS: VINOUS - Just bottled, the 2021 Chianti Classico captures all the energy of the year in its bright, red-toned fruit. Blood orange, mint, white pepper and vibrant acids lend notable energy to a Chianti Classico that sizzles with tension. There's plenty of fruit to back that all up. Bright saline notes extend the finish beautifully. Angela Fronti’s 2021s are impressive, their recent bottling notwithstanding. Istine is a relatively new estate, but the family has a distinguished history in Chianti Classico. The wines are made in a small warehouse space in Radda. Readers should seek out these wines, as they capture all of the energy and enthusiasm of the younger generation in Chianti Classico.

91 POINTS: WINE SPECTATOR - A vivid, linear red, evoking black cherry, blackberry, licorice and spice flavors. Rich and dense, with a lively structure, this ends with generous fruit and spice notes. Drink now through 2028.

2020 Istine Vigne Istine Chianti Classico $39.95 (Elsewhere SOLD OUT)

94 POINTS: VINOUS - The 2020 Chianti Classico Vigna Istine is a wine of total understatement and class. The translucent finesse of Radda comes through loud and clear. Crushed rocks, mint, chalk and white pepper add a striking top register of brilliance throughout. The 2020 is flat out gorgeous. Angela Fronti turned out another set of stellar wines in 2020. Her Chianti Classicos show remarkable expression of site and nuance, in other words, all the best Sangiovese has to offer. These are special wines from one of the region's most dynamic, up and coming producers. The term “up and coming” won't apply too much longer, as Fronti is quickly establishing herself as a top grower and winemaker.

92 POINTS: WINE SPECTATOR - This red is infused with fresh cherry, strawberry, rose hip and iron flavors aligned to a streamlined profile. Subtle, yet persists on the finish, delivering harmony and the potential to evolve another decade, maybe two. Decant now. Drink now through 2040.

2020 Istine Casanova dell’Aia Chianti Classico $44.99 (Elsewhere SOLD OUT)

95 POINTS: VINOUS - The 2020 Chianti Classico Vigna Casanova dell'Aia shows a dark, richer side of Sangiovese from Radda. Black cherry, sage, lavender, menthol, licorice and tobacco all meld together. A wine of presence and real stature, the Casanova dell'Aia is fabulous. All it needs is time to soften a bit

94 POINTS: WINE SPECTATOR - A succulent red highlighted by beautifully defined cherry, raspberry, floral and mineral aromas and flavors. Solidly built, suggesting this will develop further. Boasts excellent balance, with leafy underbrush and wild herb notes on the long finish. Best from 2025 through 2042. 

A 93 Point Tuscan Sensation for Sub-$30

Super Tuscans—aka rich, mouthcoating Cabernet Sauvignon blends from Tuscany—were once all the rage, with labels like Sassicaia and Gaja commanding top-tier pricing due to high-profile converts like Robert Parker singing their praises. From 2005 to 2015, the demand for these plush and concentrated Cab-based wines went through the roof and the pricing quickly followed suit. 

In the current era, however, where terroir is king and tradition more important than innovation, Super Tuscans have lost a bit of their spotlight. After more than a decade of desirability, Tuscan wine lovers have gravitated back to pure-bred Sangiovese wines made with an old school approach. Yet, if you’re a deal-hunting retailer like Mission, you know that finding an opportunity for a great bargain goes hand-in-hand with this scenario. 

Because while indeed some Super Tuscan wines may have overextended their reach, a good number of them make wines truly worth seeking out and cellaring. One of those producers is the historic Castello di Bolgheri, a winemaking estate that dates back to the late 1700s. With parcels of high-quality Bordeaux varietals grown on vines well over 30 years of age, the hands-on attention to detail of the Castello di Bolgheri wines is well worth paying for. We just happen to have a nice little discount for you today!

Using a blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 12% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Petit Verdot, the 2021 Castello di Bolgheri takes what was a stellar vintage for the region and delivers just about everything you’d want from a $75 bottle of Bordeaux for a sub-$30 price tag. Deep, dark fruit flavor, minerality from the calcareous soil, tannins that melt in your mouth like butter, and complexity on the finish that keeps you coming back for more. 

If you’re looking for a stellar bottle of Cabernet that doesn’t break the bank, look no further. Tuscany still has some serious tricks up its sleeve when it comes to Bordeaux blends.

2021 Castello di Bolgheri Varvara (Elsewhere $35+) $27.99

93 POINTS: WINE SPECTATOR - This red is all about balance and texture, creating an ideal foil for its black currant, black cherry, licorice, rosemary and iron aromas and flavors. Refined tannins lend grip on the lingering aftertaste. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2025 through 2038.

92 POINTS: JAMES SUCKLING - This shows notes of spiced cherries, currant leaf, dark chocolate and bark. Medium- to full-bodied. This has a weighty core of dark berries with compact and fine tannins melted into the wine. Focused and lengthy. Better from 2025.