"Bright ruby-red. There are smoke- and spice-accented red and dark berries on the highly expressive nose, along with a suave floral top note. Juicy and animated on the palate, offering appealingly sweet black raspberry and boysenberry flavors and a spicy hint of white pepper. Finishes with impressive tenacity, and the polished tannins frame lingering floral and red fruit notes" Vinous

“La Colline” komt van een perceel in de ‘Jasio’ wijngaard. Deze licht zuidelijk georiënteerde wijngaard met een bodem van sterk kalkhoudende mergel bevat de hoogste percelen van het domein, die de meest krachtige, gestructureerde wijn geven. Voor deze cuvée worden alleen de 5 eerste rijen oude Grenache zonnigste deel van deze wijngaard apart gevinifieerd. Al het andere fruit gaat naar de Gigondas “classique”. Hier een nog lagere opbrengst, amper 16hl/ha, 4000 flessen en 240 magnums gebotteld.

"La Colline" comes from a plot in the "Jasio" vineyard . This slightly south-facing vineyard with a soil of strongly calcareous marl contains the highest parcels of the estate, which give the most powerful, structured wine. For this cuvée, only the 5 first rows of old Grenache sunniest part of this vineyard are vinified separately. All the other fruit goes into the Gigondas "classique". Here an even lower yield, barely 16hl/ha, 4000 bottles and 240 magnums bottled.

"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