2019 Côtes-du-Rhône Les Peyrouses

Lionel Fraise, a Saint-Péray native, took over Domaine Alain Voge’s winemaking duties in 2018 and is maintaining the excellent standard established by his predecessor, Albéric Mazoyer, as evidenced by Voge’s 2020, 2019 and 2018 releases. The fruit here is usually de-stemmed to some percentage, but there is no set recipe. It all depends on the vintage, Fraise told me. While the wines are aged in small oak barrels, up to 25% of them new, their influence on resulting wines is not especially perceptible after a few years of bottle age, which these wines always demand. To my taste, 2020 is the favored vintage here, as is generally the case up and down the region, for the wines’ energy and vivid fruit.