Appellation: Saint-Joseph.
Cuvée: Rouge.
Colour: Red.
Grapes: Syrah.
About: from vines that Yves and Mathilde bought in 2007, requiring several years to get into good condition. Offers Côte Rôtie-like aromatics and tension, but less fine.
Vines
Location: From steep hillside vineyards in the northern sector of St Joseph close to Condrieu in the Peyraud lieu-dit.
Size ha: 1.5.
Age: planted in 1995.
Soils: granite.
Exposition: south-east.
Altitude: 300m.
Training: gobelet on échalas.
Farming: organic.
Average yield hl/ha: 40.
Climate: continental with warm to hot summers, cold winters, wet in autumn and spring.
Winemaking
Hand harvested into small crates, sorted both in the vineyard and in cellar. Usually around 80% whole bunch depending on the harvest. Ferments in 300 litre oak barrels, 25% new and the rest 2-4 year old, at ambient cellar temperature around 20-23ºC. Aged 12 months in the same barrels, blended a month before bottling. Bottled unfined, very lightly filtered.
Vintage Notes 2016
Cool fine vintage, like 2013 but softer. 30% whole bunch due to lack of space.
Yield hl/ha: 40.
Bottles produced: 2,500.
Alcohol %: .
SO2 Total: .
Tasting: ravishing, light, airy, refreshing, aromatic with red berry fruit, black pepper, very fine tannins, elegant, cool acidity, long.
Vintage Notes 2017
A hot, bone dry vintage, where yields were saved by the rainfall of 2016.
Yield hl/ha: 35
Harvested:
Bottles produced: 4,000
Date bottled: 2019-08
Alcohol %: 14.38
SO2 Total: 36
Tasting: rich, concentrated, tannic, forward black and blue berry fruit, mineral, pure, silky.
Vintage Notes 2018
There was a mildew pressure for those working organically. There was more focus on treating with algues (seaweeds), and less sulfur nonetheless. Yields of reds are down by 30% as a consequence, but whites are good.
Yield hl/ha:
Bottles produced:
Date bottled:
Alcohol %: 13.71
SO2 Total: 45
Vintage Notes 2019
Heatwave year to top the run from 2015 to 2018 of hot years. Magically the vines didn’t suffer water stress but the sugars were high, the skins thick, the wines dense, rich and relatively high in alcohol.
Yield hl/ha: 30
Harvested: mid september
Bottles produced: 3000
Date bottled: july 21
Alcohol %: 13,5
SO2 Total: 40
Tasting: intense and spicy peppery, tons of veg cassis fruit, rich, a bit fat, but there’s a graphite acidity running through the fruit, excellent, modern almost flashy but that graphite holds it.
Vintage Notes 2020
A sunny year if not as hot and dry as 2017 to 2019 but the vines produced less fruit after 5 years impressive performance. The wines have an incredible vitality and fruit transparence, more “typicity” than the last three vintages.
Yield hl/ha: 30
Harvested: end august until sept 15
Bottles produced: 3000
Date bottled: july
Alcohol %: 14
SO2 Total:
Tasting: very cool, quite noticeable oak, so needs time to age, concentrated cassis, blackberry and cream, full bodied but energy and juicy, very fresh, grippy but succulent tannnins, very complete
Vintage Notes 2021
A sharp change from the run of hot, sunny, dry harvests 2015 to 2020, a frost on April 8 caused a major headache, reducing the crop by 50% (some producers with higher vineyards and later budding lost less, some producer lost 80 to 100% in the region). Temperatures were lower and there was more rainfall than previous years, with a big dump just before and after the harvest. The wines are quite translucent, the whites very precise, focused, beautifully balanced, the reds lighter, wonderfully digestible, there is no Sereine Noire due to the frost and what remains was blended into Barbarine to make a wine that tastes like a lost classic from the 1980’s; beautiful.