2017 Saint-Joseph Esprit de Granit

The wines from this quasi-co-op (I say “quasi” because all the wines are made from fruit crushed and fermented at the sprawling, highly modern Cave de Tain facility in Tain l’Hermitage) have never been better than they are today. No expense is spared, from a state-of-the-art optical grape sorter to highly specialized crushers and fermenters to aging foudres and barrels from France’s best tonneliers. Winemaking is overseen by the talented team of Xavier Frouin and Olivier Ciosi, and the range of offerings is vast, encompassing numerous bottlings from Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, Saint-Joseph (both red and white), Cornas and Saint-Péray. While the wines are usually quite polished, they’re by no means industrial or international in style. With few exceptions, alcohol levels are moderate and oak presence is understated. Wine lovers should be paying more attention to the work going on here.

As I have noted before, the quality of wines from this venerable producer continues to climb. The wines from the most recent vintages are best I can ever recall. Quality is well in keeping with the prestige of their vast vineyard holdings across, for lack of a better term, the southern northern Rhône, meaning everything south of Condrieu. The Cave owns 21 hectares of vines on the Hermitage hill and they are undoubtedly the crown jewels of the 1,100+ hectares that they either own or farm for its 370 grower/members across the region. Head winemaker Xavier Frouin told me that 2017 was “a difficult vintage to handle. First, the poor flowering meant a short crop, which is always depressing, and then it was dry and hot, mostly, with some mildew in June which meant a lot of attention to vineyard work.” In the end, he is pleased with the resulting wines, which he called “marked by the richness of a hot year, but with good structure and freshness and no roasted character, like you find in other hot vintages.”