Domaine Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage 2023

With two stars in France’s leading wine guide, Revue du Vin de France’s Le Guide des Meilleurs Vins de France, this is the highest-rated Crozes domaine, reaffirming Maxime Graillot’s great work. With vines aged between 40 and 50 years on average, the Graillot terroirs are firing on all cylinders. Organically managed, gnarled and meticulously manicured vines reach up from a sea of smooth, rolled stones like the hands of an old vigneron. They are rooted on the Terrasse des Chassis in Pont-de-l’Isère, where the ‘soil’ was formed by ancient alluvial deposits of sand, gravel and river stones.

The organically farmed grapes were loaded (crushed without destemming) into lined concrete vats for a two- to five-day pre-ferment maceration. After natural fermentation, the wine was aged in used François Frères barriques (between one and seven years old) purchased from some of the finest estates in Burgundy. Since the 2011 vintage, 20-hectolitre Stockinger ovals have also begun to play a quiet yet growing role. This wine is full of intensity and character. It is fresh, vibrant and cool, yet it isn‘t for those who like squeaky clean, modern wines. Rather, there is plenty of what the French often call ‘animal’—meaty, leathery, funky notes—that makes this a fun glass with a charcuterie board or a rich, meaty stew. The powdery close screams out for food and air.