The medium ruby-colored, seductive 2009 Cotes du Rhone (a blend of 80% Grenache and 20% Mourvedre) would surprise many people in a blind tasting. Revealing more complexity and body than the Panorama, it is best consumed in its exuberant, zesty youth – over the next 2-3 years. One of my favorite stops on my trips to the southern Rhone is at Domaine Pierre Usseglio where brothers Jean-Pierre and Thierry Usseglio have accomplished special things. A new state-of-the-art tasting room has been added, somewhat unusual in Chateauneuf du Pape where little has changed in the three decades I have been tasting there. However, the small, discrete Usseglio tasting room would never be compared with tasting rooms that exist in Bordeaux and California.Importer: Alain Junguenet, Wines of France, Mountainside, NJ; tel. (908) 654-6173