2023 Equis Equinoxe Crozes Hermitage Rouge

Maxime Graillot and Thomas Schmittel’s nouveau-style Crozes is sourced primarily from a mature, gravelly, organically farmed site in Pont-de-l’Isère. This site is owned and managed by a good friend and neighbour of the Graillot clan, and the vigneron and producer work closely together. It is this collaboration that has seen the Equinoxe cuvée reach ever-greater heights. Roughly 80% destemmed, the wine is fermented in concrete tanks and large wooden tronconique vats (with a degree of carbonic maceration) and aged for nine months in the same vessel. This is gorgeously fleshy, forward, drink-it-straight-from-the-bottle kind of Crozes, with a touch more density than in 2021, but just as delicious.