2016 St Joseph Rouge
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Tasting notes
Deep ruby. Sharply focused cherry and dark berry scents show good energy and pick up smoked meat and cracked pepper notes with air. Taut and spicy on the palate, offering bitter cherry, blackberry and spicecake flavors that unfold slowly through the midpalate. Gentle tannins add shape to a long, smoky finish, which features a hint of succulent herbs. (10% whole clusters; fermented in stainless steel tanks and raised in neutral oak barrels)
Critic scores
James Suckling
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
A very tarry and spicy nose with a wealth of meaty and salty aromas and flavors. Dark spice, licorice and black plums. Quite meaty and assertive. Very supple tannins. Drink or hold.
Leading off the reds and inky colored, the 2016 Saint Joseph has stunning notes of black olives, iodine, game, and assorted blacker fruits. It's rich, medium to full-bodied, beautifully concentrated, and balanced, with tons of class. Drink it any time over the coming 7-8 years, although it will keep even longer. The young Burgundy-trained Sylvain Gauthier has hit some home runs with his latest 2017 whites and 2016 reds, and this is another up and coming estate readers need to have on their radar. Pulling from just five hectares of vines, quantities are unfortunately limited, but these are well worth the extra effort to track down. Gauthier didn’t start making wine until 2007, so the quality coming from the estate today bodes incredibly well for the future.
Oddly, I preferred the blended Saint Joseph to the 2016 Saint Joseph Sainte Epine this vintage. From vines over 80 years old in St-Jean de Muzols (decomposed granite soils) aged in old barrels, this shows herbal, peppery overtones to its cherry fruit. It's silky and open on the medium to full-bodied palate, closing with just a hint of bitterness and the suggestion of road tar.