Saint-Joseph Rouge, Domaine Graeme & Julie Bott 2023
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Why this wine
Graeme and Julie Bott built a ten-hectare northern Rhône domaine from nothing, starting in a neighbour's garage. This is their Saint-Joseph: granite slopes, échalas-trained vines, fifteen months in seasoned barrels. Firm and precise rather than showy, and a good way into a producer the region is watching closely.
At a glance
- Grape
- Syrah
- Region
- Rhône Valley, France
- Alcohol
- 13.00%
- Body
- Medium
- Acidity
- Medium
- Tannins
- High
- Sweetness
- Dry
- Drink
- Medium (5-10 yrs)
- Pairs with
- Red Meat, Poultry & Pork, Cheese
How it tastes
Layers of ripe dark fruit with a bitter-cherry edge, and a savoury, stony finish. There is real weight to it, but the tannins are firm and sculpted rather than heavy, and the acidity keeps everything cut and precise. Syrah 100%.
The producer
Domaine Graeme & Julie Bott is one of the northern Rhône's newer names, and one of its most promising. Graeme is from New Zealand and Julie a native of the northern Rhône; they met working at Domaine Ogier in Côte-Rôtie, then found that the garden of their first house sat on the Condrieu hillside of Vérin, and built a ten-hectare domaine from there across Côte-Rôtie, Condrieu, Saint-Joseph and the little-known Seyssuel, working now from their own cellar beneath La Mouline. This wine comes from plots at Chavanay, Talencieux and Saint-Pierre de Bœuf in the northern part of the appellation, on steep granite at 250–300 metres where the day-to-night temperature swing keeps natural freshness; the twenty-year-old vines are planted at 8,000 per hectare, trained by the traditional échalas stake method, and hand-harvested parcel by parcel. The fruit was vinified 30% whole bunch and 70% destemmed, cold-soaked in stainless steel, then fermented with wild yeasts over roughly three weeks between 24 and 28°C and aged for fifteen months in seasoned 225-litre French oak barrels. The 2023 season was warm and balanced with a fine late autumn, and September conditions let picking run to early October with the fruit in impeccable condition.
Food and drinking
Serve at 16–17°C. Good with rare roast lamb, a slow beef daube, grilled ribeye or a board of charcuterie. Drink over the next three to five years, and give it an hour in a decanter. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.