Philippe Cambie

In the early 1990s, Michel Rolland began telling all who would listen that the problem in Bordeaux wasn’t the competition presented by the concentration of New World wines. The problem was with the Bordeaux winegrowers themselves. “Farm for quality,” he told the Chateaux owners, “drop fruit, push concentration, put only ripe grapes into fermenters, and the terroir of Bordeaux will win out.” Much of the qualitative leap of Bordeaux’s Right Bank can be attributed to Rolland’s direction.

More recently, another enologist, this time in the southern Rhone, began echoing Rolland’s words. His name is Philippe Cambie, a huge man, who, quite simply, works magic with Grenache and Syrah. Cambie has an amazing ability to catalyze estates, challenging producers to be better. Then, he has something else; an incredible ability to visualize final blends while tasting dozens of barrels and tanks. “In the cellar,” Jean Ferran told us, “Philippe is a magicien.”

In 2007, Ferran and Cambie pushed the wines at Domaine des Escaravailles to the summit, putting out some unbelievably rich, concentrated wines drawn from Ferran’s high-elevation, old-vine Grenache vineyards. The incomparable Cotes du Rhone “Les Antimagnes,” made largely from 60-year-old Grenache, is among the best values of any of these great Rhone reds of 2007. Parker called it an “amazing value” and raved about the opulence of a wine that Ferran admits is superior to some of his Rasteau. We tasted the wine in February and locked up all we could get. Explosive red fruit nose, great ripe red fruit to the core, excellent vibrant finish. Where can you get this much for this price?

Jean Ferran met Philippe Cambie at age 21, while studying enology. They became close friends. In 1999, Ferran was already at loggerheads with his father, trying to talk the older generation into producing riper, more balanced wines. Jean invited Philippe to Domaine des Escaravailles and listened as the charming Cambie slowly cajoled the older Ferran into taking risks in the vineyard that had never been pondered. Pick later, Cambie advised. Pick only perfectly ripe grapes. Drop fruit. Sort again in the cellar to make sure only the cleanest, ripest fruit makes it into the fermenter. Ferran the elder was mortified. Reduce yields? Wait to pick, when all the catastrophes of the growing season occur in the last weeks of the harvest? Was Cambie mad?

Maybe a little. But even the elder Ferran can’t argue with the results. Since 2003, when Escaravailles put out some phenomenal wines in the year of the inferno (the high-elevation vines helped out), Escaravailles has been riding a wave, and now ranks among the very top producers of Rasteau and Cairanne. With wines like this fabulously rich “Les Antimagnes,” Cambie is looking less and less crazy by the day.

Tasting Notes

“Readers should be on the lookout for the wines from this superb estate. None other than the brilliant southern Rhone oenologist Philippe Cambie is the consultant at Domaine des Escaravailles… The 2007s are the finest wines yet produced at this estate. The 2007 Cotes du Rhone Les Antimagnes is an amazing wine value. Dominated by its Grenache component, it exhibits a deep ruby/purple color in addition to a gorgeous nose of scorched earth, kirsch liqueur, licorice, pepper, and garrigue. Full-bodied, opulent, and fleshy, it offers a totally hedonistic drinking experience. Consume it over the next 4-5 years.”
90-92 points–Robert Parker, The Wine Advocate