Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet Hervé Souhaut Souteronne

Grapes: Gamay

Vineyard: 50 to 80 years old non-clone vines on granite. A blend of grapes from 8 sites (4 hectares in total) in the communes of arlebosc, empurany and colombier le vieux, in the vallee du doux, all estate-owned.

Vinification method: grapes are hand-harvested and sorted in the vineyard. They then undergo a very long maceration at a low temperaturewithout de-stemming, as whole bunches. Once pressed, the wine is aged on fine lees in secondhand oak casks and stainless steel tanks. The wine is bottled without filtration or fining, with 25 mg/l of so2.

Tasting note: nearly purple in the glass with a garnet rim. The nose is an enticing array of strawberry, black cherry, plum, fig paste, smoky herbs and pounded stones. Buoyant black fruit dominates the palate and is followed by pretty red berry tones, and minerality. The granite soil evokes something very familiar and beaujolais-like, while cloaked under the influence of the northern rhone, suggesting the more dark and bacon-y tendencies of syrah from this area.