"Assembled from 14 different plots (each vinified and aged separately for the first year), the 2019 Gigondas boasts lovely aromas of garrigue, spice, orange zest, licorice, black cherries and raspberries. This vintage is about 60% Grenache (aged in foudres and demi-muids), with a balance of mainly Syrah and Mourvèdre (both aged in smaller barrels). It's full-bodied, rich and velvety, with a long, softly dusty finish. It lacks the easy approachability of the 2018 but is more concentrated and should age particularly well." RP

From 2017, the "classique" becomes a "Réserve du Domaine". Apart from the name, the selection also changes. There will be relatively more fruit from the parcellaires and above all: only fruit from the older vines will still be used, with wine from younger plantings to be sold under a different label. That this improves the quality is pretty obvious, and despite the drought and difficult flower setting in the Grenache, this 2017 is one of the finest Gigondas we have already tasted from this estate. It turned out to be a gorgeous, powerful, deeply fruity, creamy, nuanced wine that you can enjoy relatively young thanks to its nice balance and refined tannins. Julien Brechet surprises us year after year with absolutely stunning wines!

"Proprietor Julien Brechet is redefining Gigondas through his exploration of selections parcellaires, which are essentially monovarietal. Le Lieu Dit and La Colline are Grenache, Le Plateau is Mourvèdre and Les Routes is Syrah. The blended cuvée remains an assemblage of four varieties and represents an outstanding value. Brechet is pleased with the quality he's been able to achieve the past few vintages but says he's always striving to do better. On this visit, he poured a couple of older vintages so we could look at his progress, saying that he felt he'd made mistakes at times in the past. Of the La Colline, Brechet says, "Before it was impressive, now it's expressive." One of the keys to the quality he was able to achieve in 2018, he says, was the use of destemming, which he now varies considerably from year to year (in 2017, he used as much as 30% whole clusters). Brechet considers 2018 to be a year that favored Grenache, comparing it to 2006 and 2012. That said, I remain impressed by his Les Routes (Syrah), which has become one of the Southern Rhône's greatest examples of that variety—worth noting is that the genetic material is a sélection massale from Fonsalette, which is said to originate from cuttings provided by the Chave family. Equally impressive is the Châteauneuf-du-Pape Brechet bottles from a tiny patch of 100-year-old vines farmed for him by his brother Laurent (Château de Vaudieu). "The signature of the estate is the finesse," Brechet says." RP