"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

Vanaf 2017 wordt de “classique” een “Réserve du Domaine”. Behalve de naam verandert ook de selectie. Er komt relatief meer fruit van de parcellaires en vooral: er wordt alleen nog maar fruit van de oudere wijnstokken gebruikt en de wijn van jongere aanplant wordt onder een ander label verkocht. Dat dit de kwaliteit ten goede komt is wel duidelijk, en ondanks de droogte en moeilijke bloemzetting in de Grenache is deze 2017 een van de mooiste Gigondas die we al van dit domein geproefd hebben. Het is een prachtige, krachtige, diep fruitige, romige, genuanceerde wijn geworden waar je relatief jong van kunt genieten dankzij de mooie balans en verfijnde tannines. Julien Brechet verrast ons jaar na jaar met absoluut verbluffende wijnen!

"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