2012 Xavier Vignon Rasteau 750 ml

Who Knew?

This year marks the 10th anniversary of WineAccess. Our first story was published on November 2, 2006, a short missive about three vintages of Michael Havens’ “Bourriquot,” a Right Bank blend that Robert Parker once called a “a Napa version of the famed Cheval Blanc.” While we were uncertain as to the potential for using storytelling to sell fine wine on the web, we understood the direction we were taking. We would not waver.

First, we’d offer only wines that were artisanally grown and crafted in cellars we’d discovered during our 20-year careers on the wine trail. Second, we’d explain the makeup and flavor profile of each wine as it related to each winegrower’s vineyard and cellar protocol — and even more importantly, the vagaries and drama of each growing season.

Finally, if our plan actually worked (who knew?), we’d negotiate fairly but resolutely on behalf of our readership, always mindful that any savings derived from our increasing buying power would be passed on to WineAccess members.

The “Bourriquot” story was written in a coffee shop that also served as our office. 50,000 wine enthusiast email addresses were loaded into Outlook with no thought of spam filters or black lists. We hit the send button and waited. Twenty minutes later, bingo! — our first $120 of revenue. When we awoke on the morning of the 3rd, 35 readers had purchased. WineAccess would NET $300. A windfall at the time. We were off to the races.

Had you told us in the fall of 2006 that less than a decade later, many of the most sought-after wines in the world — even those most touted by Robert Parker, Jr. — would be featured on WineAccess, we wouldn’t have taken you seriously.

In January 2015, had you said that Xavier Vignon would offer WineAccess the largest allocation in the world of Robert Parker’s 93-point BARGAIN OF THE YEAR — more than Vignon’s New York and California distributors COMBINED — we might have wondered what you’d been smoking.

But had you said that four months after we’d depleted every bottle of Vignon’s extravagant 2012 Rasteau, a northern European importer would fail to pick up the last 15 cases in Vignon’s cellar, and that WineAccess would get the first call — we would have called 911 and had you carted off to Sinai.

The 2012 Xavier Vignon Rasteau remains one of our most extraordinary discoveries of the last decade, a mind-boggling bargain that stunned Robert Parker just as it did the WineAccess membership. Deepest purple to the rim, infused with chiseled aromas of black and red fruits, dark plum, sweet spice, and tobacco. Rich, voluminous, and voluptuous on the attack, packed with gobs of crushed-red-fruit preserves, licorice, and sweet spice, finishing — as always with Vignon — with superb length and persistence. Drink now for its sheer primary-fruit hedonism, or far better, do as we will and wait to pop a cork until sometime in 2020.

93 points from The Wine Advocate. 90 perfect 5-star reviews from buyers. $38 on release. Something much more enticing today as we continue to do as we resolved to do in that coffee shop on November 2, 2006.