2020 Domaine des Lises Crozes Hermitage Rouge

The acronym John Livingstone Learmonth uses in his note below, “w.o.w”, stands for “what one wants”. In John’s words, a w.o.w wine “is a wine that immediately declares its pleasure. It provides immediate joie and lends to conviviality among friends, or breaks the ice with strangers.” Spot on. There’s an engaging buoyancy this year, even if there is a wealth of punchy flavour and spice-licked fruit. Berry fruits, florals, spice and mineral aromas lead to a palate flush with measured ripeness, tight-grained and beautifully integrated tannins, snappy acidity and a densely compact and multi-layered mouthfeel. The finish is prolonged and studded with notes of graphitic minerals and more spice. At just 13% abv, it is not as deep as 2019 from the same sites, yet nonetheless, it makes for some delicious drinking young. As Alain once said, “The vintage changes, but the spirit remains the same.”

As always, Maxime’s estate Crozes comes from a grouping of vineyards near the village of Beaumont-Monteux, only a couple of kilometres from his father’s vines. The lieu-dits are called Les Bosquets and Les Pichères. Here, in the most south-easterly part of the appellation, the soils are full of gravel and alluvial stones, low in clay and fast-draining—very similar to the Domaine Alain Graillot soils in Les Chênes Verts, just to the north. This soil type lends itself to a refined, aromatic Syrah with a pronounced savoury profile. Planted throughout the 1980s, the vines are now managed organically (certification is due soon).

The fermentations are entirely natural, and Graillot Jr. uses only a small whole-bunch component, usually in the realm of 20-30%. It is, therefore, a wine that tends to ‘come around’ earlier than the 100% whole-bunch wines that carry the Alain Graillot name. The 2020 was fermented in concrete vats and then racked into one, two and three-year-old Burgundy barrels—purchased from some of the top estates—and 12-hectolitre Stockinger cask. There is also a tiny component (less than 10%) of new barrels purchased from the Atelier Centre France, whose bespoke steam-bent barrels are now used at Guiberteau, Didier Dagueneau and François Chidaine. The wine spent 11 months in barrel and was brought together for three months in large fût tronconique. It is bottled unfiltered.