"The 2021 Gigondas Les Routes has lots going on. Delicate tobacco leaf notes usher in along nuances of violets, blackberry, blueberry, earth and meaty gradations. Medium to full-bodied and concentrated, this delicious 2021 red is framed by ever-so-polished tannins and offers a flawless mouthfeel. I currently can't see any single-varietal Syrah from Gigondas that can rival Les Routes from Domaine des Bosquets. Actually, if you're looking far a top-notch Syrah in the entire Southern Rhône valley, look no further." Vinous

Met het oogstjaar 2016 bracht Julien 2 nieuwe “parcellaires” op de markt. Deze komt van “Les Routes”, gelegen naast “Hautes Garrigues” en beplant met Syrah. Deze wijn is opgevoed op 228l eiken vaten en het is een adembenemend mooie Syrah, helaas zeer beperkt beschikbaar met slechts 600 flessen.

"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